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
David Wickham Guildhall School of Music and Drama and studied with Norman Beedie, Paul Roberts and later with Graham Johnson and Paul Hamburger. He is currently a lecturer at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He was a member of the music staff of the Australian Opera Studio from 2003 to 2006, where he was music director for productions of "Giulio Cesare", "Don Quichotte", "Carmen", "Così fan tutte", "Rodelinda", "Manon", "Bastien und Bastienne" and "Trouble in Tahiti", as well as "Elijah" and four cabarets. At the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts he has conducted "Candide", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Malcolm Williamson's