King's Theatre Research Articles

London Voices, 1820-1840: Vocal Performers, Practices, Histories, edited by Roger Parker and Susan Rutherford

Reviewed by: London Voices, 1820–1840: Vocal Performers, Practices, Histories ed. by Roger Parker and Susan Rutherford William Weber (bio) London Voices, 1820–1840: Vocal Performers, Practices, Histories, edited by Roger Parker, and Susan Rutherford; pp. 293. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021, $65.00, $64.99 ebook. Roger Parker and Susan Rutherford designed this volume to lay out "the multitudinous voices that were heard in countless contexts and venues" in the city of London during "two tumultuous, disorientating decades in the first half of the nineteenth century." They state that these were years where "the city's population expansion was at a height, and when, as a result, different classes were placed in dangerous but—at least to later eyes—culturally fruitful proximity" (2). The thirteen chapters variously trace how movements developed around ballad singers, opera stars, vocal improvisers, French actors, choruses of sacred music, and invented voice boxes, and how these movements expanded the range of London's musical culture between about 1820 and 1840. In the process, the [End Page 128] differences between so-called high and low areas of cultural activity were considerably polarized. What emerges is a fascinating array of disparate cultural institutions whose dynamism and wide social outreach had no parallel in that period. The contributors dig deep into particular contexts to display, in intriguing detail, how Londoners of various social levels experienced developments different from those spreading early in the nineteenth century. The introduction nonetheless warns us that "there was an anxiety that somehow, despite the expansion of London's venues and audiences, the city was being written out of accounts of musical prowess" (6). Claudio Vellutini lays out a contextual framework for understanding the social structure of institutions and practices within the world of Italian opera in the period. The King's Theatre, the premier opera house in London since 1704, had presented only opera troupes brought from Italy, but by the 1830s British singers were competing on a par with their Italian colleagues, developing their own supposedly English vocal style. With that change came the commodification of sheet music, permitting a vast public to perform pieces from their favorite operas in their homes. Vellutini argues that such commercial activity was "consistent with the consolidation of the logic of capitalism [that] emerged as a trope on both sides of the Atlantic" (64). For some observers, Italian opera thereby became justified only as long as it assisted in the reshaping of opera in English terms. The chapter by Cormac Newark lays out a conceptual basis for understanding the fundamental reshaping of English opera life. He provides a detailed analysis of comments made in The Opera: A Novel, a book by Catherine Gore published in 1832. Mrs. Gore, as she was always addressed, presented bold new perspectives about the English adaptation of Italian opera, treating opera as a useful microcosm for analyzing the "celebrity-spotting" central to amateur fascination with opera stars. Her book provided a broad array of commentary about the cultural life of the upper classes that grew out of the widespread social commentary that arose during that period. Accordingly, Newark argues, Gore dissected the "vicissitudes" she found in private discussions of the taste for opera that reached a climax in the fervent apotheosis of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart during the 1840s (253). In effect, Gore brought a bourgeois discernment by defining such taste as separate from the dilettantism that traditionally underlay taste for Italian opera. The concept of "voices" emerges in this volume's analysis of new kinds of cultural discourse within the discordant opinions presented in the press. Singers took on roles as "voices" and thereby articulated radically different roles compared with the ritualized discourse about opera in the eighteenth century. Operas thereby reconceived cultural assumptions long idolized for the unadventurous assumptions of the aristocratic public. Matildie Thom Wium thereby analyzes the "mythology" surrounding the prima donna's assumption of an exotic, in some respects negative, posture (122). That posture made the idolized singer out to be a "divine monster," thereby giving lyric drama a more formidable character compared with the exotically Italianized picture found in the eighteenth century (123). Likewise, Mary Ann Smart shows how adventurous new stagings could become...

From Royalty to Riots: Nation and Class in the Reception of French Musical Theater in London

