horse opera

Definitions

1. 1

   A theatrical production, film, or program on radio or television depicting adventures of…

   A theatrical production, film, or program on radio or television depicting adventures of characters in the American Old West; a western.

   • Three new examples of Hollywood's staple commodity, the horse opera, all filmed in color, contain the full quota of galloping and gunplay.
   • It's in this horse-opera mode that War For The Planet Of The Apes finds its most rewarding rhythms: in the parallels between Caesar's woodland stronghold and the archetypal frontier settlements of Western fiction; […]
2. 2

   An equestrian show, as in a circus.

   • The Ravels, after having played a successful engagement at the Metropolitan, closed last evening, and sail to-day for New-Orleans, and now we have no amusement but nigger minstrels and the horse opera—i.e., circus.

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