THE OPERATIC CRITICISM OF THE TATLER AND SPECTATOR

Abstract

PERATIC ESTHETICS and criticism, natural intellectual phenomena Italy, the native country of opera, appear as controversial subjects all other countries. As Italian opera conquered Europe it engendered opposition at times mounting to heated denunciation. Among the hostile nations, Britain and France were the most vocal-and least understanding; addicted to reason and logic, obviously difficult to apply to music, and boasting a highly developed spoken drama, they could not but refuse recognition to this foreign intruder. While France succeeded producing both a counterpart to Italian opera and a national variant, English opera never ventured beyond one superb episode-Henry Purcell. There are weighty reasons for this attitude, the inception of which is well demonstrated i 8th-century English discussions of opera. The operatic criticism of the Tatler and Spectator is almost as much a problem political thought as it is literature and musicology. Like the literary and dramatic criticism of the papers, it does not present much that is new doctrine, but rather crystallizes a set of judgments current among the great wits of Queen Anne's day. There is, however, a striking difference the case of operatic criticism. Steele and Addison, like many other I8thcentury men of letters, had only a slight feeling for music. Despite Addison's having written the libretto for Rosamond, he admits that he speaks of musical matters as an amateur. Since the Palace of Music has been burnt down, he says Spectator No. i8, anyone, even such a man as himself, is at liberty to offer plans for its rebuilding in a problematical Manner, to be considered by those who are Masters the Art.' But this humility of the unskilled does not inhibit Addison from generous condemnation of the opera. For to the authors of the Spectator papers opera was not, like the drama, a thing to be analyzed and discussed according to a well-known, recognized tradition, but rather a popular institu-