Abstract
In the autumn of 1748 the opera audience in London was introduced to a newly arrived troupe of Italian singers, an eccentric impresario and an operatic genre previously unknown in England. The buffo company, led by ‘Doctor’ Giovanni Francesco Crosa, would entertain the King's Theatre public for the first time with full-length Italian comic operas. In May 1750, after two tumultuous seasons which saw the gradual dissolution of the troupe and financial disaster for the management, Crosa fled the country, never to return. The King's Theatre closed its doors, to reopen only in the autumn of 1753 with a programme devoted exclusively to serious opera. It was not until 1766, when Piccini's La buona figliuola conquered the London opera stage, that Italian comic opera found real success at the King's.
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