Melodrama
Spoken text accompanied by music.
What it means
A melodrama, in the musical sense, is a form in which a text is spoken rather than sung while an instrument or orchestra plays. The music underscores, comments on and depicts moods, without the speaker following a written pitch line with the voice. In music the term does not mean the sentimental stage play that we call a "melodrama" in everyday speech.
Musical use
As a genre the melodrama arose in the 18th century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion (first performed in 1770) is regarded as an early stimulus; in Germany Georg Benda helped the genre to a breakthrough with Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea (both 1775). Later, spoken words with music were used within operas, for example in the Wolf's Glen scene of Weber's Der Freischütz.
The melodrama should be distinguished from Sprechgesang (speech-song), which Arnold Schoenberg uses in Pierrot lunaire (1912): there the pitch of the spoken note is notated, whereas in the classical melodrama it is not.
Performance practice
When you speak a melodrama, follow the rhythm of the music without coloring the text with singing. As an accompanist, leave the speaker room: the music supports without covering the voice.