Rock opera

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A rock opera is a series of pieces of rock music that tell a coherent plot . Often fictional people who appear in this plot take on singing roles , that is, the lyrics of the songs are partly monologues or dialogues of such characters. An example of a rock opera is the album Tommy by the British rock band The Who .

Rock opera and concept album

A rock opera the length of an album is always a concept album (cf. “Sgt. Pepper” ), as the pieces on the album are linked by a uniform “concept”, namely the plot. This distinguishes the concept album or the rock opera from a conventional album, in which the individual pieces are not related to one another in terms of content. On the other hand, with a concept album, the unifying concept does not necessarily have to be a plot, but can represent a different topic. In this respect, every rock opera is a concept album, but not the other way around, every concept album is a rock opera.

History of the rock opera

A Quick One While He's Away on The Who's LP A Quick One can be regarded as the first rock opera, albeit not yet in album length . It is a six-piece series that tells the story of the seduction of a married woman (played by Pete Townshend ) by a train driver named Ivor (played by John Entwistle ).

The LP Story of Simon Simopath by the British group Nirvana (not to be confused with the American grunge band of the same name) was probably released at the end of 1967 as the first album-length rock opera . The following year, SF Sorrow appears in the British group The Pretty Things . In 1969 Tommy was released by The Who and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) by the Kinks . Another rock opera is the work Jesus Christ Superstar , which premiered in 1971 . The first German-language rock opera was delivered in 1971 by the Cologne group Floh de Cologne with Profitgeier . The most successful rock opera - measured in terms of record sales - is the album The Wall , published in 1979 by the group Pink Floyd . The American band Green Day describes their album American Idiot from 2004 as "punk rock opera" .

The term rock opera was probably coined by Pete Townshend, who already referred to A Quick One While He's Away as "mini-opera" and later Tommy as "rock opera".

As a continuation of the term, the Avantasia music project used the term Metal Opera for their albums in 2000 . This term was later used by Ayreon and for Days of Rising Doom . In addition to the music that covers various sub-styles of the metal genre , the distribution of a large number of singers to different roles assigned within the concept is characteristic. Furthermore, besides a regular cast, a number of guest musicians are usually responsible for instrumental contributions such as solos .

literature

  • Tibor Kneif : Object dictionary of rock music. Instruments, styles, techniques, industry, etc. History. Revised edition, 26. – 35. Th. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1978, ISBN 3-499-16223-7 , entry: "Rockoper".
  • Wolfgang Lange: Chimerical: “Magic Spells” - premiere of the rock opera by Lewin / Krüger in Rostock. In: Theater of Time . 38th year 1983, issue 9, p. 41.
  • Klaus Arauner, Claudia Blumenthal, Regina Leonhardt, Wolfgang Seppelt, Katharina Werdier-Ginzel: Chances for rock opera and rock musical? A poll (1). In: Theater of Time. 43rd year 1988, issue 10, p. 27.
  • Hans-Hermann Krug, Gerd Natschinski, Gert Hof, Wolfgang Lange: Opportunities for rock opera and rock musical? A poll (2). In: Theater of Time. 43rd year 1988 (?), Issue 11, p. 19.
  • Klaus-Dieter Anders: Webber, Andrew Lloyd: Music between rock opera, musical and operetta. Notes on musical theater creation. In: Music in School. 45th year 1994, issue 3, pp. 134-136.