SITCOM Presented by Liszt Academy

Sitcom – ‘situation comedy’ – is generally applied to a series where the figures (colleagues, friends, family) spend their time in a common space (workplace, home, café) and get tangled Sitcom – ‘situation comedy’ – is generally applied to a series where the figures (colleagues, friends, family) spend their time in a common space (workplace, home, café) and get tangled up in a variety of largely comic situations. They are typically recorded in front of a live audience in order to leverage their reactions (laughter, applause, etc.). In the 18th and 19th centuries vaudeville was the musical stage equivalent; from the 20th century first radio and then television took over the genre, working with identical characters and situations changing from episode to episode but always concluding with a ‘happy ending’. The half-term opera exam at the Liszt Academy weaves three operas by Rossini – La Scala di Seta (The Silk Ladder), L’Italiana in Algeri (An Italian Woman in Algiers) and Il Viaggio a Reims (The Journey to Reims) – into a single-series episode where misunderstandings in love lead to the great reconciliation, just so that the strands can once be tangled up in time for the next part.