Rock opera

A rock opera is a sequence of pieces of rock music that tell a coherent story. Often take fictional characters that appear in this action, singing roles, that is, the texts of the songs are partially monologues or dialogues such figures. An example of a rock opera Tommy is the album by British rock band The Who.

Rock opera and concept album

With a rock opera album length is always also a concept album, as the tracks on the album by a single " concept ", namely the action, are connected together. Thus, the concept album or rock opera by a conventional album, in which the individual pieces are in no substantive connection to each other is different. On the other hand, it must at a concept album, the unifying concept does not necessarily have to be an act, but may represent a different theme. So each rock opera concept album every respect, is a concept album, but not vice versa, a rock opera.

History of the rock opera

The first rock opera, but not yet in album length, the piece A Quick One While He 's Away on the LP A Quick One by The Who may apply. It is a sequence of six pieces, which tells the story of the seduction of a married woman (played by Pete Townshend ) (played by John Entwistle ) by an engineer named Ivor.

As probably the first rock opera album length released in late 1967, the LP Story of Simon Simopath the British group Nirvana (not to be confused with the American grunge band of the same name ). The following year, SF Sorrow also the British group The Pretty Things appear. 1969 is then Tommy by The Who and Arthur ( Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire ) published by the Kinks. Another rock opera is the 1971 premiere of the work of Jesus Christ Superstar. The first German -language rock opera delivered in 1971, the Cologne group Floh de Cologne with Huckster. The - in terms of record sales - successful rock opera is the 1979 released album The Wall of Pink Floyd. As a "punk rock opera " is the American band Green Day American Idiot her album from 2004.

The term rock opera was probably coined by Pete Townshend, who described already A Quick One While He 's Away as the " mini -opera " and later as Tommy "rock opera".

The music project Avantasia Metal Opera used the term for their albums in 2000 in continuation of the term. Later this term was also used by Ayreon and for Days of Rising Doom. Characteristic is in addition to the various Substile the metal genre music covering the distribution of a variety of singers on various assigned within the concept of roles. Furthermore, in addition to the regular cast musical usually a number of guest musicians for instrumental contributions as solos responsible.