From Royalty to Riots:Nation and Class in the Reception of French Musical Theater in London Erica Levenson (bio) Of the many foreigners to thrive on the early eighteenth-century London stage, George Frideric Handel has most consistently garnered the attention of scholars.1 Yet alongside Handel's now canonic opere serie, more ephemeral, light-hearted entertainments flourished in the margins of high culture. When French acting troupes from Paris arrived in London in 1718, they quickly became showstoppers. Their repertoire had been shaped predominantly in Paris's fairground theaters, but also in the city's official theatrical institutions—the Comédie-Italienne and the Comédie-Française. Their performances blended music with dance and acrobatics with spoken comedy and often revolved around the stock characters from commedia dell'arte. Over the next two decades, French acting troupes, consisting of up to seventy members, performed nearly two hundred distinct musical comedies in London.2 While French dancers and commedia dell'arte actors had been employed on London stages for afterpieces in decades prior, the troupes that performed between 1718 and 1738 became more than addons to the main theatrical attraction and could command the stage for an entire evening.3 Offering an average of four different programs of theatrical entertainments per week, theirs was a fast-changing, ephemeral repertoire that was performed entirely in French. The troupes did not regularly perform [End Page 141] at the London equivalent of the Paris fair theaters, but rather at the official theaters used for serious dramas and operas, including Lincoln's Inn Fields and the King's Theatre. As a result, the royal family and London's aristocratic elite were often in attendance at their performances. Given Britain's ongoing tense political relationship with France throughout the eighteenth century, one might assume that Londoners' predominant attitude towards the French performers was one of antagonism, especially since Britain and France had recently emerged from a twenty-five-year period of war.4 However, the troupes' reception in London was not so clear-cut. It is true that they were condemned, belittled, and often parodied by many members of the "middling sort," a wide-ranging group that included "yeomen, financially independent trades, and knowledge-based professions."5 However, the French performers found great appeal among London's elite and even gained patronage from the British royalty. Their twenty years of successful trips to London were in large part due to this royal support. This article examines the reactions to the French troupes within the context of the rapid social changes of early eighteenth-century England. Chief among these transformations was a growing concern with social hierarchy, which developed during the 1720s and 30s in response to an increasingly unified ruling elite and the growth of the middling orders.6 These changes eventually led to a heightened awareness of "social class" as a principle for describing the hierarchical nature of British society.7 Although England had long been divided along lines of rank and aristocratic privilege, many eighteenth-century commentators began to see "class" as something that could be gained or lost; it thus could be performed, emulated, or even bought, resulting in new anxieties surrounding status.8 In response to these changing social norms, French musical comedies were interpreted as both high- and low-style entertainment once they were imported to England, depending largely on who was watching. For elites, attendance at the French plays could signal prestige and demonstrate their nuanced grasp of foreign culture. But among the middling orders the craze for French theater was indicative of widespread trends for consuming foreign luxuries that they believed would destabilize native English culture. Thanks to this divergent reception across social strata, the French performances became divorced from their earlier position at the lower end of the hierarchy of Parisian theatrical institutions.9 Through this process of reinterpretation, the French performances helped to enact a mutable sense of class identity in ways that both negated and reinforced ideas of what France could represent in the transnational imagination. [End Page 142] The Royal Treatment The widespread success of the French performers in the years 1718–38 depended, at least in part, on the support of the...

THE EARLY RECEPTION OF MOZART'S OPERAS IN LONDON: BURNEY'S MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Early in 1789 Charles Burney declined a chance to purchase the score of an unnamed Mozart opera, offered to him by Franz Anton Weber, the composer's uncle-in-law, in an unsolicited letter from Hamburg. For several years Weber had been active in supplying new Viennese repertory to northern cities such as Uppsala, Hanover and Hamburg, but in a career change, he decided to launch an itinerant opera troupe. Among the family members employed in this company was Franz Anton's daughter Jeanette, who, he claimed, had been a pupil of Mozart and Aloysia Lange. In the light of Burney's missed opportunity, my article revisits the well-researched story of Mozart reception at the King's Theatre in the late 1780s.

John Braham and "The Death of Nelson"

John Braham and "The Death of Nelson" Susan Rutherford (bio) Mr. Braham gave "The Death of Nelson" amidst the cheers of the Company. Musical World, May 1, 1847 A top his column in trafalgar square, admiral lord horatio nelson gazes over London's cityscape. His stance is calm and self-possessed, the corners of his mouth tightened in a slight moue of concentration, his empty right sleeve pinned neatly to his chest whilst his remaining hand rests on the sword angled behind him; his right leg, slightly bent with its toes protruding from the very limit of his pedestal (as if he might step serenely into space), gives a casual elegance to his posture. Such is the view accessible mostly to the birds swooping around his figure, because Nelson is surprisingly small (5.5m) in relation to the column and its massive base (46.5m).1 From the pavement, we see only that nonchalant, easy shape: a look-out, or so it might seem, for the nation's future. This monument, erected in 1843 and one of London's most prominent landmarks,2 was the product of an industry that had assiduously constructed and sustained the Nelson myth since the admiral's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Its message of patriotic heroism had been vigorously disseminated through diverse channels: festivals, books, pamphlets, pictures, statues, china, memorabilia, objets d'art, and music. One such latter contribution (perhaps the most influential of all the musical manifestations) to this concretization of Nelson's image was John Braham's song, "The Death [End Page 525] of Nelson." Nelson's Column, a fixed structure in space suggesting a living being, was thus partly brought into being by Braham's conversely fluid, temporal evocation of the admiral's death. Indeed, in this article I ask whether the song might be heard as an aural monument: an edifice in rhythmic motion and tonal architecture that promoted shared reflection, facilitating the visitation of different aspects of the events at Trafalgar from the sailors' first sight of the French to the death of their hero and commander in the midst of an important victory. Above all, it gave repeated, insistent voice to those vital words that shaped Nelson's legend—"England expects that every man this day will do his duty"—words which would be similarly inscribed (in abbreviated form) on the bas-relief illustration of the stricken Nelson on the pedestal of the column.3 In so doing, the song invites consideration of the links between both its creator (Braham) and its subject (Nelson), and music's role in commemorative art both as offering a visceral experience of recall, and as shaping the metropolitan landscape. John Braham Nelson needs little introduction; not so the other protagonist here, John Braham (1774–1856).4 Yet he was once the best-known singer of his day, beginning his professional career as a boy treble at Covent Garden in 1787. Following adolescence, he re-emerged as a tenor under the tutelage of Venanzio Rauzzini, making his second London debut at the age of twenty-three in Stephen Storace's Mahmoud at Drury Lane in 1796. Something of his remarkable impact can be gleaned from his immediate employment at the King's Theatre, which staged Italian operas and hired, in the main, only Italian singers. Braham subsequently became among the earliest British singers to build a successful career in Italy from 1797, performing at various theaters including La Scala, Milan. In 1801 he returned to London, becoming the country's leading tenor for the next forty or so years. He made— and lost—a veritable fortune; appeared in some of the most historically significant musical works of the period, including the first British performances of Weber's Der Freischütz (1824) and Oberon (1826); combined singing with composition and impresarial activities; and was fêted and castigated in turns by the press. Unusually, he was both Britain's most accomplished elite singer and the one with the surest popular reach. [End Page 526] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The Monument of Lord Nelson, Guildhall, London; sculptor James Smith; engraving published in Richard Clarke's The...

