Definition of "comic-opera" [comic-opera]

• Not to be taken seriously: comic-opera politics; a comic-opera style of uniform. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "As soon as I alighted, I found one of the "traffic vigils," whose handsome, white pith helmets lend them a comic-opera charm, making them the most approachable of Italian police, though perhaps not the most effectual."
• "So despite critical grumblings about turning backward into the past, the National Opera could hardly have made a better choice for the holidays than to finally offer Paris Ponnelle's witty, effervescent staging of Gioachino Rossini's sparkling comic-opera Cinderella story."
• "How did the comic-opera pastor of a tiny Southern congregation come to dominate the media for the better part of a week, eclipsing countless expressions of outrage from religious and secular groups around the country?"