THE TEXT OF STANLEY'S ‘TERAMINTA’

Abstract

ALTHOUGH the controversy surrounding the authorship of London, Royal College of Music, MS 1020, would seem to have been settled in favour of John Stanley,' there is still much confusion as regards the text of Teraminta. RCM 1020 is recognizably a setting of a libretto by the poet, dramatist and composer Henry Carey (1687-1743), first printed in 1732 and republished in revised form in The Dramatick Works of Henry Carey (London, 1743). Scholars have long assumed the music to be a setting of the latter edition.2 If, however, one traces the history of Carey's libretto and compares all three versions, one is led to question this assumption, thereby shedding further light on this interesting and enigmatic manuscript. In 1732 Carey emerged as a leading figure of a small group of musicians whose aim it was to revive and establish serious opera in English. To this end he provided two librettos 'after the Italian manner', Amelia and Teraminta, the first with music by John Frederick Lampe, the second with music by John Christopher Smith the younger.3 Carey was a very capable composer for the voice (he published a fine set of cantatas in 1732, the only English cantatas to be published between 1720 and 17354) and had ambitions as an operatic composer,5 but his role in the English Opera Company was confined to that of librettist. While there is no obvious model for Carey's libretto of Teraminta, the plot draws on a well-used formula that originates in traditional folklore. The story of a child of noble origin who is either cast adrift at sea or left in a wilderness, desert or some alien terrain but is rescued, brought up by humble foster parents and eventually recognized by clothing, jewels or some personal mark and returned to noble estate is widespread from early times. Where the child is female, a further character usually appears in the person of a lover-prince disguised as a country swain, who has retired to find peace and solitude from the court and falls in love with the shepherdess-princess. The opposition of his royal parent to an apparently imprudent match is also a common feature, but following the dramatic discovery of her noble birth everything ends happily. The most notable drama based on this