Romantische Oper (literally German romantic opera) was a genre of early nineteenth-century German opera, developed not from the German Singspiel of the eighteenth-century but from the opéras comiques of the French Revolution. It offered opportunities for an increasingly important role for the orchestra, and greater dramatic possibilities for reminiscence motifs - phrases that are identified with a place, person or idea and which, when re-used in a work, remind the listener of the place, person or idea in question.