Question

did the rich watch musicals when they first came out? who invented musicals?

Answer 1

Musicals came to us from opera which came to us from earlier forms of musical plays.

<u>History of opera:</u>
History of OPERA including Roman revivals and intermezzi...., Dafne, Monteverdi, Dido and Aeneas, Handel, Gluck and the reform of opera, Mozart and opera, ...
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab36

Opera - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Earlier models of opera generally stuck to more distant history, .... Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapter 1; articles on Peri and Monteverdi in The ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera

Brief History of Opera. Lesson Connection: Aida and Its Relevance to the World Today. Copyright The Kennedy Center. All rights reserved. ...
(Broken Link Removed)

Metropolitan Opera History
Profiles of famous Met singers, such as Mathilde Bauermeister, Celestina Boninsegna, Ferruccio Tagliavini, and Lawrence Tibbett.
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/

History of Classical Music - Eras
Musical history during the Medieval Times, Renaissance, Classical Period, Baroque, ... (e.g. Handel's Water Music), or as a spectacle in the form of opera. ...
http://www.naxos.com/education/brief_history.asp

<u>Musicals:</u>
http://www.google.com/search?q=history+of+musicals&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Answer 2

Here is a site that shows the development from opera to operetta to musical.

http://www.essortment.com/all/musicalsartists_rdku.htm