The Dedication to Don Juan Re-Examined: Hazlitt— Wat Tyler—Don Giovanni

In February 1817, the publication of Wat Tyler spectacularly destabilised Robert Southey's roles as Poet Laureate and chief literary policeman for the Quarterly Review . In April 1817, the 'famous, and famously belated' English premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the King's Theatre represented the storming of a court citadel by city radicals. William Hazlitt drew on the symbolism of these two exhumed works when he invited Southey to Don Giovanni as an antidote to the Laureate's self-righteous 'prudery'. Byron was certainly paying attention (if not always respect) to Hazlitt's output when he began Don Juan : this article examines some of the overlaps in their anti-Laker rhetoric, the possibility that Hazlitt influenced Byron's choice of dedicatee and hero, and the ways in which the Southey stanzas in the suppressed Dedication vibrate with the energy of contributions to the Wat Tyler Controversy by Hazlitt and other anti-ministerial writers.

Da Ponte in New York, Mozart in New York

One might be surprised to learn that relatively few of Lorenzo da Ponte's letters have been preserved. In one of these, written in New York in 1824 to an unknown recipient, Da Ponte names what he considered to be five of his most important and successful libretti: La cosa rata, L'arbore di Diana, La capricciosa corretta, Le nozze di Figaro, and Don Giovanni. Cosi fan tutte is not mentioned, nor does he name the composers of the stated titles--Martin y Soler and W. A. Mozart (Zagonel 1995:228ff.). When I quote this letter today in order to describe Da Ponte's self-regard, I am always asked the same two questions: Who is Martin y Soler? And why does Da Ponte's letter come from New York? I answer that Martin y Soler was born in Spain, and in the mid-1780s he was, next to Mozart and Salieri, the most successful opera composer in Vienna. Then I am asked whether Da Ponte did not also write libretti for Salieri, or why Da Ponte did not include any libretto for Salieri among his most important and successful. Indeed, he did write libretti for Salieri, and I do not know why he did not mention these. Finally, whereas Da Ponte lived in Vienna for ten years and in London for twelve, he spent thirty-three years in the United States. In fact, he lived one year longer in the US than in Italy, where he was born. It is not just the fact that Da Ponte spent so much time in New York that surprises even educated music lovers and listeners today--it is also that, contrary to popular belief, Da Ponte did not devote himself to making Mozart, his friend and artistic partner, famous in North America. (1) In fact, the sources show us an entirely different picture. Lorenzo da Ponte Allow me to summarize the most important biographical facts in an overview: Lorenzo da Ponte was born Emanuele Conegliano in 1749 in the ghetto of Ceneda (now Vittorio Veneto), near Venice. (2) After his family was baptized in 1763, he called himself Lorenzo da Ponte. He studied theology, became a Catholic priest, and taught in a theological seminary. In 1779 he was anonymously accused of leading a lifestyle unfit for a priest. He fled the region and in his absence was sentenced to prison. In 1781 he settled in Vienna. In this city of enlightened absolutism, no one was interested in why he continued to use the title Abbe. In 1783, Emperor Joseph II appointed Da Ponte to the position of court theater poet. It was in these years that Da Ponte famously collaborated with Mozart on Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Cosi fan tutte (1790). After several theater scandals--jealousies, intrigue, love affairs, and prima donna behavior (see Nettl 1953 and 1966)--the police banished Da Ponte from Vienna. Despite petitioning Emperor Leopold II, he was ultimately banished to Trieste (though his debts and travel expenses were paid by the imperial court). In Trieste, Da Ponte continued to fight for his rehabilitation, but when it was granted he decided not to return to Vienna. Da Ponte married Nancy Grahl in 1792 in Trieste. He and his wife travelled via Prague to London, where they settled and began to raise a family. In time, two daughters and a son were born. Da Ponte worked for the Italian opera in the King's Theatre as a poet, translator, and editor, and he also worked as a bookseller. In 1800 he declared his bookseller's business bankrupt and was arrested. His Italian relatives came to his rescue: his brother Paolo came to London and opened a printing business and bookshop, which the brothers ran under Lorenzo's name. Eventually Da Ponte was again overwhelmed by unpaid debts and London became very uncomfortable for him. In 1804 his wife and their children travelled to the US, where his wife's mother and other family members lived. On April 7, 1805, Da Ponte himself followed on the freighter Columbia. After a crossing lasting fifty-seven days, he set foot on American soil in Philadelphia. He reunited with his family in New York and opened a grocery shop, but, after only three months, he fled. …

