music drama

an opera having more or less continuous musical and dramatic activity without arias, recitatives, or ensembles.

Compare number opera.

Origin of music drama

First recorded in 1875–80

Three legends supplied Wagner with the principal characters in this music-drama.

The Complete Opera Book |Gustav Kobb
The same care has been bestowed upon that portion of the book relating to vocal music—to songs, opera, music-drama and oratorio.

How to Appreciate Music |Gustav Kobb
There is a deep and impressive significance in the lesson of the music-drama of "Parsifal."

The Life Radiant |Lilian Whiting
The music-drama is not precisely in a rosy condition to-day.

Franz Liszt |James Huneker

To embody the Wagnerian theories in a music-drama written in Russian, on a Russian subject.

The Russian Opera |Rosa Newmarch

music drama

an opera in which the musical and dramatic elements are of equal importance and strongly interfused

the genre of such operas

C19: translation of German Musikdrama, coined by Wagner to describe his later operas