Operetta
The composer Jacques Offenbach can be thought of as the creator of the operetta tradition. It grew out of the opéra comique which had become quite long and serious.  There was a need for shorter, more humorous musical entertainments.  Offenbach was composing operettas in the 1850s in Paris.   In England such works were often called “comic operas” or “opera comedies”.   Then Johann Strauss became very popular in Vienna.  He was already very well known in the ballroom, but when he started to write for the theatre he soon became a rival to Offenbach, whose operettas had become very popular in Vienna.  Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus (“The Bat”) has been performed more than any other operetta.  In Spain the Zarzuela was a kind of operetta.