singspiel

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A German musical comedy of the 1700s featuring songs and ensembles interspersed with dialogue.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A semidramatic work or performance in which a series of incidents are related or represented in song.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Music) A dramatic work, partly in dialogue and partly in song, of a kind popular in Germany in the latter part of the 18th century. It was often comic, had modern characters, and patterned its music on folk song with strictly subordinated accompaniment.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun music, uncountable An early German form of opera consisting of spoken dialogue interspersed with song.
• noun music, countable An opera in this style.