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A travesty, also known as a Burlesque prior to Burlesque Theatre becoming associated with striptease, is when a piece is re-arranged into a style very different from that for which it was originally known. This usually takes the form of a serious work (e.g. opera) being presented in a more populist style such as ragtime.

Travesty originated in the 1840s, early in the Victorian Era, when the social rules of established aristocracy and working-class society clashed. The genre often mocked such established entertainment forms as opera, Shakespearean drama, musicals, and ballet. By the 1880s, the genre had created some rules for defining itself:

• Minimal costuming, often focusing on the female form.
• Sexually suggestive dialogue, dance, plotlines and staging.
• Quick-witted humor laced with puns, but lacking complexity.
• Short routines or sketches with minimal plot cohesion across a show.

In the 19th century, composer Meyer Lutz produced a number of operatic travesties. In these the scores were rearranged to so that operatic arias would be turned into, for example, a barn dance.

Well known ragtime travesties include The Russian Rag, by George L. Cobb, which is based on Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor, and Felix Arndt's Lucy's Sextette based on a sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti.

In more recent times, the score for the film The Cool Mikado is a travesty on the original Gilbert and Sullivan music.

The term travesty dates from the 17th century and combines the Latin words trans-, meaning "across, over" and vestere, "to dress or to wear". These two Latin words also form the etymology of the 20th-century term transvestism. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word travesty originally meant "to disguise by changing costume", then "to dress ridiculously", but soon came to mean "a parody or burlesque", as in the theatrical productions discussed here, and finally added to that its modern meaning of "disgraceful imitation".

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