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 New Opera Theatre with I Cantori di New York, "Dido and Æneas", with Thaïs St Julien as Dido and Susannah Waters as Belinda, with Bart Folse conducting. The production was first seen at New York City's Symphony Space, then in New Orleans. In 1989, The NOT presented the New Orleans premiere of "Pelléas et Mélisande" (with Tracey Mitchell as Mélisande), which was followed by "Bastien und Bastienne", and the world-premiere of Dr LaBruyère's "Everyman", after the mediaeval Morality Play. The New Opera Theatre's final presentation was of a Benefit Concert, in the fall of 1989, featuring Natalia Rom. Folse and Morgan went on