1. A musical have more dancing than opera. Opera rarely needs to dance.
2. A musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience, while opera is no words to be speak in the performance of an opera.
3. An opera is drama set to music. In an opera, the moods, emotions and feelings are heightened. It combined vocal music which includes solos, ensembles and chorus and instrumental music which is played by the orchestra with costumes, stage action and scenic effects. However musical is a play or film with spoken words, songs, and often dances.
4. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, while Musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue and on dancing and on the use of various genres of popular music or at least popular singing styles and on the avoidance of certain operatic conventions.
SIMILARITIES:
1. Musical and opera needs a large amount of singing.
2. Always a live musicians performing, solo singers
3. Opera and musical are theatrical performance art
4. Opera and musical also need theatre stage work.
EXAMPLE:
Opera: Minimalism (Philip Glass and John Adams) atonality and serialism (Schoenberg and Berg)
Neoclassicism (Stravinsky)
Musical: The Phantom of the Opera (Andrew Lloyd Webber)
Show Boat (Jerome Kern)
Oklahoma! (Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II)
I like musical more, because musical have more emotional content of the piece and it not just only singing it also combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. I think that musical is more entertaining and Musicals are performed all around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big budget West End and Broadway theatre productions in London and New York City, or in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional productions, on tour, or by amateur groups in schools, theatres and other performance