Frances Brooke: Becoming a Playwright

ABSTRACTThe obstacles to having a play performed at the two patent theatres in London in the eighteenth century are familiar. The focus is usually on new-play-adverse production gatekeepers like David Garrick, but the limited opportunities to learn stagecraft are an equally powerful barrier. Understanding such things as blocking, casting decisions, and the possibilities and economics of set design and special effects not only facilitated acceptance for production, but contributed to the success of a play, as audiences had come to demand productions with spectacle and sound. The career of Frances Brooke offers the opportunity to see how a successful woman playwright learned stagecraft and used what she learned in two quite different plays produced in the early 1780s. Moreover, it uncovers the multidimensional collaborations that stand behind eighteenth-century productions. In 1773, after a long, successful career as a novelist, journalist and translator, Brooke took over co-managership of King's Theatre, the London opera house, with, among others, the great tragic actress Mary Ann Yates. Shortly after this experience, her plays—the tragedy The Siege of Sinope and her pastoral musical comedy, Rosina—were performed at Covent Garden.

Dancers at London's Italian Opera Houses as Recorded in the Libretti

For the audience, the purchase of a libretto when attending the King's Theatre, London's elite house for foreign opera and dance, was a commonplace. It offered the text of the opera, and a parallel English translation; it could also contain an argument for the opera, and other material relevant to the performance. A dramatis personae was nearly always included, together with a cast list, and after the mid-century, the libretti often contained the names of the dancers and choreographers. This article sets out to document the mentions of these names, and to chart their inclusion in the context of the history of the libretto. It identifies the first inclusion of a choreographer's name (in Antigono, in May 1746), the first dancers (in Ipermestra, in November 1754), and the first leader of the dancers (in the libretti for the 1790–1791 season), and identifies the inexplicable tailing off, and then total omission, of dancer personnel from the London Italian opera libretti.

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Adapted for Covent Garden, 1819 by Henry Rowley Bishop (review)

BISHOP'S ADAPTATION OF LE NOZZE DI FIGARO Henry Rowley Bishop. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Adapted for Covent Garden, 1819. Edited by Christina Fuhrmann. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, 55.) Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2012. [Introd., p. ix-xix; 9 plates; score, p. 3-217; crit. report, p. 219-37; appendix of items from the autograph score, p. 239-70. ISBN-13 978-0-89579-720-9. $252.]It is now widely known and accepted that, after their premieres, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century operas were often altered and adapted for subsequent productions. These modifications could be simple, such as the inclusion of substitute arias, or quite complicated involving character changes and large sections of new music. In spite of the ubiquity of this practice, only in the last twenty years or so have scholars paid attention to some of the more extreme adaptations, examining them as a source of great insight into the audience expectations and the performance practices of a certain time and place. Christina Fuhrmann's edition of Henry Rowley English-language adaptation of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro is a splendid contribution to this field of study, providing a window into the practice of adaptation in nineteenth-century London. As Fuhrmann states in the introduction: Bishop's Figaro . . . is an important example of typical practice that scholars of opera, Mozart, musical theater, and music in both Britain and the United States will benefit from having readily (p. ix).This edition also provides an artifact of the reception of Mozart's operas in England. During Mozart's lifetime, the only portions of his operas heard in Britain were occasional arias and ensembles inserted into other operas, often by performers such as Nancy Storace who originated the role of Susanna in Vienna. In the early nineteenth century, more complete, but still altered, versions began to appear at the King's Theatre, sung in Italian usually by Italian singers. There were also occasional concert performances of isolated pieces, but the average early-nineteenth-century Londoner would not have known much of Le nozze di Figaro at all, let alone the entire work. adaptation brought the opera into the realm of common parlance and made it accessible by conforming to audience expectations. Figaro was so successful in its audience appeal that it continued to be performed for several years following its premiere: a significant feat in the fickle and novelty-hungry world of British theatrical tastes.Fuhrmann first explored alterations in her dissertation, 'Adapted and Arranged for the English Stage': Conti - nental Operas Transformed for the London Theater, 1814-33 (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 2001) and a full description of changes to Le nozze di Figaro is now also available in the front matter of this edition. Fuhrmann provides a discussion of the form and structure of Figaro, as well as an explanation of the practice of adaptation, audience expectations, and the work's reception.In addition to an excellent introduction that contextualizes the adaptation, the edition also contains a complete piano-vocal score of the opera with interpolated dialogue, the critical apparatus and report, and some items from the autograph score that Fuhrmann used to reconstruct missing numbers. Additionally, Fuhrmann has included a few facsimile pages from the printed and manuscript sources.Bishop's adaptation of Figaro premiered at Covent Garden in March 1819. Although operatic repertoire had typically been confined to the King's Theatre, Englishlanguage versions of continental operas were starting to appear at other venues, and Bishop played an essential role in developing the trend for operatic adaptations. Figaro is not only an example of a common practice in nineteenth-century London, but it is also a particularly highquality example, illustrating how a continental opera can be modified to suit a particular venue and audience. …

