Opera Vs Musical

      This past week I went to go see the opera "Showboat" with my chorus class at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. I had never seen an opera before, only musicals, so I was interested to see if they were as dry and boring as I'd been led to believe. I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed the show and I did not see how it was any different from a musical besides the fact that they had a giant screen for the superscript with the lyrics (even though they were singing in english, I was very appreciative of that). However, upon further research I found that Show Boat is considered a musical, but then I was confused why an opera house would do a musical. This lead me to try and figure out what truly is the difference between musicals and operas?

      I found an article that was trying to define the line between the two genres of shows. If you'd like to read the full article you can check it out by clicking HERE. Basically, the article talked about how many people have tried to make crossovers and combine both genres, with little success. The author attributes this to the fact that "these genres are too close for comfort. The differences, though slight, are crucial." I guess I can understand that there are many similarities because both use musical numbers to explore an often very dramatic story. I thought it was curious that the author defined the difference as "in opera, music is the driving force; in musical theater, words come first." At first I did not understand this analysis because I thought they meant that the dialogue in musicals was more important than the music, which is not the case. However, as I read more I realized the author meant that they lyrics to the songs are more important in telling the story line in musicals than they are in operas. I thought this was very true since operas are often done in different languages, so the way you understand the story line is by the mood the songs portray. Though the difference is very slight, I do think it makes combining the two genres nearly impossible.
      If you know more specifically the difference between the two I'd love to find out more!

Do you think combining the two genres is impossible? Are there more specific differences between the two genres?