Formerly, a kind of drama having a musical accompaniment
   to intensify the effect of certain scenes. Now, a drama abounding in
   romantic sentiment and agonizing situations, with a musical
   accompaniment only in parts which are especially thrilling or pathetic.
   In opera, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat descriptive
   accompaniment, while the actor speaks; as, the melodrama in the
   gravedigging scene of Beethoven's "Fidelio".