Broadway Opera

Broadway means the legitimate theater and musical plays. It does not include the Metropolitan Opera... But "Broadway" has its own opera. Not the pretentious grand opera of the European tradition, associated with the Met, but a sort of American folk opera. The word opera, though, is often avoided on the programs and a variety of ruses are used to disguise the actual nature of the offerings. To such an extent is Broadway afraid of losing its audience if it appears to go "highbrow" or, more accurately, to such an extent has the conception of opera as an import, remote from life, and sung in a foreign tongue alienated a large segment of the American public.

 If opera is to enter the American scene "through the back door of Broadway" as Hammerstein though, he and Rodgers have done a great deal toward getting in through the portals. But they have taken care to be sure nobody would notice that this was actually happening.