The Journals and Letters of Susan Burney: Music and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century England by Philip Olleson (review)

The Journals and Letters of Susan Burney: Music and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century England. By Philip Olleson. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. [xxi, 334 p. ISBN 9780754655923. $134.95.] Illustra - tions, bibliography, index.England's musical landscape once teemed with Burneys. Today the family's patriarch looms largest: Charles Burney transformed his station as a promising provincial musician to Doctor of Music and the foremost music historian of his day. Many still turn to his four-volume History of Music (1776-89), a historiographical landmark and a chronicle of musical life in the late eighteenth century. Music-literary aptitude was not limited to Dr. Burney, however. Daughters Frances (Fanny) and Sarah prospered as novelists, while Susan, between them in age, captured in journals and letters a London music scene satiated on pasticcio and overrun by continental musicians. In a volume of fine craftsmanship, Philip Olleson delivers Susan's letters and journals from manuscript sources.The Journals and Letters of Susan Burney opens with a lengthy biographical introduction. Susan was born in 1755. She was regarded as a lively child and a talented student in schools in Paris and London. She circulated in London's musical scene during her adolescence and young adulthood. An engagement, marriage, and family followed, although her journals also record chronic marital tension.The volume is largely concerned with Susan's accounts of musical activities. Olleson picks up at the opening of the King's Theatre's 1779-80 opera season, when Susan recounts in considerable detail works by Antonio Sacchini, Ferdinando Bertoni, and Niccolo Piccinni as well as several pasticcios. She also chronicled encounters with the theater's colorful personalities. Castrato Gasparo Pacchierotti receives the most attention. The space he occupies in Susan's journals may be disproportionate even to his station as primo uomo. Susan's words admit a possible infatuation: [he] was so perfectly in tune, & so touching in his Expression that I c[ould] have woship'd him (p. 107). Apart from this, these passages are remarkable also in the way they traverse private life and the public sphere. For instance, Pacchierotti at once projected on stage a celebrity persona while revealing in intimate conversation modesty and even self-doubt.Self-doubt consumes Susan as well, especially when she is called on to play. She managed works of Ignace Joseph Pleyel but stressed over the music of Leopold Kozeluch and Joseph Haydn. She wrote about one such occasion: Forcing myself to attempt what I knew I c[ould] not execute, it ended as I had foreseen in general disappointment (p. 210). Her repertoire was almost exclusively modern. Susan rarely encountered ancient works (i.e., compositions older than a decade or two) or the leading composers of the previous generation (e.g., Corelli and Handel).Although not oriented toward musical activities, the journals and letters also capture the anti-Catholic furor of June 1780. During this time, Lord George Gordon challenged the Papist Act of 1778, which discouraged discrimination against Britain's Catholic population. The rioting that erupted following a Gordon-led march on Parliament on 2 June 1780 prompted Susan to fear for her family's safety and their home, as flames consumed the property and possessions of the neighbors. Despite several sleepless nights, her initial fear-our House w[ould] be burnt & Pillaged in all probability (p. 176)-gave way to confidence of peace when rioting subsided by 8 June.There are few entries from 1780-87, when Susan was in close proximity to her sister Fanny, the recipient of her letters. Susan resumed regular visits to London in 1787, and attended numerous musical performances over the next four years, although her presence was not as regular as it had been a decade earlier. …

“What Country, Friends, Is This?”: Touring Shakespeares, Agency, and Efficacy in Theatre Historiography

The curtain rose at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, on 14 August 2011 to reveal a richly textured production ofThe Tempeston a bare stage with minimal props. As the lights came up, a group of white-robed sailors were caught in a meticulously choreographed storm, dancing to the mesmerizing beats of the master drummer upstage. The performers’ costumes echoed traditional Koreanhanbokattire and their acting style incorporatedt'alch'ummask-dance drama techniques. Their long white sleeves flapped and swayed in sync with their movements. Engulfed in stagewide sapphire and then crimson lighting, their sleeves were transformed from symbols of violent wind and waves to raging fire on board a ship approaching a world where, as Gonzalo aptly summarized, “no man was his own” (5.1.211). With Prospero (King Zilzi) as the drummer upstage and Ariel dancing in the midst of the unfortunate sailors, the storm scene—one of the longest renditions of the “direful spectacle” (1.2.26) in the performance history ofThe Tempest—served as an anchor to the tragicomic narrative about the self and the other. For a fleeting moment, Prospero gave the impression of being a drillmaster at the helm.

