- Formerly, a kind of drama having a musical accompaniment
to intensify the effect of certain scenes. Now, a drama abounding in
romantic sentiment and agonizing situations, with a musical
accompaniment only in parts which are especially thrilling or pathetic.
In opera, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat descriptive
accompaniment, while the actor speaks; as, the melodrama in the
gravedigging scene of Beethoven's "Fidelio".
Definition
[ n.]