Ballad - a narrative song, traditional or in a traditional style. By the 19th and early 20th centuries it usually applied to a rather sentimental 'parlour' song like 'Home Sweet Home' or 'drawing-room' ballad like Amy Woodforde-Finden's Kashmiri Song (note the 'Gosford Park' style class distinction!)

Ballad Opera - A light operatic entertainment in England made fashionable by John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) and lasting until about 1760. Made up of short popular songs of the day linked together by dialogue - sometimes rather tenuously.

Bas-dessus - a very old name for a mezzo-soprano (literally 'low above' in French)

Bel canto - 'beautiful singing' in the traditional Italian manner - beautiful tone; perfect phrasing; perfect pronunciation and articulation - every singer's dream...

Bis! - what you'd hope to hear if you sing in France. English speakers say 'Encore!', but the French use the Latin word for 'twice'

Bravura - means courage, bravery or 'guts' in Italian and used to describe passages in the music that call for feats of incredible virtuosity. Good example? - closing section of Joan Sutherland's 1959 performance of the 'mad scene' from Donizetti's 'Lucy of Lammermoor'. (second thoughts - the whole thing!)

Break - where the tone quality of the voice changes between different registers of the voice. Described by some as a 'natural defect' which may (or may not) be able to be smoothed out by technique. - every singer's nightmare...

'Breeches' Role (also 'trouser' or 'pants' role)- where a mezzo or contralto takes the part of a young man. Good examples, Frederica von Stade's 'Cherubino' in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Sena Jurinac as 'Octavian' in Richard Strauss' 'Der Rosenkavalier'

Brindisi - a drinking song or drinking a toast to someone's good health in an opera. Famous ones - from La Traviata by Verdi and Mascagni's Cavallera Rusticana

Buffo - Often used to describe comic roles - like 'basso buffo', 'Don Pasquale'

Burden - another (very old) name for the refrain sung at the end of each verse of a song

Burletta - a light comic opera of the 18th and early 19th century (means 'a little joke' in Italian). Sometimes in English, it was also called a 'burlesque'.