ABSTRACT
After the rage for The Beggar's Opera and other ballad operas had passed, eighteenth-century English theaters had turned instead to comic opera. Comic opera had already been challenged by other genres, such as burlesque. A family called the German Reeds worked hard to remove the stigma of theatrical presentations. Arthur Sullivan and Francis Burnand's efforts reflected a more elevated musical comedy that would become acceptable to Victorian audiences, and could well be viewed as the birth of English operetta. Over the last years of the century, George Edwardes presented a variety of works—burlesques, operettas, and a new hybrid, which would be the genesis of British musical comedy—in modern costume, with believable, witty dialogue and catchy, popular tunes. These new productions had various labels, such as musical farce or farcical musical comedy, while some were known as Gaiety shows because of their links to the Gaiety Theatre.
