Is Hamilton an Opera?

I watched Hamilton last night and – WOW!  I had enjoyed the music but had never seen the work on stage and it lived up the hype.  It is a GREAT piece of entertainment.  But by the end of it, Hamilton got me to thinking – has it been miscategorized as a musical?  Is it really an opera in disguise?  Here are some elements that got me thinking:
 

1. Hamilton is basically sung-through with little spoken dialogue.   While there are some musicals that have sparse dialogue – Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables come to mind – the vast majority of musicals speak most of the text and only sing in musical numbers during moments of heightened emotion.  Opera is traditionally in song for the entirety of the show.
2. The rap of Hamilton serves as a modern take of opera’s recitative.  Recitative, for the non-opera initiates, was early opera’s way to move the drama along.  Recitative was sung text that had a very limited range and was quick in pace to get a lot of dramatic information passed along to the audience.  While rap is clearly stylistically different, rap and recitative are serving the same essential function of conveying the drama quickly.
3. Hamilton has few traditional “numbers.”  While Hamilton does feature songs you can cut from the action and perform as a song by itself, most of the songs are so integrated with the plot that there it is seemingly difficult to find the beginning or end of a song.  While the integration of plot and music is certainly a part of modern musicals since Oklahoma, the drama is so highly fused to the music that it reminds me of an opera.
4. The drama of Hamilton.  People make fun of opera – in some cases, rightly so – because of the absurd plots.  Operas always seem to involve a ton of grief, people dying, sopranos going crazy…and that’s basically the plot of Hamilton.  Man rises to incredible heights, loses his son and his own life to dueling, his wife nearly goes mad with grief from the loss of her son and her cheating husband…I realize Hamilton is based on real life, but man, it sure sounds like an operatic plot to me!

 
The way I see it, the only reasons for Hamilton to be classified as a musical are two:
 

1. It makes commercial sense – opera has a niche audience.  Musicals still have wider acceptance into popular culture.
   
2. Hamilton uses microphones and its actors do not use a ‘classical’ vocal technique.  Let me preface this with saying that I’m confident most of the singers COULD sing opera if they wanted to.  But clearly the vocal production in Hamilton is very different from an opera.

Just some food for thought on the 4th of July.  Happy Birthday to the good ole USA!