First "book" musical

What we would recognize today as musical theatre – i.e., works that combine the elements of "book" (dialogue and structure), lyrics and music to tell a story – developed from operettas and musical comedies between the 1860s and 1920s. It is difficult to pinpoint the first production that embodies all the features of the modern musical, but the strongest and most lastingly influential candidate is Show Boat, by Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics), which opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, USA, on 27 December 1927.

Today a musical can incorporate a whole different range of styles: it can be purely original in its source or be derived from a book or movie, it can be inspired by the catalogue of a famous artist or band within an original story or follow a more biographical format (famously known as a jukebox musical). Additionally, a show can feature a more classical combination of book, music and lyrics or be sung through (as in Les Misérables, for example).

One can go back to Shakespearean theatre and ancient Greece to see how musical interludes and songs played a vital part in storytelling. However, the predecessors of the first book musical are often seen as operetta, examples being the works of Jacques Offenbach (Orpheus in the Underworld, 1858) and Gilbert and Sullivan (HMS Pinafore, 1878), plus ballad operas that mixed dialogue and music such as John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728).

There was also the influence of Edwardian musical comedies in 1890s Britain, the musical shows created by George M Cohan and others in the early 20th century and the “Princess Theatre musicals” in the 1910s (the likes of Jerome Kern and PG Wodehouse begin to integrate songs into a story).

The Black Crook (1866) in New York is quoted as the first Broadway musical, but it feels like while it was close to the formula it was more like a play with songs penned by a range of writers. More like, as Broadway World puts it, an early prototype.

The difference with Show Boat (1927) by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II was its full integration of book, music and lyrics to drive a story from one scene to the next, based on Edna Ferber’s best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. It’s here that musical theatre became an artform in its own right, as the "book" musical.