Women Writing Music in Late Eighteenth-Century England: Social Harmony in Literature and Performance (review)

Reviewed by: Women Writing Music in Late Eighteenth-Century England: Social Harmony in Literature and Performance Mary Ann Parker (bio) Leslie Ritchie . Women Writing Music in Late Eighteenth-Century England: Social Harmony in Literature and Performance. Ashgate. 2008. 280. US$114.95 This book provides a fascinating account of social interaction and musical production in late eighteenth-century England. Ritchie begins by laying out her theoretical starting points, the most significant of which is the premise that we can deepen our understanding of the issues by considering musical harmony as related to social harmony. Bolstered by evidence from a wide variety of historical sources, her argument is convincing. The focus is on published songs associated with British women of 'the middle, genteel, and upper classes.' The reader may not be entirely comfortable with Ritchie's blanket characterization of this repertoire as popular song. Nevertheless, the discussions in the three chapters on songs of charity and love, pastoral songs, and songs relating to national identity are enlightening and entertaining. Throughout the book, the narrative is enriched by illustrations, most from eighteenth-century printed editions. The chapter on caritas begins with an examination of hymns and songs written for the benefit of charitable institutions like the Magdalen Hospital for penitent prostitutes. Moving on to songs about tragic female figures such as 'Crazy Jane' (music by 'Miss Abrams') and 'Poor Mary of Buttermore' (words by 'a Lady'), Ritchie demonstrates how women manipulated the 'charitable affect' for their own benefit. Similarly, her rich expose´ of the pastoral song reveals the subversive potential of that seemingly innocent genre. Here, Ritchie reminds the reader that her critical skills extend to musical analysis, such as in her fine discussion of Mary Worgan's 'The Dying Nightingale.' The topic of British identity may be well-trodden ground, but many readers will be unfamiliar with examples like the 'Roast Beef Cantata' or the various 'Hindoo' airs. Highlighting the role of female performers, the author presents 'God Save the King as Sung by Signora Banti, at the King's Theatre,' [End Page 348] a popular print featuring the ornaments sung by the Italian singer Brigida Giorgi Banti in the 1790s. Perhaps the most striking revelation is the extent to which women's participation in music was not confined to the domestic sphere. For example, in the chapter on the pastoral, Ritchie includes discussions of a number of theatrical works with either words or music by women. Furthermore, she challenges what she calls 'the cherished myth that any eighteenth-century woman who wrote music or lyrics only published her work in embarrassed anonymity, or with much self-abasement, or preferably, posthumously.' Using Michael Kassler's transcription of the list of compositions registered at Stationers' Hall, Ritchie shows that significant numbers of women did not hesitate to publish their works, many under their own names. The high quality of the discussions and the consistently interesting content of this book deserved better editing. At times, the writing style is stiff and awkward, particularly in the conclusion. The citation style is inappropriate for a full-length monograph. Even after sifting through all three sections of the bibliography, I never could find the publication details for William Parker's sermon cited in the Introduction (until I resorted to an online library catalogue). When footnotes are used, they frequently appear in the middle of sentences, where they are distracting and visually unappealing. Overall, Women Writing Music in Late Eighteenth-Century England is a valuable contribution to the field of eighteenth-century studies. It will appeal to specialists in many areas, including musicology, women's studies, literary studies, and the history of publishing. Mary Ann Parker Mary Ann E. Parker, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto Copyright © 2011 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the mobile, ogling, flirtatious and occasionally riotous audience of the Georgian opera (and, arguably, the Georgian theatre) was no more. Its late Victorian counterpart was much quieter, more static, more decorous, and more likely to treat productions respectfully, as fixed works of art. For the Georgian élite, according to Jennifer Hall-Witt, the Italian opera at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, had been the most important and exclusive of a number of the capital's politicised social arenas, a place for the beau monde to go to see and be seen, to gather and/or disseminate gossip and news, and to form, even flaunt, useful connections, be they social, sexual, or political. The productions themselves, however, attracted only selective attention. Georgian operas were ‘events’, not ‘works’; thus, they were continuously in process of creation, being revised and reshaped so as best to display specific singers’ talents. Often they included music recycled from earlier operas; arias, too, were regularly substituted. Audiences frequently ignored the stage to gossip with their neighbours or shrewdly analyse the comings and goings of the elaborately dressed élite women in the boxes above, or to pay heed to the antics of the lounging men of Fops’ Alley in the pit below. It took the appearance of a celebrated singer—a Pasta or a Catalani, for instance—performing a popular aria, to focus the Georgian audience's attention on the stage.

