Comic opera and humour, Offenbach's works were intended solely to amuse. Though generally well crafted and full of humorous satire and grand opera parodies, plots and characters in his works were often interchangeable. Given the frenetic pace at which he worked, Offenbach sometimes used the same material in more than one opera. Another Frenchman who took up this form was Charles Lecocq (1832–1918). The singspiel developed in 18th-century Vienna and spread throughout Austria and Germany. As in the French "opéra comique", the "singspiel" was an opera with spoken dialogue, and usually a comic subject, such as Mozart's "Die Entführung aus dem Serail
The Voyage (opera) The Voyage (opera) The Voyage is an opera in three acts (plus a prologue and an epilogue) by the American composer Philip Glass. The English/Latin/Spanish libretto was written by David Henry Hwang. The work was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, and first performed there on October 12, 1992 (that date being the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas). The British premiere was in Leeds, England, performed by The City Of Leeds Youth Opera, with Johnathon Cliff and Mike Williamson as the directors, with Richard Pascoe playing Columbus. Glass did not want to create a biographical