an opera in which the musical and dramatic elements are of equal importance and strongly interfused
2.
the genre of such operas
Word origin
C19: translation of German Musikdrama, coined by Wagner to describe his later operas
music drama in American English
a form of opera, specif. as developed by Richard Wagner, characterized by a continuous flow of orchestral music, with an integrative use of musical themes (leitmotifs), and singing that is free from formal division into arias, recitatives, etc.