Both Uses of
opera
in
Moby Dick
- They have left their opera-glasses at home.†
Chpt 34-36 *
- But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.†
Chpt 94-96
Definition:
-
(opera) a musical play with orchestra in which most dialogue is sung -- (typically associated with classical music and often in a language foreign to the audience)
or:
the art form (or describing something as related to it) that consists of musical plays with orchestra in which most dialogue is sung