Meaning of horse opera | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A theatrical production, film, or program on radio or television depicting adventures of characters in the American Old West; a western.
   idiomatic
2. An equestrian show, as in a circus.
   archaic, idiomatic

Examples

“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; […]”

“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.”

“Nor is it much easier to give⟳ the analysis of this extraordinary odyssey, which relates the trials, sufferings, and adventures of an ex-Sous-Prefêt, who has married a circus rider, and has abandoned home, friends, and position, to become⟳ the manager of an itinerant horse-opera.”

CEFR level