Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Comic: as. opera buffa, aria buffa.
  • noun A female singer of comic music. See buffo and bouffe.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mus.) The comic actress in an opera.
  • noun a droll or comic air.
  • noun a comic opera. See Opera bouffe.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music The comic actress in an opera.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian. See buffo and buffoon.

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Examples

  • Whereas the Furies’ verse maintains a regular rhyme scheme and forms a coherent antiphonal structure of response and chorus, the mocking tone of their words moves their chorus away from the emotiveness of aria into the narrative realm of fiction that in the opera buffa is largely the domain of recitative.

    'An assiduous frequenter of the Italian opera': Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound and the opera buffa 2005

  • Il matrimonio segreto is Cimarosa's most famous opera buffa which is reputed to have won immense admiration from Emperor Leopold II at its first performance in

    AvaxHome ArlegZ 2010

  • The man whose last name was linked with the word "fatigue" at the end of his presidency to describe the country's exhaustion with him -- and with the opera buffa that had been running nonstop since Star magazine's introduction of Gennifer Flowers a year before his presidency began?

    Michael Takiff: Bill Clinton, Still the Biggest Dog in Town Michael Takiff 2010

  • Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo headed the fine cast, with Sophie Bevan, Christine Rice and Ailish Tynan, whose loveliness was cruelly hidden, somewhat unnecessarily and in the one false move, by a buffa fat-suit, goatee beard, specs and fez hat.

    Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela; Benjamin Grosvenor, LSO; Promised End; Radamisto Fiona Maddocks 2010

  • Le nozze di Figaro, and this time Domingo descended to the pit where he honored Mozart's glorious opera buffa with the vibrant, stimulating call to unearthing the musical emotion that the composer must have always wished for.

    Donna Perlmutter: Postino and Figaro: Underclass Heroes Who Usher in L.A. Opera's 25th Season Donna Perlmutter 2010

  • The man whose last name was linked with the word "fatigue" at the end of his presidency to describe the country's exhaustion with him -- and with the opera buffa that had been running nonstop since Star magazine's introduction of Gennifer Flowers a year before his presidency began?

    Michael Takiff: Bill Clinton, Still the Biggest Dog in Town Michael Takiff 2010

  • Comedies opera buffa such as this made opera seria look marmoreal.

    Opera through the ages 2011

  • The final paragraph was cut for space — it's not absolutely necessary, but I liked the comparison: “In opera buffa, it usually ends when all the falsity is discovered,” Ganz goes on, “like the end of ‘Figaro,’ where everything is revealed, and all is happy.”

    Archive 2009-01-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2009

  • Among them are "Song of the Volga Boatmen," which was discovered in 1996, and the opera buffa "Mavra."

    Orchestra Adds Narrator for Show Pia Catton 2012

  • The final paragraph was cut for space — it's not absolutely necessary, but I liked the comparison: “In opera buffa, it usually ends when all the falsity is discovered,” Ganz goes on, “like the end of ‘Figaro,’ where everything is revealed, and all is happy.”

    Universal leader Matthew Guerrieri 2009

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