il Troubadore will be touring its production of the Klingon Ballet, wa'SaD ram wa' ram je (One Thousand Nights and a Night) during the 2011-2012 season.

A preview performance of the work will be given at ConGlomeration, Louisville's multi-media sci-fi/fantasy convention during Easter Weekend. Special guest bellydance troupe, Mystic Hips will be dancing this production over the Easter Weekend in Louisville, Kentucky.

The short answer is, "No real difference!" The longer answer is a little more subtle than that.

One of the issues is just a matter of terminology. Opera, in the sense that Terrans use it, is specifically tied to a particular culture and the history surrounding a very specific performance practice tied to an ancient Terran region called Europe. While there have been many Terran operas written in regions outside of Europe, e.g. The ancient nation of the United States of America, it is not the only large scale theatrical musical genre on Earth. Some other large scale theatrical musical genres include, but are not limited to: Western Musical Theater, Qunqu (sometimes referred to as Chinese Opera), Japanese Noh, Persian Ta'zieh, Thai Khon and Likay, Attic Greek Theater, Wagnerian Musical Dramas, and Indian Bollywood.

While many of the aforementioned genres are often referred to as regional variants of Opera or Plays, e.g. Chinese "Opera"; Persian "Opera"; Japanese Noh "Plays", they have little relation to the Terran Western descriptive terms used to identify them. It has been a long tradition on the Federation planet of Earth to use the standards and terminology of the culture of privilege (in this case, Western and European Nations) to refer to the cultural artifacts of the culturally marginalized cultures (usually, so-called Non-Western Nations). That tradition has extended beyond the practice of Earth into the 24th century with regards to the Federation. Klingon "Opera" and Klingon "Ballet" are just two Federation English terms that refer to a genre that can't really be translated efficiently into Federation English, namely ghe'naQ nIt.

In the end, the production known as wa'SaD ram wa' ram je can just as easily be referred to as Klingon Opera!