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acquired characteristics

(Encyclopedia)acquired characteristics, modifications produced in an individual plant or animal as a result of mutilation, disease, use and disuse, or any distinctly environmental influence. Some examples are docki...

Opéra

(Encyclopedia)Opéra ôpāräˈ [key] (Académie de musique), former chief opera house of Paris, on the Place de l'Opéra, one of the main crossroads on the right bank of the Seine. Designed by J. L. C. Garnier and...

opera

(Encyclopedia)opera, drama set to music. In the early part of the 20th cent. the foremost operatic composer was Richard Strauss. Although influenced by Wagner, he composed operas with even richer and more stunnin...

ballad opera

(Encyclopedia)ballad opera, in English drama, a play of comic, satiric, or pastoral intent, interspersed with songs, most of them sung to popular airs. First and best was The Beggar's Opera (1728) by John Gay. The ...

Royal Opera

(Encyclopedia)Royal Opera, one of the principal British opera companies, based at the Royal Opera House (which it shares with the Royal Ballet) in Covent Garden, London. Formed in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Co...

Metropolitan Opera Company

(Encyclopedia)Metropolitan Opera Company, term used in referring collectively to the organizations that have produced opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City. The original house, at West 39th Street an...

Houston Grand Opera

(Encyclopedia)Houston Grand Opera, opera company in Houston, Tex., founded 1955 by the German-American impresario and conductor Walter Herbert, who was general director and conductor until 1972. The company perform...

San Francisco Opera

(Encyclopedia)San Francisco Opera, opera company, founded 1923 by Italian-American conductor Gaetano Merola, who oversaw its early years as a touring company. In 1932 it established a permanent home at the War Memo...

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