Darrell Fancourt performed in opera productions at the Academy, creating the role of Tackleton, the toy merchant, in Alexander Mackenzie's opera "The Cricket on the Hearth", and playing Colas in Mozart's "Bastien und Bastienne", and Benoit in "La bohème". "The Times" thought him "amusing but not noticeably musical" in the last. Even before completing his studies, Fancourt was building a concert career in London, the British provinces and the European continent. "The Times" said of an Aeolian Hall recital in 1912, "Mr. Fancourt has some noble notes in his voice, except when he forces it occasionally ... Schubert's "Tod und das Mädchen"
Comic opera often styled rock operas. Comic opera Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, "opera buffa", emerged as an alternative to "opera seria". It quickly made its way to France, where it became "opéra bouffon", and eventually, in the following century, French "operetta", with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner. The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic