Italian Opera In London Research Articles

Attilio Ariosti as a Composer of Vocal Duets

AbstractIn the first seasons of the Royal Academy of Music in London, its directors saw George Frideric Handel as one among several composers whose style reflected expectations of what Italian opera in London should be like. At one point, Handel’s slightly older Italian contemporaries Giovanni Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti were in equal positions to compete for success. This paper will focus on Attilio Ariosti as the seemingly most moderate party in the rivalry between the three composers to see if the specificities of the centers he was active in affected his output in the realm of the vocal duet, a less common and somewhat less important constituent of dramatic vocal genres as opposed to the dominant arias. The examination of duets in some of Ariosti’s works written for Berlin, Vienna, and London, and some comparisons with the duets by both Bononcini and Handel will shed a light on these relationships affected by competition and rivalry.

Burkert, Mattie. Speculative Enterprise: Public Theaters and Financial Markets in London: 1688–1763

Burkert, Mattie. <i>Speculative Enterprise: Public Theaters and Financial Markets in London: 1688–1763</i>

Vice Chamberlain Thomas Coke and Italian opera in London: new documents

Vice Chamberlain Thomas Coke and Italian opera in London: new documents

An Earnest Meyerbeer:Le Prophèteat London’s Royal Italian Opera, 1849

AbstractWhen thegrands opérasof Giacomo Meyerbeer were introduced to London audiences as a cluster in the mid-1800s, critics identified moments of understated musical and dramatic expression, and made little mention of more sensational dimensions, such as their impressive staging. With a focus on the 1849 staging ofLe Prophèteat the brand-new Royal Italian Opera in London, this article demonstrates that numerous critics were keen to endorse this new opera house, where most of the composer’s works were mounted, and that, to this end, they zeroed in on the most bare and restrained elements in his works so as to invest them with moral and intellectual relevance for Victorian audiences. ApproachingLe Prophèteas various London critics did is to see it anew and to consider alternatives to recent narratives which have taken material excess as a starting point for understanding the success of Meyerbeer’sgrands opérason the continent.

A Descriptive Catalogue of Early Editions of the Works of Frédéric Chopin in the University of Chicago Library. Second edition, revised and enlarged. George W. PlatzmanThe King's Theatre Collection: Ballet and Italian Opera in London, 1706–1883. Morris S. Levy , John Milton Ward

Previous articleNext article No AccessBOOK REVIEWSA Descriptive Catalogue of Early Editions of the Works of Frédéric Chopin in the University of Chicago Library. Second edition, revised and enlarged. George W. Platzman The King's Theatre Collection: Ballet and Italian Opera in London, 1706–1883. Morris S. Levy , John Milton Ward D. W. KrummelD. W. Krummel Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America Volume 99, Number 4DECEMBER 2005 Published for the Bibliographical Society of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/pbsa.99.4.24296085 Views: 1Total views on this site COPYRIGHT © 2005 THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICAPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Opera and the Great Reform Act: Silver Fork Fiction, 1822-1842

In the years leading up to and away from the Reform Act of 1832, opera and politics came into alignment for writers of silver fork fiction, particularly Catherine Gore and Lady Charlotte Bury. The King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, the home of Italian opera in London, provided them with a politically charged public space for women, one of the few available, in which they could examine the consequences of political reform on women’s lives, particularly the conflicts faced by aristocratic women before the irresistible force of middleclass social mores. Through the King’s Theatre with its stairs, corridors, boxes, and class-differentiated spaces, the silver fork novelists track the consequences of Whig politics. Employing Italian opera as a national trope both for its aristocratic associations and its symbolic plots, Gore and Bury mount a probing assessment of contemporary political change through a fusion of fashion and politics.

Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth Century London. Volume I: The King's Theatre, Haymarket, 1778-1791 (review)

Reviewed by: Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth Century London. Volume I: The King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 1778–1791 Byron Nelson Italian Opera In Late Eighteenth Century London. Volume I: The King’S Theatre, Haymarket, 1778–1791. Curtis Price, Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995; pp. xxv + 698. $85.00 cloth. Although the title announces a narrow topic, this study of the production of Italian opera in the space of a dozen years at one theatre in late eighteenth-century London proves richly rewarding. The product of immense scholarly labor, the book provides a meticulous reconstruction of the financial, legal and artistic milieu in which the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, presented opera and ballet from June 1778, when the playwright Richard B. Sheridan acquired the company, through the fire which gutted the theatre in June 1789. The trio of authors present “a full-dress account” (viii) of the company’s fortunes simply because (as they state with needless modesty) the King’s Theatre “housed an ambitious and interesting company in the 1780s” (vii). Although the figures at the center of their study are scarcely towering presences now—such as Giovanni Andrea Gallini, William Taylor and Gasparo Paccheriotti—numerous great figures do appear, if only fleetingly in these pages—Luigi Cherubini, Haydn, the “London” Bach and Sir John Soane among them. Had Mozart accepted the company’s invitation to come to London in 1791, he might have been spared his early death and enjoyed a long career like Handel’s. This was a transitional period, between the death of Handel and the rise of Romantic opera; none of the operas presented by the company remains in the repertory, and even the idea of a canon of operas had not yet come into existence. In this era, the repertory was determined by the singers, among whom the leading castrati, such as Paccherotti, Rubinelli and Marchesi, drew the crowds. We are told that the audiences came to hear the “primo uomo,” who then was a castrato, not a tenor, and that they enjoyed hearing a variety of singers and watching a generous share of dances, which followed each act of the operas. Far from presenting the latest Italian operatic hits in reasonable facimiles of their European originals, the King’s Theatre favored “pasticcios,” in which the scores were cobbled together from many different composers and operas. The notion of the pre-eminence of the composer and the autonomy of the operatic score lay in the future, and the concept of a Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk would have baffled the King’s team. In the 1780s, the operas usually had to be new; Gallini justified his 1783 revival of Handel’s Giulio Cesare by pronouncing it “ancient music but tolerably good” (373). The King’s Theatre in Sheridan’s first season boasted the services of both the estimable Antonio Sacchini and Johann Christian Bach, whose La clemenza di Scipione is properly hailed by the authors as “the high-water mark of Italian opera in London” in the period of this study (195). But even the best operas often left little impression on the fickle audiences. Cherubini’s impressive Giulio Sabio was yanked after a single performance, and Haydn’s long-awaited L’anima del philosofo was never completed or staged, for reasons the authors ponder at some length. One area which could have been further explored is the composition of the King’s audience: who attended, and how much did they pay? One of the book’s most valuable features is its examination of the season-by-season repertory. The reader will find generous discussions of the plots, singers, and performance history and several valuable (but frustratingly brief) musical illustrations. There are intriguing discussions of forgotten operas which seem worthy of rediscovery, such as Sacchini’s Enea e Lavinia, which might be paired profitably with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. But often only the “favorite airs” of these operas survive, with the manuscripts having been casually plundered to serve other pasticcios. While theatre buffs will enjoy the season-by-season glimpses at the repertory, they will find the chronicle of the daily squabbles among the managers, singers, creditors, and lawyers all too drearily...

Opera in London: views of the press, 1785-1830

Theodore Fenner s Opera in London offers a vivid portrait of operatic cultural life of a London under influence of Romanticism as perceived by English press public who viewed performances.In part 1, Fenner discusses rise of periodical press in early nineteenth-century London critics of these publications who reviewed opera performances, such as Leigh Hunt William Hazlitt. Fenner lists in appendixes for part 1 leading periodicalsincluding Althenaeum, Examiner, and Spectator, the critics, reviews by leading critics.Fenner, in part 2, examines productions of Italian opera in London at King s Theatre, including problems in theatre management financing; varied nature of audience; operas performances those that were popular those that failed in words of critics responses of audience; singers; themes attitudes of period as expressed by critics. In part 3, Fenner explores same topics for English operas presented at Drury Lane, Covent Garden, other playhouses.Parts 2 3 also contain extensive appendixes listing seasonal annual performances reviews, productions by composers by librettists, comic serious productions, operas by known playwrights, minor singers. Forty-eight illustrations of singers, critics, performances, composers, theatres add to richness of this study.

Curtis Price, Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, The impresario's Ten Commandments: Continental recruitment for Italian opera in London, 1763-64

Curtis Price, Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, The impresario's Ten Commandments: Continental recruitment for Italian opera in London, 1763–64 Get access The impresario's Ten Commandments: Continental recruitment for Italian opera in London, 1763-64 Curtis Price, Judith Milhous and Robert D Hume Royal Musical Association, London, 1992 (Royal Musical Association Monographs, vi), £13.95 Simon McVeigh Simon McVeigh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XXI, Issue 1, February 1993, Pages 117–118, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/XXI.1.117 Published: 01 February 1993

Italian opera in London, 1750–1775: management and finances

Italian opera in London, 1750–1775: management and finances

Italian Opera and Arson in Late Eighteenth-Century London

After the burning of the Haymarket theater in 1789, the Italian opera in London was in chaos. Yet several critics called this a golden age for opera seria, and London continued to attract the greatest singers and dancers. A recently discovered archive-which includes the complete financial and managerial records of two London opera houses-adds considerably to our understanding of this period and provides new information about Haydn, Burney, Sheridan, Turner, the Storaces, and Mozart. The documents also show that the Prince of Wales, the Marquis of Salisbury, and the Duke of Bedford patronized and secretly financed a court opera house at the Pantheon during 1790-92, with Paisiello as house composer in absentia. But faced with crushing competition from Haydn at the new Haymarket theater, Bedford and Salisbury conspired to have the Pantheon burned down, an act which affected the management of Italian opera in London for decades to come.

FROM LOSSES TO LAWSUIT: PATRONAGE OF THE ITALIAN OPERA IN LONDON BY LORD MIDDLESEX, 1739–45

CHARLES SACKVILLE, Earl of Middlesex and later 2nd Duke of Dorset, was the principal director of the Italian opera in London during the 1740s. Arriving on the scene just as Handel left it once and for all, he has attracted limited attention from Handel scholars;' too little is known of the complex world of Italian opera patronage that Handel rejected so summarily after the 1741-2 season. Outside Handel studies, operatic patronage and finance during this period are virtually unexplored. Middlesex (1711-69) was the eldest son of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset. After completing his education at Westminster and Oxford he visited the Continent twice, between 1731 and 1733 for his Grand Tour and again in 1737 and 1738.2 Enthusiastic and outgoing, he undertook the direction of the Italian opera for the social and cultural prestige it promised. He fancied himself a poet, and the considerable interest he had shown in operatic affairs while on his Grand Tour gave him some credentials as an impresario. On his more recent visit his enthusiasm had extended to trying his hand as a producer when he mounted 'une masque superbe' and apparently other entertainments for the pleasure and diversion of his friends.3 But the opera in London declined in status under his direction. Attitudes were changing towards the Italian opera in the mid eighteenth century: the fashionable rage for the genre that had prevailed in the 1720s and early 1730s had abated, and Middlesex was also hampered by his own shortcomings. Two recently discovered sets of documents show Middlesex's efforts to promote and sustain the Italian opera in London between 1739 and 1744, offering new information about its financial administration and clues to the nature of operatic patronage in general in the first half of the eighteenth century. Records survive at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Drummond's Branch, of the subscription accounts

Owen Swiney and the Italian Opera in London

Owen Swiney and the Italian Opera in London

Italian Opera in London

The regular performance of Italian opera, sung in Italian, has been carried on in London almost without interruption for about two centuries. We may date its beginning from 1705, when Vanbrugh's new theatre in the Haymarket was opened with Gli Amori d’Ergasto by Jacob Greber, and we may conveniently take 1891 as the date of its official end, since in 1892 Augustus Harris ceased to call his enterprise “Royal Italian Opera” and announced it simply as “Royal Opera.” As far as I know no history of this Italian opera organisation has ever been written, although there is plenty of information about it available in various separate books, as well as documentary sources of all kinds such as contemporary newspapers, librettos, programmes and so forth.

Mlle. Sallé, or Sellé, dancer at the Italian opera in London

Mlle. Sallé, or Sellé, dancer at the Italian opera in London Get access Notes and Queries, Volume s2-VIII, Issue 200, 29 October 1859, Page 353, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s2-VIII.200.353c Published: 29 October 1859