Rachel Bloom

Musical theater is an American genre. It started really, in America, as a combination of jazz and operetta; most of the great musical theater writers in the golden era are American. I think that to do a musical is a very American thing to me.

American Actress

J. K. Simmons

I was studying music in college. I was singing, I was doing operas and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and then I was offered a job as the music director of the Bigfork Summer Playhouse, in Bigfork, Montana.

American Actor

Leigh Bardugo

I was a huge theater nerd when I was younger, so I was in a bunch of school musicals - Working,' South Pacific,' Fiddler on the Roof,' a very weird little operetta called Charlotte Sweet,' Nine,' The Wiz.

Israeli Author

Heather Mac Donald

European operetta and German singspiel provided the American musical its combination of spoken dialogue and song; the inclusion of dance traced a lineage to French baroque opera. But what a difference!

American Editor

Colm Wilkinson

My mom was sort of involved in amateur dramatics like Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, and played the violin. My dad played banjo and piano and sang as well, so there was all this music in my childhood.

Irish Musician

Alan Menken

Snow White' was really hip for its time. Walt Disney was basically using Sigmund Romberg and operetta in the telling of the story, and through animation - that was revolutionary.

American Musician

George C. Wolfe

A lot of '20s musicals were a hodgepodge of melodrama, mixed with operetta and romance, and then some sense of modernism and some sense of irreverence.

American Playwright

Gustav Mahler

An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.

Austrian Composer

Operettas are a fun, non-serious form of theater, suitable for enjoyable outings.

Light Entertainment

Don't confuse operettas with operas; operettas are shorter and usually less complex.

Not an Opera

Operettas have historic roots, linked to 19th-century Europe, adding a cultural aspect.