{{Short description|Brief comic opera}} In theater and music history, a '''burletta''' (Italian, meaning "little joke", sometimes '''burla''' or '''burlettina''') is a brief comic opera. In eighteenth-century Italy, a burletta was the comic intermezzo between the acts of an ''opera seria''. The extended work Pergolesi's {{Lang|it|La serva padrona}} was also designated a "burletta" at its London premiere in 1758.<ref>A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800: Tibbett to M. West, Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, Edward A. Langhans, SIU Press, 1973, p51</ref>
In England, the term began to be used, in contrast to burlesque, for works that satirized opera but did not employ musical parody. Burlettas in English began to appear in the 1760s, the earliest identified as such being ''Midas'' by Kane O'Hara, first performed privately in 1760 near Belfast, and produced at Covent Garden in 1764. The form became debased when the term ''burletta'' began to be used for English comic or ballad operas, as a way of evading the monopoly on "legitimate drama"<ref>Meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music ({{cite web|url=http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1229543 |title=Definition from the Everything 2 website |publisher=Everything2.com |date=6 January 2002 |access-date=20 March 2010}})</ref> in London belonging to Covent Garden and Drury Lane. After the passage of the Theatres Act 1843, which repealed crucial regulations of the Licensing Act 1737, use of the term declined.
== List of theatrical Burlettas == * ''Midas'' by Kane O'Hara (Belfast, 1760, Dublin, 1762) * ''Orpheus'' by François-Hippolyte Barthélémon (London, 1767) * ''The Judgement of Paris'' by Barthélémon (London, 1768) * ''The Recruiting Serjeant'' by Charles Dibdin (London, 1770) * ''The Portrait'' by Samuel Arnold (1770) * ''The Portrait'' by Barthélémon (Dublin, c. 1771) * ''L'infedeltà delusa'' by Joseph Haydn (1773) * ''The Golden Pippin'' by John Abraham Fisher (1773) * ''Buxom Joan'' by Raynor Taylor (1778) * ''Poor Vulcan'' by Dibdin (1778) * ''Marie Tanner'', words by Broughton Black and Poland Henry, music by John Ivimey (produced at Cardiff, 1897)<ref>Charles H. Parsons, ''Opera Composers and Their Works: E-K'' (1986), p. 886</ref> * ''Tom and Jerry, or Life in London'' by W. T. Moncrieff (1821)<ref>{{cite book | editor-last= Parker | editor-first= John | year=1925 | title= Who's Who in the Theatre | location=London |edition=fifth| publisher=Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons | page=1196| oclc=10013159}}</ref>
== Other Meanings == The word ''burletta'' has also been used for scherzo-like instrumental music by composers including Max Reger and Bartók. In America, the word has sometimes been used as an alternative for burlesque.
== References == ;Notes {{reflist}} ;Sources * {{cite book| author = John Hamilton Warrack| author2 = Ewan West| title = The Oxford Dictionary of Opera| date = 1992-10-15| publisher = Oxford University Press, USA| isbn = 978-0-19-869164-8| url-access = registration| url = https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary00warr}} * {{Cite Grove |last=Temperley |first=Nicholas |title=Burletta}}
{{Opera genres}}
Category:Opera genres Category:Italian opera terminology Category:Comedy genres Category:19th-century theatre