The history of opera in the English language commences in the 17th century.
40-619: English Opera or The English Opera may refer to: Opera in English , performed since the 17th century The English National Opera , an English opera company founded by Lilian Baylis, originally based at Sadler's Wells Theatre The Lyceum Theatre, London , commonly known as "The English Opera" or "The English Opera House" until the 1840s The English Opera Company, managed by Louisa Pyne and William Harrison which set up residence in Covent Garden at
80-489: A venereal disease , and was given a syphilis treatment by Thomas Cademan . As a convalescent, he left for the country in 1632 for a time. The syphilis severely disfigured his nose, resulting in damage that is discreetly depicted in John Greenhill 's portrait. His ruined nose was the subject of much ribald comment by his enemies. Following the death of Ben Jonson in 1637, Davenant was named Poet Laureate in 1638. He
120-492: A Village (1762), was equally novel and began a vogue for pastiche opera that lasted well into the 19th century. Arne was one of the few English composers of the era who, although imitating many elements of Italian opera, was able to move beyond it to create his own voice. Charles Burney wrote that Arne introduced "a light, airy, original, and pleasing melody, wholly different from that of Purcell or Handel, whom all English composers had either pillaged or imitated". Besides Arne,
160-566: A serious attempt to follow in the footsteps of Carl Maria von Weber with his opera The Mountain Sylph (1834), often mistakenly claimed as the first sung-through (i.e. completely sung) English opera, which was his only major success (and was later parodied by Gilbert and Sullivan in Iolanthe ). Among the main lanes in London for the production of English language opera in those times were Drury Lane ,
200-578: Is Josef Holbrooke 's The Cauldron of Annwn trilogy. The influence of Wagner's Ring can be seen in the choice of a mythological subject and also in the extensive use of leitmotivs , while harmony and orchestration are more reminiscent of Strauss. Other British composers writing well-received operas in the late 20th century include Thomas Wilson (e.g. The Confessions of a Justified Sinner ), Richard Rodney Bennett (e.g. The Mines of Sulphur ), Harrison Birtwistle ( Punch and Judy ), Peter Maxwell Davies ( Taverner ) and Oliver Knussen ( Where
240-519: The English Restoration , foreign (especially French) musicians were welcomed back. In 1673, Thomas Shadwell 's Psyche , patterned on the 1671 'comédie-ballet' of the same name produced by Molière and Jean-Baptiste Lully . William Davenant produced The Tempest in the same year, which was the first Shakespeare play to be set to music (composed by Locke and Johnson). About 1683, John Blow composed Venus and Adonis , often thought of as
280-568: The Princess's Theatre and the Lyceum . The King's Theatre and the Covent Garden , which were the two major opera houses of the city, featured mostly Italian and French opera (the latter usually translated into Italian). This was a source of continuous vexation for English composers who, until late in the century, had to see their works translated into Italian to be performed on those stages. Moreover,
320-566: The dramatist Sir William Davenant produced The Siege of Rhodes . Since his theatre was not licensed to produce drama, he asked several of the leading composers ( Henry Lawes , Cooke, Locke, Coleman and Hudson) to set sections of it to music. This success was followed by The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659). These pieces were encouraged by Oliver Cromwell because they were critical of Spain. With
360-519: The siege of Gloucester . In 1645, after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Naseby , he retired to Paris, where he became a Roman Catholic and worked on his epic poem Gondibert . That same year he was appointed Emissary to France, and in 1649 was given the symbolic post of treasurer of the colony of Virginia by the exiled Charles II . The following year, he was made lieutenant governor of Maryland , but
400-514: The 16th century was an afterpiece which came at the end of a play; often scandalous and consisting in the main of dialogue set to music arranged from popular tunes. In this respect such afterpieces anticipate the ballad operas of the 18th century. At the same time, the French masque was gaining a firm hold at the English Court, with lavish splendour and highly realistic scenery. Inigo Jones became
440-477: The 20th century, English opera began to assert more independence, with works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Rutland Boughton and later Benjamin Britten , who, in a series of fine works that remain in standard repertory today, revealed an excellent flair for the dramatic and superb musicality. Nevertheless, foreign influence (now coming mainly from Wagner , Tchaikovsky and Strauss ), was still strong. One example
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#1732887229285480-596: The Beach ), Mark Adamo , John Adams ( Nixon in China ), and Jake Heggie . Moreover, non-native-English speaking composers have occasionally set English libretti (e.g. Kurt Weill , Street Scene ; Igor Stravinsky , The Rake's Progress ; Hans Werner Henze , We Come to the River ; Tan Dun , The First Emperor ). William Davenant Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant ,
520-622: The Crown Tavern (or Crown Inn) and Mayor of Oxford. He was baptised on 3 March, his godfather sometimes being said to have been William Shakespeare , who, according to John Aubrey , had stayed frequently at the Crown during his travels between London and Stratford-upon-Avon . It was even rumoured that he was the Bard's biological son as well. This story was recorded by Aubrey from a comment attributed to Davenant by Samuel Butler : Mr. William Shakespeare
560-636: The French operettas (usually in bad translations) that had dominated the London stage throughout the 19th century into the 1870s. London's Daily Telegraph agreed. Sullivan produced a few light operas in the late 1880s and 1890s that were of a more serious nature than most of the G&;S series, including The Yeomen of the Guard , Haddon Hall and The Beauty Stone , but Ivanhoe (which ran for 155 consecutive performances, using alternating casts—a record then and now) survives as his only real grand opera . Late in
600-639: The Royal Opera House The Palace Theatre, London , originally named the Royal English Opera House and intended as a home for English Grand Opera English's Opera House , a former theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title English Opera . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
640-521: The Wild Things Are ). Today composers such as Thomas Adès continue to export English opera abroad. Also in the 20th century, American composers like George Gershwin ( Porgy and Bess ), Scott Joplin ( Treemonisha ), Gian Carlo Menotti , Leonard Bernstein ( Candide ), and Carlisle Floyd began to contribute English-language operas, frequently infused with touches of popular musical styles. They were followed by Philip Glass ( Einstein on
680-558: The century composers such as Isidore de Lara , Delius and Dame Ethel Smyth , owing to the difficulties of getting serious English operas staged at home, caused in part by the popularity of light opera, turned to the Continent to seek their fortune, with De Lara becoming very popular in France and in Italy (his opera Messaline being the first work by an Englishman to be produced at La Scala ). In
720-666: The constant presence of a foreign language opera season in the city meant that the operas of indigenous composers had constantly to compete with those of the great Italian composers, as well as those of Weber , Meyerbeer , Fromental Halévy and Gounod (the last three usually performed in Italian at the Covent Garden), which continued to dominate the musical stage in England. Beside Balfe, whose operas were translated into German, French and Italian ( The Bohemian Girl as La Zingara , for Trieste),
760-527: The first English composer to experiment with Italian-style all-sung comic opera, unsuccessfully in The Temple of Dullness (1745), Henry and Emma (1749) and Don Saverio (1750), but triumphantly in Thomas and Sally (1760). His opera Artaxerxes (1762) was the first attempt to set a full-blown opera seria in English and was a huge success, holding the stage until the 1830s. His modernized ballad opera, Love in
800-458: The first true English-language opera. Blow's immediate successor was the better known Henry Purcell . Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and Aeneas (1689), in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within
840-551: The initial production of his adaptation of Shakespeare 's The Tempest , written with John Dryden , who would be named the next (and first officially by letters patent ) Poet Laureate. He died in London on 7 April 1668, shortly after his final play, The Man's the Master , was first performed. He is buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey where the inscription on his tablet reads "O rare Sir William Davenant". It has been noted that
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#1732887229285880-497: The leading designer of these productions, and this style was to dominate the English stage for three centuries. These masques contained songs and dances. In Ben Jonson 's Lovers Made Men (1617), "the whole masque was sung after the Italian manner, stilo recitativo". The approach of the English Commonwealth closed theatres and halted any developments that may have led to the establishment of English opera. However, in 1656,
920-474: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_Opera&oldid=1220415284 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Opera in English In England, one of opera's antecedents in
960-662: The major models for imitation. The beginning of the Victorian era saw a short but particularly intense period of creativity, roughly up to the 1850s, partially thanks to the keen interest in music of the Queen and of Prince Albert . The Romantic operas of Michael Balfe (the only one whose fame spread throughout Europe ), Julius Benedict , John Barnett , Edward Loder , G. A. Macfarren and William Wallace achieved great popularity both in Great Britain and Ireland. John Barnett made
1000-560: The most popular forms of indigenous entertainment in the second half of the 19th century were burlesques and late Victorian era light operas , notably the Savoy Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan , both of which frequently spoofed operatic conventions. Sullivan wrote only one grand opera, Ivanhoe (following the efforts of a number of young English composers beginning about 1876), but he claimed that even his light operas were to be part of an "English" opera school, intended to supplant
1040-574: The only other composers to gain so renown on the Continent and to have their operas translated into a foreign language were Benedict (into his native German) and Wallace (also in German). After the 1870s, the reputation of English Romantic Opera slowly started to decline until, by the end of the century, most critics' opinion was against them. The only works to be still performed well into the 1930s were The Bohemian Girl , Maritana and The Lily of Killarney . Beside foreign opera and European operetta,
1080-607: The original inscription on Ben Jonson's tablet, which was already removed by the time Davenant died, was "O Rare Ben", which was the name Shakespeare supposedly had for Jonson. "O Rare" is a play on the Latin orare , to pray. Nine of his works, though they were previously licensed or produced in London during his life as were all of his plays, were finally published in print posthumously. Several of these were included in The Works of Sr William D'avenant Kt. , by Henry Herringman in 1673, which
1120-489: The other dominating forces in English opera at this time was George Frideric Handel , whose opera serias filled the London operatic stages for decades, and influenced most home-grown composers, such as John Frederick Lampe , to write using Italian models in imitation of him. Throughout the second half of the 18th the most popular English genre proved to be ballad opera. Some notable composers include Arne's son Michael Arne , Dibdin , Linley Jr. , Arnold , Hook , Shield ,
1160-545: The same thing suggests that the story that "Sir William was more than Shakespeare's mere poetical offspring was common in Davenant's lifetime." In 1618, after Shakespeare's death, the 12-year-old Davenant wrote an ode " In Remembrance of Master Shakespeare ". He attended Lincoln College, Oxford , for a while in about 1620, but left before gaining any degree, becoming a page to the Duchess of Richmond. In London in 1630, he contracted
1200-418: The story as above, in which way his mother had a very light report, whereby she was called a Whore. It has been suggested that Davenant simply meant that he saw himself as a literary son of Shakespeare, in the same way that followers of Ben Jonson called themselves the " Sons of Ben ". However, according to Samuel Schoenbaum , since Aubrey's comment was unpublished, the existence of some other sources saying
1240-515: The structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen (1692) and Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess (1690) and Bonduca (1696). The main characters of the play tend not to be involved in the musical scenes, which means that Purcell was rarely able to develop his characters through song. Despite these hindrances, his aim (and that of his collaborator John Dryden )
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1280-539: The tenor Michael Kelly , Stephen Storace and Mozart's favourite pupil Attwood . The most successful composer of the late Georgian era was Henry Bishop , whose song Home! Sweet Home! from the opera Clari, or the Maid of Milan is still popular today. While throughout the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th composers had been influenced mainly by Italian opera, later in the century Meyerbeer 's grand operas and, further later, Wagner's operas came to be regarded as
1320-654: The two theatrical patentees, along with Thomas Killigrew , who obtained a monopoly of public theatre performances. He headed the Duke of York's Men and produced highly successful theatrical seasons at Lincoln's Inn Fields from 1660 until his death in 1668. Among his more successful productions were some Shakespeare plays, including: Hamlet , Henry VIII , and Macbeth , as well as non-Shakespeare plays such as Sir Samuel Tuke's The Tragedy of Five Hours and John Dryden's comedy Sir Martin Marall . He had returned to England sometime before
1360-523: Was a supporter of King Charles I in the English Civil War . In 1641, before the war began, he was declared guilty of high treason by parliament along with John Suckling , after he participated in the First Army Plot , a Royalist plan to use the army to occupy London. He fled to France. Returning to join the king's army when the war started, he was knighted two years later by king Charles following
1400-651: Was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew , Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum . Davenant is believed to have been born in late February, 1606 in Oxford , the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Davenant, proprietor of
1440-455: Was captured at sea, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. In July, 1650, he was put on trial for his life, along with others in front of the newly established High Court of Justice. He is said to have been saved by the intervention of John Milton . He spent all of 1651 in the Tower of London , where he continued writing Gondibert . On his release in 1652, he immediately published Gondibert , but he
1480-537: Was imprisoned for his part in Sir George Booth 's uprising in Cheshire after the death of Cromwell. He was, however, released the same year, and left once more for France. When Charles II was restored to the throne, Davenant returned to England. The Restoration also led to the re-opening of theatres, which had been closed due to the influence of the puritans under Cromwell. In 1660, he is publicly recorded as being one of
1520-552: Was only pardoned in 1654. In order to avoid the strict laws of censorship in force in all public places at the time, he turned a room of his home, Rutland House , into a private theatre where his works, and those of other writers considered seditious, could be performed. A performance of his The Siege of Rhodes at Rutland House in 1656 is considered to be the first performance of an English opera, and also included England's first known professional actress, Mrs Coleman. Davenant once again found himself in legal trouble in 1659, when he
1560-399: Was to establish serious opera in England, but these hopes ended with Purcell's early death at the age of 36. Following Purcell, the popularity of opera in England dwindled. A revived interest in opera occurred in the 1730s, which is largely attributed to Thomas Arne both for his own compositions and for alerting Handel to the commercial possibilities of large-scale works in English. Arne was
1600-563: Was wont to go into Warwickshire once a year, and did commonly in his journey lie at this house [the Crown] in Oxon, where he was exceedingly respected... Now Sir William [Davenant] would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a glass of wine with his most intimate friends--e.g. Sam Butler, author of Hudibras, etc., say, that it seemed to him that he writ with the very spirit that did Shakespeare, and seemed contented enough to be thought his Son. He would tell them
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