The Castrato's Tale: "Artaxerxes" and the Feminization of Virtuosity

Previous articleNext article No AccessRomanticism, Reading, and Translation: The Processes of Literacy Papers Delivered at the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association Meeting, 2007The Castrato's Tale: "Artaxerxes" and the Feminization of VirtuosityGillen D' Arcy WoodGillen D' Arcy Wood Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Wordsworth Circle Volume 39, Number 3Summer 2008 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/TWC24045753 Views: 3Total views on this site © 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Troilus and Cressida (review)

Reviewed by: Troilus and Cressida Claire Altree Troilus and Cressida Presented by Edinburgh International Festival in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh. August 14–26, 2006. Directed by Peter Stein. Set by Ferdinand Wögerbauer. Costumes by Anna Maria Heinreich. Lighting by Japhy Weideman. Sound by Fernando Nicci. Fights by Malcolm Ranson. With Henry Pettigrew (Troilus), Annabel Scholey (Cressida), Richard Clothier (Hector), Paul Jesson (Pandarus), Adam Levy (Paris), Vincent Regan (Achilles), Ian Hughes (Thersites), Simon Armstrong (Aeneas), John Franklin-Robbins (Nestor), David Yelland (Ulysses), Oliver Kieran-Jones (Patroclus), Richard Wills-Cotton (Diomedes), Ian Hogg (Agamemnon), Roger May (Margarelon), Arthur Cox (Calchas), John Kane (Menelaus), Julian Lewis Jones (Ajax), Jeffrey Wickham (Priam), Kate Miles (Cassandra), Rachel Pickup (Helen), and Charlotte Moore (Andromache). The year 2006 marked an ambitious re-appraisal of the Shakespeare's Complete Works by the Royal Shakespeare Company. With the casting of well-known stars, including Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Judi Dench, and the presence of major theatre companies such as the Berliner Ensemble and the Teatr Piesn Kozla from Poland, it promised to be a year of groundbreaking and memorable performances. This production of Troilus and Cressida began as an integral part of Sir Brian McMaster's final season in charge of the Edinburgh International Festival, and later took up residence at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon as part of the company's Complete Works series. Peter Stein, who has a long association with the Edinburgh Festival, directed this production of Troilus and Cressida, one of Shakespeare's more problematic plays—it is both thematically and syntactically dense, combining sexual politics with an increasingly barbarous war until the audience can seemingly only conclude with Thersites, "lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion." This new production contained a number of prominent achievements; most noteworthy were the effective and perceptive lighting effects, particularly during the procession of soldiers in 1.2. The vanity of war was illuminated by the strip of light beginning downstage right and traversing the stage to upstage left, upon which the warriors paraded. The scene resembled a fashion catwalk, a notion accentuated by the voyeurism of Pandarus and Cressida who stood downstage left admiring the armor-bedecked "models." Of equal [End Page 121] note were the costumes, which certainly contributed to this ever-present impression of personal conceit and narcissism. The warriors were, for the most part, dressed in short garments during the battle scenes, and the armor (helmets, shields) was ostentatious and flamboyant. The set was dominated by a large, movable metal wall that remained a backdrop for a majority of the play but during the final act flattened out to provide the warriors with a sloped surface on which to wage war. To both sides of the stage, Stein placed tents, which later moved to the center of the stage and connected together to provide a meeting place for Cressida and Diomedes. The obtrusive tents and the use of the auditorium boxes as hiding places for Thersites (stage right) and Ulysses and Troilus (stage left) as they watched Cressida and Diomedes, created a sense, as Shakespeare's plays often do, of presentation rather than illusion, of disturbing the boundary between actors and audience. The set did, however, create problems for the production during the run, as the backstage equipment dramatically failed in the first half on the first two nights. Although fully functional during the performance I saw, the moving metallic surface drew attention to the technology itself more than it provided an instrument for actors' play or, conversely, an illusion of place. Though undoubtedly clever it seemed a little superfluous. Stein assembled a fine and highly talented cast. Pettigrew, as Troilus, effectively created a sense of teenage angst and his transformation from forlorn lover to embittered, revengeful soldier was tragic. Clothier's Hector provided the heroic nobility while Ian Hughes as Thersites was his binary opposite, a cowardly comic who, nevertheless, remained the play's most perceptive commentator. The Greeks were equally well directed as older men plotting and scheming, inciting a war that is seemingly at a stalemate until the climactic confrontation of Achilles and Hector. Vincent Regan...

Lotario: Opera in tre atti, HWV 26 (review)

