Singspiel (German for “sing-play”) was a German-language alternative to Italian opera, accessible to a broad public. Instead of continuous singing, simple, often folk-like songs (Lied) alternate with spoken scenes, and the plots tend toward fairy tale, enchantment, or rural comedy.
The genre's summit is The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1791), where the folk simplicity of the Singspiel merges with Masonic symbolism and music of genius. From the Singspiel, with its spoken dialogue, grew German Romantic opera (Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz), and the tradition of alternating dialogue with musical numbers lives on to this day — from operetta to the musical.
