The Merry Zingara

The Merry Zingara; Or, The Tipsy Gipsy & The Pipsy Wipsy was the third of W. S. Gilbert's five burlesques of opera. Described by the author as "A Whimsical Parody on The Bohemian Girl", by Michael Balfe, it was produced at the Royalty Theatre, London, on 21 March 1868.

As in his four other operatic parodies written early in his career, Gilbert selected operatic and popular tunes from a variety of sources, and fitted new words to them. Although he used only one tune from Balfe's original, The Merry Zingara is the burlesque in which Gilbert's libretto stays closest to the original work. The cast of characters is nearly the same, as is the plot. In his lyrics, too, Gilbert paid great attention to the speech-patterns of his originals.

Although, as contemporary critics repeatedly remarked, the libretti of Gilbert's burlesques were more literate and intelligent than those of most of the genre, he nonetheless followed the conventional formula of rhyming couplets and tortuous puns, together with plenty of young actresses in tights or short dresses, which were the mainstays of Victorian burlesque.

The Merry Zingara was the third of a series of five operatic burlesques written early in Gilbert's career, between 1866 and 1869. The first was Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack, a musical spoof of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore (1866). Next was La Vivandière; or, True to the Corps!, a parody of Donizetti's La fille du régiment (1867). After The Merry Zingara came Robert the Devil (1868), parodying Meyerbeer's romantic opera Robert le diable, and The Pretty Druidess; or, the Mother, the Maid, and the Mistletoe Bough (1869), a burlesque of Bellini's Norma.

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