Georg Friedrich Handel. Lotario: in tre atti, HWV 26. Herausgegeben von Michael Pacholke. Kassel: Barenreiter, 2003. (Hallische Handel-Ausgabe, Ser. II: Opern, Bd. 23.) [Editorial policy, pref., in Ger., Eng., p. vi-xv; facsims., p. xvi-xx; Libretto-Druck (London, 1729), p. xxi-xl; Ger. trans. of text, p. xli-liv; score, 193 p.; Krit. Bericht, p. 195-246. Cloth. ISMN M-006-49785-6; BA 4074. [euro]210.] George Friedrich Handel. Lotario: in tre atti, HWV 26. Libretto: Giacomo nach Antonio Salvi; Deutsche Ubersetzung von Gerhard Muller; Klavierauszug nach dem Urtext der Hallischen Handel-Ausgabe von Andreas Kohs. Kassel: Barenreiter, c2004. [Ensemble, 1 p.; pref. in Ger., Eng. (Michael Pacholke), p. iv-vii; argument, p. viii; index of scenes, p. ix-xii; vocal score, 240 p. ISMN M-006-52489-1; BA 4074a. [euro]39.95.] George Frideric Handel's Lotario (first performed at King's Theatre, Haymarket, 2 December 1729) was first opera seria given in London after collapse of Royal Academy of Music in 1728. It was a new beginning with new singers, with a new poet and with changed contractual conditions. advent of ballad operas had influenced fashions. In Michael Pacholke's introduction to his edition of this opera for Hallische Handel-Ausgabe (presented in German and an English translation by Terence Best), situation of Lotario is aptly characterized basis of contemporaneous comments (pp. xii-xiii). Thus Mary Pendarves wrote 20 December 1729: The opera is too good for vile taste of town .... it will put people upon making comparisons between these singers and those that performed before, which will be a disadvantage among ill-judging multitude. present opera is disliked because it is too much studied, and they love nothing but minuets and ballads, in short Beggar's and Hurlothrumbo are only worthy of applause (p. xiii). In opposing camp, ex-secretary of Royal Academy of Music, Paolo Rolli, also commented (11 December) past and present singing cast and negatively compared Anna Maria Strada del Po (Adelaide) with Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. He praised only contralto Antonia Merighi (Matilde) and tenor Annibale Pio Fabri (Berengario), and costumes provided by John James Heidegger (quoted in Italian and English translation pp. xii-xiii). While making lecherous and rude remarks, respectively, about trouser role Idelberto (Francesca Bertolli) and bass Johann Gottfiried Riemschneider (Clodomiro), he observed complete silence about new primo uomo Antonio Bernacchi (Lotario), who had replaced Francesco Bernardi detto Senesino. Rolli had already noted 3 September 1729 that the famous [Giacomo] Rossi (p. xiii) now was Handel's Italian poet. Too many irksome innovations! But Rolli conceded that some patrons liked Strada better than two former prime donne, according to a judgment from on High (ab Alto--curiously interpreted by Pacholke as meaning Handel). He was particularly incensed by fact that model for Lotario, Giuseppe Maria Orlandini's Adelaide, had only been performed earlier that same year during carnival in Venice with Senesino--and with Faustina, who sang title role and acted as coproducer. Handel had visited Venice at this time and probably heard Adelaide; only manuscript of opera surviving today (a presentation score later owned by William Savage, now in library of London's Royal Academy of Music) may have been made for opera's dedicatee, James Hamilton, Viscount Limerick, a director of Royal Academy and later of Opera of Nobility. Handel probably used a score of work for his pasticcio Ormisda in 1730. Lotario certainly entered a polarized field of tastes and emotions about opera in London: foundations for rivalry of 1733 were being laid here. libretto of Lotario, closely modeled after Venetian Adelaide, goes back to Adelaide by Antonio Salvi (1722), penultimate dramma per musica by Handel's preferred libretto author (d. …

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.

Cockney Mozart: The Hunt Circle, the King's Theatre, and "Don Giovanni"

Cockney Mozart: The Hunt Circle, the King's Theatre, and "Don Giovanni"

The King's Head Theatre, London

The King's Head Theatre, London

Review: The Eighteenth-Century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians Edited by Reinhard Strohm; Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London: The King's Theatre, Garrick and the Business of Performance By Ian Woodfield; Italian Opera in the Late Eighteenth-Century London, vol. 2, The Pantheon Opera and Its Aftermath 1789-1795 By Judith Milhouse, Gabriella Dideriksen, and Robert D. Hume

Review Article| August 01 2004 Review: The Eighteenth-Century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians Edited by Reinhard Strohm; Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London: The King's Theatre, Garrick and the Business of Performance By Ian Woodfield; Italian Opera in the Late Eighteenth-Century London, vol. 2, The Pantheon Opera and Its Aftermath 1789-1795 By Judith Milhouse, Gabriella Dideriksen, and Robert D. Hume The Eighteenth-Century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians. Edited by Reinhard StrohmOpera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London: The King's Theatre, Garrick and the Business of Performance. By Ian WoodfieldItalian Opera in the Late Eighteenth-Century London, vol. 2, The Pantheon Opera and Its Aftermath 1789-1795. By Judith MilhouseGabriella Dideriksen, and Robert D. Hume Mary Ann Parker Mary Ann Parker Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (2004) 57 (2): 410–420. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2004.57.2.410 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Mary Ann Parker; Review: The Eighteenth-Century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians Edited by Reinhard Strohm; Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London: The King's Theatre, Garrick and the Business of Performance By Ian Woodfield; Italian Opera in the Late Eighteenth-Century London, vol. 2, The Pantheon Opera and Its Aftermath 1789-1795 By Judith Milhouse, Gabriella Dideriksen, and Robert D. Hume. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 August 2004; 57 (2): 410–420. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2004.57.2.410 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2004 by the American Musicological Society. All rights reserved. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.