How to Use operetta in a Sentence

operetta

noun
  • His singing in choir grew into performing operettas and in plays.
    — Hannah Kirby, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 28 June 2018
  • The operetta has happily been rescheduled for two of its original three venues.
    — Christopher Arnott, courant.com, 17 Feb. 2022
  • But mostly when aiming for drollery, the songwriters overshoot and wind up at operetta.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2023
  • When operetta first came to New York that had a huge influence on music theater.
    — Michael Cooper, New York Times, 7 Mar. 2018
  • Lloyd Webber’s musicals are all operetta in that simple sense.
    — Steven Strogatz, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2017
  • The evening’s second half called on operetta, Broadway, and popular song.
    — Zoë Madonna, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Apr. 2018
  • But this being an outlandish operetta, the romance is riddled with obstacles.
    — Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 26 Jan. 2018
  • Its antecedents in the operetta and music hall traditions had largely passed out of pop consciousness.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 10 May 2018
  • There are waltzes, fox-trots, and tangos, operetta chorales and patriotic marches, even a cowboy ballad.
    — Albert Williams, Chicago Reader, 28 June 2017
  • The operetta’s success rests equally on its witty dialogue and its brilliant music.
    — Michelle F. Solomon, Sun Sentinel, 21 Jan. 2026
  • Sondheim's operetta-style score, set mostly in waltz time, is bubbly and melodic, but also intricate and complex.
    — Albert Williams, Chicago Reader, 30 May 2018
  • On top of traveling with his eight siblings for operetta roadshows, Moody performed in high school theater shows and played the piano.
    — Sofia Krusmark, The Arizona Republic, 20 Dec. 2021
  • But unlike a Broadway musical or operetta, the drama is resolved in music.
    — Los Angeles Times, 1 Mar. 2022
  • Setting their operetta in a nonsensical version of Japan gave them more artistic freedom — and a way to fool the censors of the time.
    — Matthew J. Palm, orlandosentinel.com, 8 Aug. 2019
  • Shay is occasionally amused by these pathetic late-life dalliances, one of which reads like the plot of an Italian operetta.
    — Heller McAlpin, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 Mar. 2021
  • Lehar’s operetta premiered in 1905 and it is frequently revived and recorded.
    — Christina Mayo, miamiherald, 14 June 2017
  • The operetta is a comic adventure filled with partying, pranking, mistaken identities and a spell in prison.
    — Christopher Arnott, courant.com, 23 Dec. 2021
  • This comedic operetta tells the story of an upstanding young man who has been accidentally apprenticed to a band of tender-hearted pirates.
    — oregonlive, 16 Aug. 2023
  • The Gilbert and Sullivan operetta tells the story of a ship captain’s daughter who falls in love with a lowborn sailor, against her father’s wishes.
    — Jillian S. Jarrett, Washington Post, 17 May 2017
  • Both the introduction and the finale are both written in 4/4 as well, a quiet yet omnipresent assertion of the queen’s dominance in the operetta.
    — Amy Lorette Damron Kyle, Quartz, 20 Dec. 2019
  • The concert includes a mix of Broadway show tunes, operetta and opera performed by young singers from across the country who are participating in the summer opera festival.
    — Linda McIntosh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 July 2019
  • But even running a mere 45 minutes, which includes songs from Coward's operetta, the fragmented work is for the most part tedious and uninvolving.
    — Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter, 31 Jan. 2018
  • Occasionally, when there are several songs from the same operetta, we’re treated to some of Gilbert’s delightful dialogue to transition from one song to the next.
    — Sam Hurwitt, The Mercury News, 29 Apr. 2017
  • The lineup includes comic-operetta fare by Gilbert and Sullivan, a Christmas concert and Tchaikovsky classics.
    — Bob Kostanczuk, Post-Tribune, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Of course, being a Viennese operetta, The Csárdás Princess reaches a happy ending, with a lot of lively music and dancing along the way.
    — Albert Williams, Chicago Reader, 13 July 2018
  • The season-closing recital with the San Diego Symphony will feature a two-act program of opera and operetta arias and duets, musical theater classics and overtures.
    — Pam Kragen, sandiegouniontribune.com, 29 Apr. 2018
  • The music not only fuses hip-hop and musical theater influences, but also nods to the genres and styles that have informed them, from operetta to girl-group R&B to orchestral rock.
    — Alex Kane, USA TODAY, 19 May 2020
  • What remains at least semi-constant is the music, an alternately gliding and lurching melange of early 1980s soft-rock pop, and Lloyd Webber-ian operetta.
    — Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • The witty script glitters with the couple’s duelling voice-over accounts of the way things happened; the effervescent score, by André Previn, seems to set their voices to lilting music as if in a virtual operetta.
    — The New Yorker, 2 Apr. 2020
  • The Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operetta centers around Frederic, a 21-year old man who has been indentured to pirates until his 21st birthday.
    — Sue Ellen Ross, Post-Tribune, 1 May 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'operetta.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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