喜歌剧（Opera buffa）指前古典主义时期在意大利首先出现的一种新型的歌剧形式。通常包括的角色不多，常对喜剧性的人物进行讽刺，脚本多采用现实题材，通常用方言写成。咏叹调的旋律比较简单而动听，并使用宣叙调代替对白。意大利的喜歌剧（Opera buffa）最早作为正歌剧的幕间剧出现，19世纪前半叶趋于衰落。法国喜歌剧（Opera comique）成型于18世纪初，早期具有喜剧性内容，以说白与歌唱并用为特征。19世纪末，与法国大歌剧已无显着区别。

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.

Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria. It quickly made its way to France, where it became opéra bouffon, and eventually, in the following century, French operetta, with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner.