Sung-through
A sung-through or through-sung stage musical, musical film, opera, or other work of performance art is one in which songs entirely or almost entirely replace any spoken dialogue. Conversations, speeches, and musings are communicated musically, for example through a combination of recitative, aria, and arioso. Early versions of this include the Italian genre of opera buffa, a light-hearted form of opera that gained prominence in the 1750s.
A through-sung opera or other form of narrative work with continuous music may also be described as through-composed.
List of fully sung-through musicals
- Art Thief Musical!
- Bare: A Pop Opera
- Bumblescratch
- Cats
- Come From Away
- Une chambre en ville
- Cricket
- Les Dix Commandements
- Epic: The Musical
- Evening-1910
- Evita
- Falsettos
- Hamilton: An American Musical
- The Human Comedy
- Jesus Christ Superstar
- Johanna
- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- Katy! the Musical
- Keating!
- King David
- Marry Me a Little
- Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem
- Les Misérables
- Miss Saigon
- Murder Ballad
- Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
- Notre-Dame de Paris
- Ordinary Days
- Quadrophenia
- Repo! The Genetic Opera
- Song and Dance
- Songs for a New World
- Starlight Express
- Starmania
- Tell Me on a Sunday
- The Ten Commandments: The Musical
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
List of sung-through musicals with occasional spoken lines
- Ain't Misbehavin'
- American Idiot
- Annette
- Aspects of Love
- Caroline or Change
- Dance of the Vampires
- Elisabeth
- The Golden Apple
- Hadestown
- In Trousers
- Jekyll & Hyde
- Jerry Springer: The Opera
- John & Jen
- The Last 5 Years
- Love Never Dies
- Martin Guerre
- The Most Happy Fella
- A New Brain
- Next to Normal
- Once on This Island
- Passing Strange
- The Phantom of the Opera
- Pink Floyd—The Wall
- The Pirate Queen
- Ragtime
- Razia's Shadow
- Rent
- Seussical
- Side Show
- Soon
- The Stingiest Man in Town
- Suffs
- Sunset Boulevard (musical)
- Superhero
- The Who's Tommy
- The Woman in White
List of sung-through musicals depending on the production
- Chess
- Originally starting off as a concept album, the musical has a reputation for being re-written during every new production that is staged around the world. Some productions are completely sung-through, some have scattered lines, and some (notably the original Broadway production) are staged as book musicals.
- Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris