Writing plays "in the sing-song way": Henry Fielding's ballad operas and early musical theater in eighteenth-century London

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Content WRITING PLAYS “IN THE SING-SONG WAY”:
HENRY FIELDING’S BALLAD OPERAS AND EARLY MUSICAL THEATER
IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON
by
Vanessa Lynn Rogers
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
MUSIC (HISTORICAL MUSICOLOGY)
August 2007
Copyright 2007 Vanessa Lynn Rogers
ii
EPIGRAPH
Wit. What, art thou not cured of Scribling yet?
Luck. No, Scribling is as impossible to cure as the Gout.
Wit. And as sure a Sign of Poverty as the Gout of Riches. ‘Sdeath! in
an Age of Learning and true Politeness, where a Man might succeed by
his Merit, it wou’d be an Encouragement.—But now, when Party and
Prejudice carry all before them, when Learning is decried, Wit not
understood, when the Theatres are Puppet-Shows, and the Comedians
Ballad-Singers: When Fools lead the Town, wou’d a Man think to thrive
by his Wit?—If you must write, write Nonsense, write Opera’s, write
Entertainments, write Hurlo-thrumbo’s…and you may meet with
Encouragement enough.
—H. Fielding, The Author’s Farce (1730), I, v.
iii
DEDICATION
FOR MY PARENTS
CHARLES AND SHERRY ROGERS
AND MY GRANDPARENTS
RUTH M. ROGERS
HERBERT GUTH
AND
LADONNA GUTH
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I owe a tremendous debt of thanks to my dissertation
advisor, Bruce Alan Brown, who assisted me during the writing of this thesis with
his continual patience, expertise, erudition, and encouragement. I have been
extremely fortunate to have such a strong and knowledgeable advisory committee in
this venture; my supplementary committee members, Giulio Ongaro and Paul Alkon,
also gave me invaluable ideas, advice, and support through several stages of the
dissertation. I would like to thank each of the members of my committee for their
various acts of hospitality during the past years of my graduate study, whether it was
meals, books, translations, or simply a shoulder to lean on. They are appreciated so
much and made this process so much more enjoyable.
I would also like to express my immense gratitude to James Tyler for his
“behind-the-scenes” assistance with questions regarding performance practice. Berta
Joncus and Jeremy Barlow must also receive special thanks for sharing their splendid
ballad opera expertise and (in Joncus’s case) for several discussions about some of
her unpublished research. I would also like to communicate my appreciation to
Thomas Lockwood and several of the other delegates of the tercentenary Fielding
conference in April 2007 for their helpful comments and for shedding light on some
of the ambiguous aspects of Fielding’s life.
In addition, I would like to thank the fabulous women of the USC
Musicology doctoral program (recently graduated or nearly there)—Catherine
Cooper, Christine Gengaro, Diana Diskin, Sheila Sumitra, Marcela Pan, and Rebecca
v
Morris—for reading drafts, listening to conference papers, helping me with lectures
or notes, and for being such a tremendous support throughout this whole experience.
I feel so fortunate that we all chose the same program, because I simply could not
have done this without you. Lots of other folks were generous with hosting me in
their homes (doing cross-continental research is never easy!), so tremendous thanks
go to David, Mary, and Patrick Boergers, the Feits, the Coopers, the Gengaro-
Kausch family, the Lisek-Hill family, the Cullen-Rogers family, Hailey Hoffman,
April Johnson, Ellen Alkon, Joyce Tyler, and Bill and Pat Rogers.
In my pursuit of the original sources, I consulted several libraries and would
like to thank Bruce Whiteman at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of
the University of California at Los Angeles, as well as the librarians at the
Huntington Library in San Marino, the British Library, and the Royal College of
Music in London. Most of all, I need to thank my friends and former colleagues at
USC Libraries, both in Doheny and at IDOR, in particular Robert Vaughn, manager
of the Music Library. In addition, I would like to thank former Music Library
employee Theresa Horbul for helping me put some of my initial research into charts.
My greatest debt must go to Žak Ozmo, who is my partner personally as well
as professionally, and who not only exhibited boundless patience (especially while
teaching me how to use the Sibelius program so that I could create my score of The
Lottery) but also whose encouragement and support made this project possible.
—Los Angeles, California, 10 May 2007
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Epigraph…………………………………………………………………………….ii
Dedication…………………………………………………………………………..iii
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………...iv
List of Tables……………………………………………………………………...viii
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………....ix
List of Musical Examples………………………………………………………..…x
Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………....xii
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………....xiii
Preface……………………………………………………………………………...xv
Chapter I: Fielding and the English Stage
Introduction…………………………………………………………………..1
1728-1731: A Promising Dramatist Arrives in London……………………...2
1732-1733: The Celebrated Playwright at Drury Lane……………………..18
1734-1735: A Playwright for Hire…………………………………………..25
1736-1737: Fielding Becomes the “Great Mogul”………………………….29
After 1737: A Dramatic Career Comes to an End ………………………….38
Chapter II: Staging Fielding’s Musical Works
Staging Plays and Ballad Operas in Early Eighteenth-Century London…....44
Fielding’s Ballad Operas: The Actor-Singers………………………….……52
The Writing and Production of the Music: Authors, Composers, and
Other Collaborators………………...…………………………………….59
Publishers and Scores…………………………………………………….…66
Chapter III: Ballad Opera
Inception and Evolution of Ballad Opera………………………………...…77
A Problem of Genre: Fielding and the Definition of “Ballad Opera”………80
“Playing” the Audience: Ballad Opera, Fielding, and the Significance
of the Work-Audience Relationship……………………………………...87
English Influences on the Ballad Opera…………………………………...104
Ballad Opera, the French vaudeville, and the Théâtres de la foire………...113
A Brief Comparison of Opéra-comique en vaudevilles and
Ballad Opera..……………………………………………………………119
vii
Chapter IV: The Production of the Music in Fielding’s Theatrical Works
Singing in the Ballad Operas………………………………………..……..134
The Ballad Opera “Orchestra”……………………………………..………140
Incidental Music in Fielding’s Theatrical Works………………….………153
“Blank” Songs and Dances………………………………………...………157
Chapter V: Music for Dramatic Effect: Fielding’s Ballad Airs
Fielding’s Ballad Airs………………………………………………..…….168
From the ‘Black Joke’ to Rinaldo: Sources and Types of Ballad
Opera Tunes…………………………………………………………..…170
Fielding’s Favorite Tunes and Most Popular Airs…………………………176
The Musical Structure of the Ballad Airs……………………………...…..179
Fielding as Musical Patriot…………………………………………….…..181
Musical-Textual Analysis and Reception……………………………….....196
Case-Study: The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera………………….…216
Case-Study: The Lottery……………………………………………………….…269
Chapter VI: Fielding’s Musical Legacy
Fielding as Musical Inspiration in the Late Eighteenth Century……….….309
Some Conclusions and Possibilities for Future Research……………….....315
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………320
Appendices:
I. The Music of The Lottery, 2nd edition (1732)…………………….340
II. Fielding’s Stage Works…………………………………….………447
III. Index of Fielding’s Tunes and First Lines…………………………448
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Table of Salary Comparison……………………………………………..75
Table 5.1 Fielding’s Favorite Tunes…………………………………………...….210
Table 5.2 Table of Airs in The Welsh Opera and
The Grub-Street Opera (both 1731)………………………………………...…..242
Table 5.3 Table of Actors in The Welsh Opera and
The Grub-Street Opera (both 1731)…………………………………….………245
Table 5.4 Recycled Airs and Texts First Used in
The Grub-Street Opera (1731)…………………………………………….……246
Table 5.5 Table of Characters’ Airs in The Welsh Opera and
The Grub-Street Opera (both 1731)……………………………………….……247
Table 5.6 Table of Airs and Actors in the First and Second Editions
of The Lottery (1732)………………………………………………………...….294
ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1.1 Title page, Tumble-Down Dick (1736)……………………………………..43
Fig. 2.1 The Beggar’s Opera, prison scene (c.1729-31). Painting by
William Hogarth………………………………………………………………….73
Fig. 2.2 Kitty Clive (1740). Oil on canvas by William Verelst.
By permission of the Garrick Club………………………………………...……..74
Fig. 3.1 Charles Macklin as Shylock. Oil painting by J. Zoffany.
Victoria and Albert Theatre Museum……………………………………..…….127
Fig. 3.2 The close relationship between the performer and audience.
Anonymous, undated eighteenth-century engraving. From The Georgian
Playhouse exhibition, figure 16…………………………………………...…….128
Fig. 3.3 French spectators on the stage. Scene, La Noce de village,
Hôtel de Bourgogne, 1666. Engraving by J. le Pautre. Cabinet des
Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris………………………………….…….129
Fig. 3.4 The stage of Drury Lane in 1769. Mr. Garrick delivering his
Ode…on dedicating a Building and erecting a Statue, to Shakespeare.
Engraving by J. Lodge, 1769. By permission of the British Library………...…130
Fig. 3.5 The stage of Covent Garden during a riot on 24 February, 1763
during a performance of Arne’s Artaxerxes. Anonymous, British Library……..131
Fig. 3.6 Le Sage and d’Orneval, title page, Le Theatre de la Foire, ou
l’opera comique (1721-37)………………………………………………....…..132
Fig. 4.1 The Beggar’s Opera Burlesqu’d (1728). Anonymous print………...……166
Fig. 5.1 Watts, title page, iii, Musical Miscellany (1729-31)…………………...…207
Fig. 5.2 Fielding, “When mighty Roast Beef,” The Grub-Street Opera (1731)…..210
Fig. 5.3. T. A. Arne, with words by Fielding, “When mighty Roast Beef,”
Tom Jones (1769)………………………………………………………….……211
Fig. 5.4 The Stage Mutiny. Caricature by Laguerre. Houghton Library,
Harvard Theatre Collection………………………………………………….….297
x
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
Ex. 2.1 Carey, “The Life of a Beau” in The Complete English
Songster… [1762?]……………………………………………………………..76
Ex. 3.1 Le Sage and d’Orneval, “Meunet [sic] d’Héfione,” Le Theatre de
la Foire, ou l’opera comique (1721-37)……………………………………....133
Ex. 3.2 Fielding, “That the World is a Lottery” (to the tune of “Ye
Madcaps of England” or “Sing Tantara Rara”), The Lottery, 1st ed. (1732)….133
Ex. 4.1 Pepusch, “Why, How Now, Madame Flirt” in Corri, A Select
Collection of the Most Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. (1779-80)………………..164
Ex. 4.2 Pepusch, “Oh Ponder Well,” in Corri, A Select Collection of
the Most Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. (1779-80)…………………………...…164
Ex. 4.3 Traditional, “Bush o’Boon Traquair,” in Corri, A Select Collection
of the Most Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. (1779-80)…………………………....165
Ex. 4.4 Pepusch, Overture, first page, The Beggar’s Opera, 4th ed. (1734)…..…167
Ex. 5.1 M. Arne, with words by Fielding, first page, “While the sweet
blushing Spring,” The Fathers (1778)……………………………………….....206
Ex. 5.2 Handel, libretto (in Italian and English), “Sì, caro, sì,”
Admetus (1727)……………………………………………………………..…..208
Ex. 5.3 Fielding, “The dusky Night rides down the sky,” Don Quixote
in England (1734)…………………………………………………………...…..213
Ex. 5.4 T. A. Arne, with words by Fielding, “The Dusky Night Rides
Down the Sky” song sheet, British Library [1778?]………………………...…..214
Ex. 5.5 Traditional, “The Original Coal-black Joak,” song sheet,
British Library [1730?]…………………………………………………….……215
Ex. 5.6 D’Urfey, “The Dame of Honour or Hospitality, Sung by
Mrs. Willis in the OPERA call’d the Kingdom of the Birds,” Pills to Purge
Melancholy, i (1719-20)……………………………………………………...…248
Ex. 5.7 D’Urfey, “A Lusty young Smith,” Pills to Purge
Melancholy, ii (1719-20)…………………………………………………..……251
xi
Ex. 5.8 Handel, “Sung by Signior Nicolini, in the Opera of Rinaldo,”
The Merry Musician; or a cure for the spleen, i (1716-[33?])………………….253
Ex. 5.9 Grano, “The TIMOROUS LOVER,” The Musical Miscellany,
ii (1729-31)…………………………………………………………………..…257
Ex. 5.10 Leveridge, flute part, “All in the Downs,” The Musical Miscellany,
iv (1729-31)…………………………………………………………………..…259
Ex. 5.11 Anonymous, the words by R. Crawford, “Tweedside,”
song sheet, British Library [1725?]…………………………………………..…260
Ex. 5.12 Leveridge, the words by Booth, “Sweet are the Charms,” The
Musical Miscellany, ii (1729-31)…………………………………………..……261
Ex. 5.13 Handel, “Dimmi cara,” Scipione (1726)…………………………………264
Ex. 5.14 D’Urfey, “Of noble Race was Shinking,” Pills to Purge
Melancholy, ii (1719-20)…………………………………………………….….265
Ex. 5.15 Anonymous, “The Condescending Lass,” song sheet, British
Library [1735?]……………………………………………………………...…..266
Ex. 5.16 Tenoe, “Why will Florella,” The Musical Miscellany, i (1729-31)…..… 267
Ex. 5.17 Anonymous, “The FREE MASON’s Health,” iii, Musical Miscellany
(1729-31)…………………………………………………………………….….298
Ex. 5.18 Traditional, three “Joak” tunes from Walsh’s The Third Book
of the most Celebrated Jiggs… (1730)………………………………………….300
Ex. 5.19 Handel, “Nò, non piangete, pupille belle,” Il Floridante (1721)…….…..301
Ex. 5.20 Seedo, “The Country Girl’s Farewell,” song sheet, British
Library [1740?]………………………………………………………………….304
Ex. 5.21 Galliard, Part three of the “Haymaker’s Dance,” Perseus and
Andromeda (1730)…………………………………………………………..….305
Ex. 5.22 Handel, “Son confusa pastorella,” Poro [1731?]……………………...…305
Ex. 5.23 Carey, “Virgins Beware,” Love in a Riddle (1729)………………….…..308
Ex. 6.1 Seedo, the words by Fielding, vocal score, “Women in Vain,”
manuscript of The Lottery, 2nd ed., British Library [ca.1740]…………………319
xii
ABBREVIATIONS
Biographical Dictionary
EMc
JAMS
London Stage
PMLA
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A.
Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A
Biographical Dictionary of Actors,
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers,
Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in
London, 1660-1800, 16 vols.
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1973-1993).
Early Music
Journal of the American Musicological
Society
The London Stage, 1660-1800: A
Calendar of Plays, Entertainments and
Afterpieces, Together With Casts, Box-
Receipts and Contemporary Comment, 5
parts, 11 vols.; Part 2: 1700-1729, ed.
Emmett L. Avery, 2 vols. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1960;
Part 3: 1729-1747, ed. Arthur H.
Scouten, 2 vols. Carbondale: Southern
University Press, 1961.
Publications of the Modern Language
Association of America
xiii
ABSTRACT
This study examines the ballad operas of Henry Fielding (1707-1754), known
primarily as one of the greatest novelists and satirists of eighteenth-century England.
Fielding’s works are fundamental to any comprehensive examination of the genre of
ballad opera, and his technical and dramatic contributions are considerable. His
eleven operas span many styles, ranging from full-length pieces similar to John
Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera to short one-act works with newly composed music that
resemble later mid-century English burlettas. Many of his inspired theatrical and
musical works briefly eclipsed other London entertainments in popularity and were
among the best-loved stage pieces of the century.
Chapter I outlines London’s theatrical world during this period and takes a
look at Fielding’s career writing for the theater. Chapter II explores the production of
the ballad operas and the relationships between Fielding and his collaborators. In
Chapter III, the genre of ballad opera is reexamined, from its influences on the
English stage and on French theatrical traditions (particularly those of the Théâtre de
la Foire) to its intimate relationship with the theater-going audience of the era.
Chapter IV is concerned with the production of the music in the ballad operas, and
provides new insight into the size and composition of the orchestra for these pieces.
The important role of incidental music is discussed, and in Chapter V the tunes used
in Fielding’s ballad operas are examined further, from their sources in both popular
and high-art music of the day to their various uses in the operas for burlesque and
satire. In addition, Case Studies are included for two exceptional ballad operas, The
xiv
Grub-Street Opera and The Lottery; these studies explore the musical construction of
each opera in greater depth in order to give a larger picture of Fielding’s
development as a writer in this genre. Chapter VI makes some general observations
about the importance of these ballad operas, some of which were revived well into
the nineteenth century, and introduces some interesting associations with the rising
young English opera composer Thomas Augustine Arne. An edition of the music for
Fielding’s The Lottery (1732) is appended.
xv
PREFACE
Henry Fielding (1707-1754), perhaps the most famous novelist and satirist of
early eighteenth-century England, was also the author of eleven ballad operas that
were widely considered by his contemporaries to be among the best of the genre.
Though Robert D. Hume has called Fielding the most dominant playwright in
London during this era, scholars have still virtually ignored the fact that a large
number of his stage works were primarily musical.
1
Indeed, it can be argued that his
sophisticated use of music and brilliant parodies of other favorite musical-theatrical
pieces were the fundamental reasons for the enormous success of many of Fielding’s
ballad operas. This study takes a closer look into these inspired theatrical and
musical works, many of which briefly eclipsed other London entertainments in
popularity and were among the best-loved stage pieces of the century.
The very first ballad opera was John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), an
inventive satirical play with music by Johann Christoph Pepusch featuring common
lower-class characters, coarse dialogue, and interspersed throughout with popular
tunes and music appropriated from English and Italian operas. The staggering
influence of this new dramatic and musical genre reached far beyond the boundaries
of the London playhouses. One of the most popular ballad operas, Charles Coffey’s
The Devil to Pay, was translated into French (as the opéra-comique Le Diable à
quatre, later partially reset by Gluck) and then into German. The influence of this
1
“Far from having an ‘unsuccessful’ or ‘undistinguished’ career as a playwright (as is often said),
Fielding quickly made himself the most dominant professional playwright in London since Dryden.”
Robert D. Hume, Henry Fielding and the London Theatre; 1728-1737 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1988), ix.
xvi
piece (along with other French influences) helped to establish the German Singspiel
tradition.
2
The immense popularity of ballad opera helped to establish foundations
for later English-language opera and theater.
Fielding’s technical and dramatic contributions to the genre are considerable.
My study will examine how his careful selection of preexisting tunes, skillful
adaptation of lyrics, and creative use of dance music and other popular forms
provided a singular and highly successful model of ballad opera. Additionally,
Fielding was a uniquely proficient musical satirist. Fielding’s texts and music deftly
mocked the theatrical works of his rivals and the seriousness of Italian opera seria
with ridiculous similes and bawdy lyrics. He ridiculed the fashion for all things
foreign by poking fun at French and Italianate musical conventions, and sketching
uproarious caricatures of the most popular Italian singers and French dancing-
masters. By exploiting the patriotism of contemporary audiences he achieved
musical longevity with his settings of popular songs like "The Roast Beef of Old
England."
Why are Fielding’s operas so deserving of a full-scale study? First of all,
Fielding’s ballad operas are fundamental to any comprehensive examination of the
ballad opera genre, as they demonstrate the progression of ballad opera fashions
from 1729 until the Licensing Act of 1737. His operas span many styles, ranging
from full-length pieces similar to The Beggar’s Opera to short one-act works with
2
See W. H. Marshall “The Devil to Pay and its Influence on Eighteenth-Century German Singspiel,”
Ph.D. diss. (Open University, 1985) and Bertil van Boer, “Coffey’s The Devil in the Pay, the Comic
War, and the emergence of the German Singspiel,” Journal of Musicological Research 8 (1988), 119-
39.
xvii
newly composed music that resemble later mid-century English burlettas. Secondly,
Fielding wrote more ballad operas than any other theatrical author, and his works
were much more varied in length and in style than those of other writers.
Other facets of Fielding’s career as a writer of musical theater works are also
significant. For example, Fielding is central to understanding the link between
ballad opera and French theatrical traditions, particularly those of the Théâtre de la
Foire. Fielding also used more Handel tunes than any other ballad opera author, and
introduced many of them into the genre’s repertory for the first time. Furthermore,
Fielding’s operas were on the stage for a longer period than most others, and some of
them were revived well into the nineteenth century.
In addition, Fielding had a long-term collaboration with one composer, Mr.
Seedo, which was unique in the quickly shifting theatrical world of the 1730s—even
John Gay did not work with any composer over the long term. He also had an
interesting association with the rising young English opera composer Thomas
Augustine Arne; Fielding’s theatrical career influenced Arne, a composer whose
works constitute a substantial part of the development of opera in the eighteenth-
century England.
Fielding’s use of newly composed music and recitative in several later ballad
operas was unusual for the genre as well, and in fact this practice had more in
common with the burgeoning English operas of the middle part of the century than
with early ballad operas like The Beggar’s Opera. Fielding’s musical works show
the progression of the various trends in ballad opera-writing (and more likely set the
fashion themselves with their exceptional success). The operas are therefore a link
xviii
with past musical and theatrical traditions in England, as well as the future of English
opera and musical theater.
Surprisingly, no musicologist has ever attempted a thorough analysis of the
music in Fielding’s ballad operas, though I intend to begin to rectify this problem
with my study. One noteworthy endeavour of this sort was a 1960 English-literature
dissertation by Edgar V. Roberts (a critical edition of three of the operas), which was
later published in instalments in Theatre Survey and The Huntington Library
Quarterly. Though vital to any thorough study of ballad opera, Fielding’s works
were generally overlooked in the one monograph ever produced on the subject,
Edmond Gagey’s Ballad Opera (first published in 1937 and reprinted in 1968).
Robert D. Hume examines the ballad operas in his excellent Henry Fielding and the
London Theatre 1728-1737, though not from a musical standpoint, and has said that
a closer study of Fielding’s music would no doubt bear much fruit.
3
Even Thomas
Lockwood, the editor of the only complete modern edition of Fielding’s theatrical
pieces (still in progress), acknowledges that “these songs often do show from him as
bright an imagination for the arranging of comic stage music as for the stage comedy
itself, and might deserve more attention that way than they have so far had,”
presumably even in his own publications.
4
Fielding is central to the study of ballad opera as he was without question the
most prolific author of the genre. The enormous popularity and longevity of most of
Fielding’s ballad operas no doubt raises several questions in the minds of
3
Personal communication, 17 September 2003.
4
Thomas Lockwood, ed. Henry Fielding: Plays, Vol. 1, 1728-1731 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004),
668.
xix
musicologists about how they were musically constructed. How did Fielding display
his extraordinary wit and so effectively satirize contemporary politics and social
conventions through music? Were his choices and meanings understandable to the
audience? Did he choose the tunes himself, or did he receive help from other
musicians? How would the pieces have been performed on the playhouse stages of
the period—was there an orchestra? Undoubtedly, Fielding’s musical choices were
critical to the success of many of his ballad operas, and a close examination of the
way in which he used music will illustrate his technical and dramatic contributions
both to the ballad opera genre and to the development of early musical theater and
opera in England.
Since little work has been done on examining the performance practice of
ballad opera, it is necessary that I investigate the production, orchestras, dances, and
musical traditions (both vocal and instrumental) of these works in light of recent
historical research. In addition, I have been interested in looking into the origins of
the genre and following up on suggestions that the ballad opera was much influenced
by the French fair theaters; this connection is much easier to trace with Fielding’s
works than with those of other composers, as his affinity for French theatrical pieces
is well documented. These background chapters are indebted to the work of others
who have gone before me. Martin C. Battestin’s Henry Fielding: A Life is the most
important biography on Fielding, and I found it exceedingly helpful for an overview
of his life and for exploring his background, influences, and additional work as a
novelist and as a magistrate. I owe much to Hume’s superb Henry Fielding and the
London Theatre 1728-1737, which gave me much of the context for Fielding’s entire
xx
dramatic career and his place in the London operatic and theatrical world. Hume and
Judith Milhous have also published the Register of English Theatrical Documents, an
essential guide to documents in the area. A great deal of historical theatrical
information (people, places, events) was found in A Biographical Dictionary of
Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dances, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in
London, 1660-1800 (in sixteen volumes by Philip Highfill, et al.), and I frequently
consulted The London Stage, 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments, and
Afterpieces during the writing of this study (Hume and Judith Milhous have updated
it for the period of 1700-1729, online at:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/h/b/hb1/London%20Stage%202001/). Gagey’s
Ballad Opera and Roberts’s dissertation were the starting points for my sections on
ballad opera and ruminations on problems of genre identification. The music and
production chapters were much strengthened by Roger Fiske’s impressive English
Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century and Curtis Price’s Music in the Restoration
Theatre. Berta Joncus’s recent work on the use of Handel’s music in ballad opera
and the professional relationship between Fielding and his star singer, Catherine
Clive, has also been quite valuable. Additionally, there are many important books on
politics and drama of the period in print, among which Brian McCrea’s Henry
Fielding and the Politics of Mid-Eighteenth-Century England and Jeremy Black’s
Britain in the Age of Walpole have been the most useful. Unfortunately, Thomas
Lockwood’s Wesleyan Edition of plays by Henry Fielding was not yet complete at
the time of this writing, although its first volume (with its appendices of tunes and
xxi
sources) was extremely helpful. I look forward to the publication of the remaining
two volumes.
In order to understand how the music functions in Fielding’s theatrical
pieces, I made use of the printed editions of the ballad operas (the only form in
which they survive, with the exception of Miss Lucy in Town and an addition to The
Intriguing Chambermaid). These books provide some documentation as to how
music was used on the stage and help to reveal the significance of music in the
drama in the eyes of the author. I focused most closely on the editions of the ballad
operas that were published during Fielding’s lifetime and the revisions he authorized
himself. All of the quotations from the ballad operas in the dissertation are taken
from the first editions, unless otherwise noted. I have also had the opportunity to
examine manuscript parts for ballad operas in the British Library; these include parts
for the second edition of Fielding’s successful ballad opera The Lottery. These
manuscripts are quite rare, indeed, since ballad operas were normally published only
with the tunes (if at all)—never were any scores or parts printed during the period in
which Fielding was writing for the stage. The information contained in these
manuscripts gives us an extraordinary glimpse into how these popular pieces might
have been performed.
I also consulted original sources at the British Library, the William Andrews
Clark Memorial Library of the University of California at Los Angeles, the
Huntington Library in San Marino and the Royal College of Music in London,
England. Between them, the collections of these institutions contained all of the
aforementioned primary sources used in this study, as well as numerous eighteenth-
xxii
century newspapers and journals with advertisements and other comments about the
operas, first editions of Fielding’s plays and other published works, and a
considerable number of contemporary theater-going accounts and volumes of
criticism.
In 1989, Martin C. Battestin published a volume of essays from the journal
The Craftsman that may have been written by Fielding. In Essay no. 650 (printed 23
December 1738), the author discusses his “Inclination” for “dramatick Poetry,” and
decries the recent “Law made to regulate the STAGE” (the Licensing Act of 1737),
because of which he had “thrown away at least ten Years of my Life.” The author
fondly recalls his history of writing for the stage, saying that “my Plays were form’d
according to the prevailing Taste…That is, in the sing-song Way…” Various details
in the essay correspond perfectly with events in Fielding’s early life and dramatic
career. Even if the words are not his own, however, they are a marvelous means to
describe how Fielding’s contemporaries saw ballad opera, a brand-new type of
musical play that—despite the recent “Reformation of the Stage”—would change the
direction of opera in England forever.
1
CHAPTER I:
FIELDING AND THE ENGLISH STAGE
Introduction
The London theater world in the late 1720s and 1730s was characterized by
several actors’ rebellions, destructive competition between the theaters and
companies, the frequent changing of management, and wide experimentation in the
various genres of English theater and opera. All of these factors affected Fielding’s
theatrical career, and particularly his musical stage works.
Fielding wrote twenty-six dramatic works in all, eleven of them ballad
operas.
1
Most of these pieces were written between the years 1728 and 1737, from
the time Fielding first arrived in London as an aspiring young playwright until the
Censorship Act shut down his theater company and curbed the production of new
plays. Only two new dramatic works by Fielding—one of them his last ballad opera,
Miss Lucy in Town—were staged after the Censorship Act.
Robert Hume divides Fielding’s life during this period into four main stages.
The first is Fielding’s beginning years as a London dramatist (1729-1731), and the
second is the period during which he was installed at the celebrated Drury Lane
Theater (1732-1733). The third stage, according to Hume, began with Fielding’s
departure from Drury Lane in order to sell his works as a free agent to the various
London theaters (1734-1735). The final period is as impresario of his own company
1
Edgar V. Roberts counts eleven of Fielding’s dramatic pieces as ballad operas, although several
more plays do in fact include one or two songs. I include a thorough discussion of the definition of
“ballad opera” for the purpose of studying Fielding’s dramatic works in Chapter II. See Roberts, The
2
at the Little Haymarket Theater (1736-1737). For organizational purposes, this
chapter is divided into five sections, each roughly corresponding to Hume’s own
divisions of Fielding’s dramatic career.
2
As described in the Introduction, the general
narratives of each of the ballad operas are included in this chapter in order to better
familiarize the reader before my study continues with further analysis and
discussion.
1728-1731: A Promising New Dramatist Arrives in London
In 1726, the year that Wilbur Cross believes that Fielding moved to London,
there were three legitimate theatres in operation.
3
Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Drury
Lane housed the only two acting companies, and the King’s Theatre at the
Haymarket (formerly the Queen’s Theatre) was the home of the Royal Academy of
Music, the only patented opera company. In addition to the three acknowledged
theatres, there was also the “Little Theatre” at the Haymarket (hereafter called the
“Little Haymarket”), “a road-house built by John Potter in 1720 to accommodate
visiting French troupes, jugglers, rope-dancers, and other ‘illegitimate’
entertainments.”
4
An aspiring writer therefore would logically attempt to sell his
dramatic works to either Drury Lane or Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the more recognized
Ballad Operas of Henry Fielding, 1730-1732: A Critical Edition, Ph.D. diss. (University of
Minnesota, 1960).
2
See Robert D. Hume, Henry Fielding and the London Theatre; 1728-1737 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1988). I begin the first period in 1728, the year of Fielding’s first staged play, The Temple
Beau. Also, I have added a concluding section in order to discuss Fielding’s creative output after the
Censorship Act.
3
There is as of yet no evidence of Fielding being in London before 1727. See Wilbur L. Cross, The
History of Henry Fielding (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963).
3
houses, but the low number of new works produced there would doubtless be
discouraging.
5
For an English opera composer (or, more specifically, a composer of
staged English musical entertainments such as masques or musical pantomimes), the
chances of having a work produced were practically nonexistent: only six new
English musical stage works were premiered between 1720 and the first performance
of The Beggar’s Opera.
6
In 1728, the year that Fielding’s first dramatic work found its way onto the
stage, the London theater world was organized as a patent monopoly.
7
The managers
of these two patent theaters did not often produce new plays. A contemporary,
writing about the life of theater manager Colley Cibber, tells us the views of one of
Cibber’s business partners, Barton Booth: “Booth often declared in public company,
that he and his partners lost money by new plays; and that, if he were not obliged to
it, he would seldom give his consent to perform one of them.”
8
There were even fewer new operas or other works that were primarily
musical at the one patented opera house. According to Eric Walter White, there were
4
Hume, Henry Fielding, 2. The Weekly Journal, or British Gazeteer of 3 December 1720 further links
the new theater with foreign entertainments, particularly French: “The new French Theatre in the
Hay-Market is just finished; and the Actors are soon expected from Paris to open there…”
5
Hume examines the stagnant situation at the two patent theaters in the 1726-7 season: “During this
season Drury Lane performed a total of sixty-five plays (only one of them new) on a total of 178
nights…Lincoln’s Inn Fields countered with fifty plays on a total of 169 nights. Four of these plays
were new, but two of them lasted only two nights each, and another managed five.”(Henry Fielding,
15)
6
See Eric Walter White, A Register of First Performances of English Operas from the 16th Century to
1980 (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1983), 22-24.
7
The two patented theater troupes were at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Drury Lane; the patentees had
been granted exclusive control of the theaters (and therefore of all new works produced in London) by
the government.
8
Thomas Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Esq. (Dublin: Joseph Hill, 1780), 170.
4
scarcely any new English operas performed each year in London.
9
The astounding
and unprecedented success of Gay and Pepusch’s The Beggar’s Opera at John
Rich’s small theater would change all of this, but only for a short time: the year of
The Beggar’s Opera premiere, 1728, also saw the debuts of seven other new
operas.
10
It was into this bleak environment that Fielding arrived in London at the
tender age of nineteen. His first publication was a pair of poems celebrating the
coronation of the new king, George II. Disappointingly, this effort did not make his
fortune at court, as he had hoped. Fielding turned next to writing for the theater, and
by an extraordinary stroke of luck his first play, Love in Several Masques, was
accepted by Barton Booth, Colley Cibber, and Robert Wilks, the notorious
“triumvirate” who managed Drury Lane.
11
Even to have one’s play read by the triumvirate was no small feat. It was due
to Fielding’s connections at court—most likely his second cousin and esteemed
patroness Lady Mary Montagu—that Love in Several Masques even received a
hearing.
12
The difficulty of this process was outlined by an anonymous
contemporary:
9
In 1720, there was one new opera, in 1721 there were two, in 1722, only one. In 1723 there were
four new operas—the most during this period—but in 1724, 1725, and 1726 there were only two each,
and three in 1727. (White, Register, 22-24)
10
White, Register, 24-25.
11
A puff in the British Journal, 23 September 1727, reads: “We are assur’d, that the town will be
obliged with Four new Plays this Winter; Polyxena, written by Mr. Smith; the Provokd Husband, by
the late Sir John Vanbrug; Love in Several Masks, by Mr. Fielding; and a Comedy of Shakespear’s,
never yet publish’d. All of them will be acted at the Theatre in Drury Lane.”
12
Fielding dedicates the work to her, praising her “accurate Judgement.” Lady Mary was a close
friend of Fielding’s and he valued her criticism and political opinions very highly. For more on this
extraordinary woman, see Isobel Grundy’s Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (Oxford and New York:
Clarendon Press, 1999). Her complete letters are also published in three volumes by Clarendon Press
(1965-67).
5
The Author of a new Piece was instructed to pay his Complements severally to the Menagers
[sic], who, with much Unwillingness, were prevail’d upon to appoint some leisure Day for
the Reading of it, when they were all three to be present: Yet this was a Favour not easily to
be obtain’d; for we are to know, when an Author had got thus far, he had made a
considerable Progress, not one in Twenty being ever able to gain this Point; and never, I
believe, during their Prosperity, without the Recommendation of Interest or Power. Well, the
Day being come for reading, the Corrector [Cibber], in his Judicial Capacity, and the other
two being present; that is, The Court sitting, Chancellor Cibber (for the other two, like M----
-rs in Chancery sat only for Form sake, and did not presume to judge) nodded to the Author
to open his Manuscript. The Author begins to read, in which if he failed to please the
Corrector, he wou’d condescend sometimes to read it for him: When, if the Play strook him
very warmly, as it wou’d, if he found any Thing new in it, in which he conceived he cou’d
particularly shine as an Actor, he would lay down his Pipe, (for the Chancellor always
smoaked when he made a Decree) and cry, By G---d there is something in this: I do not know
but it may do; but I will play such a Part. Well, when the Reading was finished, he made his
proper Corrections, and sometimes without any Propriety; nay, frequently he very much and
very hastily maimed what he pretended to mend: But to all this the Author must submit, or he
wou’d find his Work postponed to another Season, or perhaps sine Die. But it is most certain
Wilks never pretended to interpose here, but left the whole to the Corrector, whose peculiar
Province it was, and who, as a successful Writer for the Stage, must by suppos’d to know
more of this Part of the Business than the other two.
13
Thomas Davies wrote that Cibber especially lacked “that delicacy and politeness
which is so necessary upon an unwelcome repulse,” and goes on to give numerous
examples of this behavior. Davies further states “Not to detain the reader any longer
than I ought about Colley Cibber’s petulance, I shall only observe, that it is a well
known fact, that he…took a particular delight in mortifying young authors; his
practice of giving back their plays he wantonly called the choaking of singing
birds.”
14
Nevertheless, Fielding’s first play was accepted by Cibber and the rest of the
triumvirate, and opened at the prestigious Drury Lane Theatre on Friday, 16
February 1728. It was not a success (it played for only four nights), primarily
because it was competing with another work which had recently begun its run on 29
January at Lincoln’s Inn Fields: The Beggar’s Opera. The achievement of this first
13
Anon., The Laureat: or, The Right Side of Colley Cibber, Esq. (London: J. Roberts, 1740), 94-95.
14
Davies, 170, 172. The Laureat pretends to sympathize with Cibber when he is “forced by Wilks to
receive the Water-gruel Work (a new and polite Phrase) of some insipid Author…” (94)
6
ballad opera is one long documented, and I will discuss its influence more fully
below.
Fielding himself was quite aware of the illustrious run of The Beggar’s
Opera, and perhaps even wrote some verses for “a Song” about the phenomenon.
15
He must have been intrigued by this brand-new genre, for in this same year (1728)
he began work on his own ballad opera, Don Quixote in England, while at university
in Leiden. Though Drury Lane was beginning to catch on to the ballad opera craze,
Don Quixote (if one believes Fielding’s version of the story found in the published
Dedication) was politely refused by Wilks, Cibber, and Booth. It was not staged until
1734.
Don Quixote in England is a social satire in three acts. Fielding uses
Cervantes’s famous knight, Don Quixote, to exhibit to the audience the various ills
of English country society. The premise of the ballad opera, according to the
author’s printed introduction, is simple:
The Audience, I believe, are all acquainted with the Character of Don Quixote and Sancho. I
have brought them over into England, and introduced them at an Inn in the Country, where, I
believe, no one will be surpris’d that the Knight finds several People as mad as himself.
Don Quixote comes to the English countryside with his faithful valet Sancho
(sarcastically commenting on his master’s antics all the while) in search of vague
“Adventures.” He meets Dorothea and Jezebel (whom the Don thinks are enchanted
15
“AN ORIGINAL SONG, Written on the first Appearance of the BEGGARS OPERA, by the late
HENRY FIELDING, Esq. Author of Tom Jones, &c. then resident in Salisbury,” in the Country
Magazine 1 (March 1787), 239, published at Salisbury “By a Society of Gentlemen.” A similar song
is also found in Tony Aston’s printed ballad opera The Fool’s Opera (London: Printed for T. Payne,
1731). He calls it A BALLAD, CALL’D, A DISSERTATION ON THE BEGGAR’s OPERA, and
prints two of the same verses attributed to Fielding in the Country Magazine’s version. The
authorship of the song is undoubtedly in question. See Thomas Lockwood, “Early Poems by—and
not by—Fielding,” Philological Quarterly 72/2 (Spring 1993), 177-84.
7
princesses). Dorothea wants to marry Fairlove but is being forced by her father, Sir
Thomas Loveland, to wed the rich but lecherous drunk Squire Badger. In the end, Sir
Thomas listens to the supposedly batty Don’s good sense and allows Dorothea to
marry the upstanding Fairlove. All of the characters (including, by this time, the
Mayor, a Voter, a Lawyer, a Physician, and several others) surmise that perhaps they
are mad and the Don is in fact sane. By the time Don Quixote was finally staged in
1734 Fielding had added some extra scenes satirizing the corrupt natures of
politicians (the date of its publication coincided with the most recent election).
It was around this same time that Fielding also began the draft of his five-act
play The Wedding-Day, which he also initially meant for the stage at Drury Lane.
However, the actress for whom he had written the part (Mrs. Oldfield, who had acted
in his first play there, Love in Several Masques) had unfortunately died in October of
that year. Also, it seems that Fielding had fallen out with the triumvirate at Drury
Lane, as they had refused to stage Don Quixote and subsequently rejected The
Wedding-Day.
16
Fielding did find favorable results when he shopped his next play, The
Temple Beau, to the theater at Goodman’s Fields—in fact, according to Hume, it was
the first new play produced there.
17
It was at this “New Theatre” that his career as a
dramatist truly began, for the opening of The Temple Beau on 26 January 1730 was
by no means a failure. Indeed, the play ran for nine consecutive nights and was
16
The enmity that Fielding was feeling towards the managers at Drury Lane would soon take shape in
a brilliant satire, his next ballad opera The Author’s Farce, which is discussed further below.
17
Hume, Henry Fielding, 51.
8
revived occasionally thereafter.
18
Unfortunately, Goodman’s Fields was closed by
the Lord Mayor later that same year.
The prologue to The Temple Beau was written by Fielding’s friend James
Ralph (1705-62). It is probably no coincidence that after this collaboration both men
produced similar ballad operas that opened around the same time at different
theaters: Ralph’s The Fashionable Lady: or, Harlequin’s Opera (which played at
Goodman’s Fields), and Fielding’s The Author’s Farce. Both ballad operas are
“rehearsal plays,” and contain satirical content that ridiculed the taste of the town.
19
The Author’s Farce, which opened on 30 March 1730 at the Little
Haymarket, was Fielding’s first true triumph on the London stage. It ran for forty-
one performances in 1730, the most remarkable run of any stage work since The
Beggar’s Opera.
20
The addition of an afterpiece by Fielding, Tom Thumb, at the end
of the performance after 24 April only added to its success with the public. There
was a considerable demand for printed copies of The Author’s Farce, and there were
three editions printed in 1730 alone.
21
The ballad opera was revised in 1734.
22
The full title of the ballad opera—The Author’s Farce: and the Pleasures of
the Town—is the first indication of the aim of Fielding’s satire. As Albert Rivero
18
Martin Battestin, with Ruthe R. Battestin. Henry Fielding: A Life (London and New York:
Routledge, 1989), 80.
19
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 82. These “rehearsal plays” (named as such because of the wide
influence of Buckingham’s 1671 play-within-a-play The Rehearsal) were a popular vehicle for satire
in numerous eighteenth-century plays and operas. Another “rehearsal” ballad opera was playing at
the same time at Drury Lane, Gabriel Odingsell’s Bays’s Opera, and had a cast of characters very
similar to Fielding’s. It is indeed coincidental that the two works that represented the main
competition to The Author’s Farce’s run were such similar vehicles.
20
Hume, Henry Fielding, 68.
21
The 1750 (1734) version of The Author’s Farce is quite different, and is treated as a different play
by Lockwood in his edition of Fielding’s plays. See his Henry Fielding: Plays, 1728-1731, I (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2004).
9
explains, he “incorporates into his play those very elements he wishes to attack; that
is, he lures his audience into the theater by offering them precisely those amusements
they are so fond of.”
23
In Act I, friendly Witmore gives the main character, poet
Harry Luckless (presumably Fielding himself), advice on how to appeal to the
public:
‘Sdeath! in an Age of Learning and true Politeness, where a Man might succeed by his Merit,
it wou’d be an Encouragement.—But now, when Party and Prejudice carry all before them,
when Learning is decried, Wit not understood, when the Theatres are Puppet-Shows, and the
Comedians Ballad-Singers: When Fools lead the Town, wou’d a Man think to thrive by his
Wit? ––If you must write, write Nonsense, write Opera’s, write Entertainments, write Hurlo-
thrumbo’s…and you may meet with Encouragement enough.
Fielding, as Luckless, certainly seemed to take Witmore’s advice: The Author’s
Farce includes the puppets Punch and Joan, a castrato singer called Signior Opera, a
cast of fools (Somebody, Nobody, and the Goddess of Nonsense), and ballad-singing
throughout.
24
Adding to the audience’s delight was the obvious lampooning of a
large number of various theatrical and other popular personages, identified by Martin
Battestin as “Edmund Curll, the scandalous bookseller (Curry), Franceso Bernardi
Senesino, the popular castrato (Signior Opera), Lewis Theobald, the hero of The
Dunciad (Don Tragedio), Cibber (Sir Farcical Comic), John Henley, the zany priest
who preached nonsense from his tub for a shilling (Dr. Orator), John Rich, manager
of Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the principal Harlequin of the age (Monsieur
Pantomime), [and] Eliza Haywood, the romance-writer loose of life and pen (Mrs.
Novel).”
25
22
See Marsha Kinder, “The Improved Author’s Farce: An Analysis of the 1734 Revisions,” Costerus
vi, 35-43.
23
Albert J. Rivero, The Plays of Henry Fielding: A Critical Study of His Dramatic Career
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989), 34.
24
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 86-87.
25
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 84.
10
In three acts, The Author’s Farce presents poor playwright Harry Luckless
unable to pay his rent and in love with his landlady’s daughter Harriot. The
bookseller Bookweight will not buy Luckless’s play until it is acted, but Marplay and
Sparkish will not stage it. In Act II, scene ii of the ballad opera, we see Marplay and
Sparkish (thinly disguised Cibber and Wilks, respectively) presiding over the reading
of a play by the author (Barton Booth is left out; Charles B. Woods asserts that
Fielding and Booth were on good terms at this time)
26
:
Luck. Monstrous! Sir, I must ask your Pardon, I cannot consent to such an Alteration. It is
downright Nonsense.
Mar. [Rising from the Table.] Sir, it will not do—and so I wou’d not have you think any
more of it.
Spark. No, no, no. It will not do.
Luck. What Faults do you find?
Mar. Sir, there is nothing in it that pleases me, so I am sure there is nothing in it that will
please the Town.
Spark. There is nothing in it that will please the Town.
Luck. Methinks you shou’d find some particular Fault.
Mar. Truly, Sir, it is so full of Faults—that the Eye of my Judgement is so distracted with
the Variety of Objects that it cannot fix on any.
Spark. No, no, no—cannot fix on any.
Mar. In short, there is not one good thing in it from the Beginning to the End.
Luck. Some who have read it think otherwise.
Mar. Let them think as they please—I’m sure we are the best Judges.
Spark. Yes, yes, we are the best Judges.
After Luckless leaves, Sparkish and Marplay laugh about his humiliation and lack of
noble patronage:
Mar. Ha, ha, ha!
Spark. What dost think of the Play?
Mar. It may be a very good one, for ought I know; but I know the Author has no Interest.
Spark. Give me Interest, and rat the Play.—
Mar. Rather rat the Play which has no Interest. Interest sways as much in the Theatre as at
Court.—And you know it is not always the Companion of Merit in either.
Act III of The Author’s Farce is a play-within-a-play—specifically a
ridiculous puppet play—which takes place at the Little Haymarket theater.
26
Fielding, The Author’s Farce (Original Version), ed. Charles B. Woods (London: Edward Arnold,
1967), 24n.
11
Significantly, none of the airs in the ballad opera are sung until this act, when the
puppet show commences—in this way, the puppet play is constructed very much like
a theatrical interlude.
27
In the conclusion, a parody of a recognition scene, Fielding
ties the plots of the two dramas neatly together. “Luckless—who has been suffering
from amnesia—turns out to be the King of Bantam, and his landlady proves to be the
deposed Queen of Brentford (and mother of Punch!), so Luckless can marry her
daughter, Harriot. Luckless graciously pardons all offenders”:
28
Luck. Pardon you—Ay more—You shall be chief Constable of Bantam,—You, Mr. Murder-
text shall be my Chaplain; you, Sir [Henley], my Orator; you [Witmore] my Poet-Laureat;
you [Bookweight] my Bookseller; you Don Tragedio, Sir Farcical and Signior Opera, shall
entertain the City of Bantam with your Performances; Mrs. Novel, you shall be a Romance
Writer; and to shew my Generosity, Marplay and Sparkish shall superintend my Theatres—
All proper Servants for the King of Bantam.
After Tom Thumb was appended to the end of The Author’s Farce in April of
1730, it soon outstripped the mainpiece as the more successful stage work. The
Prince of Wales commanded a repeat performance of it, and the demand for tickets
was exceedingly high.
29
It is possible that the idea for writing a play about Tom
Thumb had come from Fielding’s friend James Ralph. In The Taste of the Town,
Ralph suggests that operas on English tales would be a hit with London audiences:
Tom Thumb would be a beautiful Foundation to build a pretty little Pastoral on; his Length
too being adequate to that of a Summer’s Evening, the Belles and Beaus might arrive Time
enough from either Park, and enjoy the whole of his Affair: Nay, it would admit of some
very new Scenes, as surprizing as true: Witness the Accident of the Pudding, which would be
27
I have found one other ballad opera where this written-in musical interlude occurs: the anonymous
The Intriguing Courtiers (1732).
28
Hume, Henry Fielding, 64-65. It has been pointed out that “Bantam” is a type of small-sized
fighting cock; therefore, “Bantam” could refer to small size, pugnaciousness, or both. For a close
reading on the ending of this ballad opera, primarily on how Luckless—the author and puppet-
master—is revealed to be related to his puppets, see the second chapter of Rivero.
29
Hume, Henry Fielding, 69. The daily bills give evidence that the pit and boxes were charged the
same high price, and that the entire cast received new costumes in the middle of the run—a rare
occurrence, particularly for an afterpiece.
12
something as uncommon as ever appear’d on any Stage, not excepting even a Dutch
Tragedy—N.B. Cu[zzo]ni in Breeches would make a delightful Tom Thumb.
30
Even though Fielding did not make an opera out of the Tom Thumb fable, later
English composers seemed to take Ralph’s advice; several used the plot of Fielding’s
own Tom Thumb (later expanded into a full-length play, The Tragedy of Tragedies:
or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great) as a libretto for an opera.
31
Assured of his place among the most popular stage writers of his day after his
successes with The Author’s Farce and Tom Thumb, Fielding quickly prepared two
more plays for rehearsal. The first of these was Rape upon Rape: or, The Justice
Caught in His Own Trap, which concerned a moral issue: the frequency of rapes of
young women in the employ of rich men. The second play, a “heroic” darker
comedy called The Modern Husband, was first circulated in manuscript to his cousin
Lady Mary and other friends (increasing its popularity before it opened). It was
finally staged in February 1732 by Cibber and Wilks at Drury Lane.
32
After their satiric portraits in The Author’s Farce, it seemed unlikely that
Fielding would reconcile with Cibber and Wilks. However, Fielding’s choice of
staging The Modern Husband’s at Drury Lane makes more sense when one realizes
why he might have broken with the Little Haymarket Theatre. In November of 1730
the Little Haymarket staged Rape upon Rape (retitled The Coffee-House Politician
after being announced in the papers as The City Politician) with Tom Thumb as its
30
James Ralph, Essay I, “Of Musick; Particularly Dramatick,” in The Taste of the Town: or, A Guide
to All Publick Diversions (London, 1731), 25-26. “Dutch” was often used as a pejorative adjective
during this period.
31
These include John Frederick Lampe’s The Opera of Operas, in 1733, Kane O’Hara’s The Opera
Tom Thumb, A Burletta (not published until after 1800), and Thomas Arne’s Tom Thumb the Great
(1757).
32
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 91, 100.
13
afterpiece.
33
Fielding, outraged by the changes that were made (an additional act was
included in Tom Thumb as well as a character who ridiculed his friend Ralph) as well
as the unauthorized stagings of his works, denounced the production in the papers.
34
Fielding decided to stage his own version of Rape upon Rape (with the new title The
Coffee-House Politician) with John Rich’s company at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Unfortunately, the decision to compete against the Haymarket Theatre was an
unwise one; the play ran for only four performances.
35
Fielding found himself back at the Haymarket in early 1731 with a new play,
The Letter-Writers: or, a New Way to Keep a Wife at Home. The work was
unsuccessful, and it is noted here primarily because it is the only “Farce” designated
by Fielding that is not a ballad opera. Another new play produced in 1731 would
have far greater influence: The Tragedy of Tragedies: or, The Life and Death of Tom
Thumb the Great. The Tragedy of Tragedies opened on Wednesday, 24 March 1731
and would prove popular throughout the century.
36
It is clear that Fielding had begun rehearsals for his next ballad opera, The
Welsh Opera: or, the Grey Mare the better Horse, by the beginning of April 1731.
37
It premiered on Fielding’s benefit night, 22 April, where the new work served as an
afterpiece to his own The Tragedy of Tragedies.
38
The Welsh Opera would be paired
with the play for the next few weeks, but Fielding had already started work on an
33
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 102.
34
30 November 1730 in the Daily Journal: “Whereas it hath been advertised That an entire New Act,
called, THE BATTLE OF THE POETS, is introduced into the Tragedy of TOM THUMB; This is to
assure the Town, that I have never seen this additional Act, nor am in any ways concerned therein.
Henry Fielding.” Cited in Battestin, Henry Fielding, 102.
35
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 105.
36
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 107.
37
The Daily Post, 6 April 1731.
14
expanded version of the ballad opera which he called The Grub-Street Opera. This
new version, in which Fielding more than doubled the number of airs (this ballad
opera includes his most famous and long-lived songs) and enlarged the drama to
three acts, was never staged. Battestin explains that it was the satire of political
figures that killed the ballad opera:
No doubt the reason for this disappointment was the second element in the successful
theatrical formula Fielding first hit upon in The Welsh Opera: the play was not only musical;
it was also political—and in a way far more flagrant than Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, or even its
much lamented sequel Polly…Only one explanation seems possible: the play was considered
too offensive to the authorities and was suppressed…
39
In June of that year, an unauthorized version of The Welsh Opera (probably based on
the prompter’s copy) was published by E. Rayner. In the Preface, Rayner insinuates
that the ballad opera was never performed because of a certain prevailing
“Influence,” presumably in the Ministry. An editorial in the Daily Post, possibly
penned by Fielding himself, condemns Rayner’s publication, announcing that the
version published is not at all like The Grub-Street Opera.
40
In August, members of
Little Haymarket’s acting company arranged with Rayner the publication of an
edition entitled The Genuine Grub-Street Opera. Still another version was published
38
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 113.
39
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 116, 118. Battestin cites the writings of contemporary authors and their
jibes at Fielding’s loss to prove his assertion that the ministry suppressed the ballad opera and actively
discouraged its publication.
40
The denunciation of Rayner’s printing was on 28 June 1731, and reads as follows:
Whereas one Rayner hath publish’d a strange Medley of Nonsense, under the Title of the
Welch Opera, said to be written by the Author of the Tragedy of Tragedies; and also hath
impudently affirm’d that this was [a] great Part of the Grub-street Opera, which he attempts
to insinuate was stopt by Authority: This is to assure the Town, that what he hath publish’d
is a very incorrect and spurious Edition of the Welch Opera, a very small Part of which was
originally written by the said Author; and that it contains scarce any thing of the Grub-street
Opera, excepting the Names of some of the Characters and a few of the Songs: This latter
Piece hath in it above fifty entire new Songs; and is so far from having been stopt by
Authority (for which there could be no manner of Reason) that it is only postponed to a
proper Time, when it is not doubted but the Town will be convinced how little that
15
by Andrew Millar in Fielding’s Dramatic Works in 1755 (with a false printing
imprint, “James Roberts,” and with a manufactured 1731 date). This final version
was supplied to Millar by Fielding at the end of his life, and should probably be
considered the authorized text of the ballad opera.
41
The plot of The Grub-Street Opera centers around the Welsh Ap-Shinken
family, with the Royal Family and members of both political parties scarcely
disguised as Squire Ap-Shinken and his wife (King George II and Queen Caroline),
young Master Owen (Frederick Louis, the Prince of Wales), Robin the Butler (Prime
Minister Robert Walpole), John the Coachman (Walpole’s ally John, Lord Hervey),
and William the Groom (William Pulteney, leader of the opposition party).
42
Roguish young Owen forges love letters in order to break apart the
relationship between Robin and his beloved, Sweetissa, and cause strife between the
different servants in the Ap-Shinken household. Meanwhile, Owen attempts to
Performance agrees with the intolerable and scandalous Nonsense of this notorious Paper
Pyrate.
41
For more information on the various editions of The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera, see
L. J. Morrissey, ed., The Grub-Street Opera (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1973), 16-21, and Hume,
Henry Fielding, 93-104. “As a working hypothesis we might guess that the printed Welsh Opera is the
first text (22 April); The Genuine Grub-Street Opera the rehearsal text of the major revision (around 5
June); The Grub-Street Opera a version Fielding polished in late June…” (Hume, Henry Fielding,
100)
42
Roberts, in the Introduction to his edition of The Grub-Street Opera (London: Edward Arnold,
1969), xxi, discusses the possible meanings of the choice of the name Ap-Shinken. The name of
“Shenkin” (also spelled “Shinken” and “Shinking”) is found in the original words to Air XXXIV by
Thomas D’Urfey: “This Shenkin was ‘of noble race’; indeed, he was descended from the ‘line of
Owen Tudor.’ The King of England and the Prince of Wales were also of this line, since Owen Tudor,
a Welsh gentleman of the fifteenth century, was the grandfather of Henry VII, from whom all
subsequent British monarchs trace their origins (Fielding’s giving the name ‘Owen’ to both father and
son is therefore significant, as is also his laying the scene of the play in Wales). In the association of
D’Urfey’s original song and Fielding’s lyrics (which claim that when the grey mare is the better
horse, the horse is ‘but an ass’) there is a profound insult to the royal family….Moreover, it is
interesting that Fielding’s version of the name Shinken in Apshinken sounds like the German word,
Schinken, which means ‘a ham.’ If Fielding intended the name Shinken to suggest this meaning, then
the name Apshinken would mean ‘the son of a ham.’” (Roberts, Grub-Street Opera, xxi-xxii) It
should be noted that all of the Georges were often seen as being German by the English public.
16
seduce Mr. Apshones’s daughter Molly, who is a tenant on the estate. Will and
Robin come to blows thanks to Owen’s letter-writing mischief, and their boxing
match recalls a fight between the two political parties. Will even makes a dig at
Robin that obliquely refers to Walpole and his mistress, Molly Skerritt:
Rob. He wanted to get my Mistress from me, that’s all.
Will. You lie, Sirrah, you lie.
Rob. And you lie.
Will. And I say you lie again.
Rob. The Devil take the greatest Liar, I say…Was it not enough to try to supplant me in my
Place, but you must try to get my Mistress?
Will: Your Mistress, any Man may have your Mistress than can outbid you; for it is very
well known you never had a Mistress without paying for her.
The next act, Act III, opens at the Ap-Shinken house, with a hostile
conversation between Sir Owen and his domineering wife, a clear critique of Queen
Caroline’s control over the decisions of King George. Fielding often disdained this
“Petticoat government,” and his derision for the Queen saturates this ballad opera.
Roberts, in his Introduction to his critical edition of The Grub-Street Opera, writes:
Lady Apshinken assumes the governing role that Sir Owen has abandoned, just as Caroline
exercised the royal powers by subtly controlling the king’s decisions (according to Lord
Hervey’s Memoirs). It was Caroline whom Fielding had in mind when he gave The Welsh
Opera the subtitle The Grey Mare the Better Horse. To Lady Apshinken he attributed no
virtues but many faults, including niggardliness, intellectual pretentiousness, hostility to
English customs (prompting his most famous song, “When Mighty Roast Beef Was the
Englishman’s Food”), and dissatisfaction with her husband. Nor does his portrait of her ever
mellow; it is Lady Apshinken who gracelessly strikes the one note of discord in the
merriment ending the play.
The scenes with Lady Ap-Shinken, though severe, are quite hilarious and well-
written, as we see in the second scene of Act III:
Lady. It is very hard, my Dear, that I must be an eternal Slave to my Family, that the Moment
my back is turn’d every thing goes to Rack and Manger; that you will take no Care upon
yourself, like a sleepy good for nothing Drone as you are.--------
Owen. My Wife is a very good Wife, only a little inclin’d to talking; if she had no Tongue,
or I had no Ears, we should be the happiest Couple in Wales…if you would not scold at me;
-------Vent your ill Nature on all the Parish, let me and my Tobacco alone, and I care not.
But a scolding Wife to me is a walking Bass-Viol out of Tune.
17
Lady. Sir, Sir, a drunken Husband is a bad Fiddlestick to that Bass-Viol, never able to put her
into tune, or to play any Tune upon her -------
Sir. A scolding Wife is Rosin to that Fiddlestick, continually rubbing it up to play, till it
wears out.
Meanwhile, young Master Owen attempts to seduce Sweetissa, then Susan, and then
Margery—all unsuccessfully—before then deciding to run off and marry Molly.
When Owen and Molly return from their elopement to tell Owen’s parents, there is a
denouement in which all of the lovers are reunited. The servants’ petty thievery is
exposed and then duly pardoned—but not without a passing shot at the good-for-
nothing Master Owen:
Lady. And have I been raking, and rending, and scraping, and scratching, and sweating, to be
plunder’d by my Servants?------
Sir Ow. Why, truly my dear, if you had any Family to provide for, you would have had some
excuse for your saving, to save Fortunes for your younger Children.—But as we have but
one Son to provide for, and he not much worth providing for------e’en let the Servants keep
what they have stole, and much good may it do them.-------
In the original Welsh Opera, there is an additional character who was later
dropped in the revisions. Goody Scratch, a local witch who takes the form of a hare,
is being chased by Parson Puzzletext and his dogs. The witch arrives in human form
and announces that all of the male and female servants in the Ap-Shinken household
are actually the children of lords, and that she is a wealthy widow who must marry a
parson in order to break a spell that has been cast upon her. Puzzletext happily
proposes to be that parson, each of the characters weds his or her respective lover,
and all ends well.
18
1732-1733: The Celebrated Playwright at Drury Lane
As it turned out, it was not just The Grub-Street Opera that was to be
suppressed by the Ministry, it was also the entire Little Haymarket company. By the
end of 1731, the theatre was “given over to exhibitions of prize-fighting, tumbling,
and rope-dancing.”
43
Some of the Little Haymarket employees were able to get work
elsewhere, including the music director (known only to us as Mr. Seedo).
44
He and
Fielding were two of the lucky ones, for soon they would find themselves at the
eminent Drury Lane Theatre for a considerable length of time.
Fielding’s one-act ballad opera The Lottery was first performed on 1 January
1732 at Drury Lane as an afterpiece to Addison’s Cato.
45
The plot is a comment on
the government lottery of fall 1731, which was exceedingly popular with the London
public. The character of Chloe is newly arrived in town with her hometown
sweetheart, Lovemore, in pursuit. She lets everyone know that she has a fortune
(really just an undrawn lottery ticket), and is swept off her feet by Lord Lace (the
wily Jack Stocks in disguise). All ends well, however, when it is discovered that
Chloe’s large fortune is only a blank lottery ticket—and “Lord Lace” dumps Chloe
back into the arms of her faithful Lovemore.
Lord Hervey, an associate of Fielding’s, though not a friend (Fielding had
satirized Lord Hervey as John the Coachman in The Welsh Opera), wrote in 1732
that he “adjourned after dinner to the play to see the new farce called The Lottery, ill-
43
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 123.
44
See Roger Fiske and Irena Cholij, “Seedo [Sidow],” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxiii, 32-33; also Roberts’s “Mr.
Seedo’s London Career and His Work with Henry Fielding,” Philological Quarterly 45 (1966), 179-
90. Mr. Seedo’s collaboration with Fielding is discussed further in the next chapter.
45
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 124.
19
written, ill-acted and ill-sung, but well attended and well applauded.”
46
The Lottery
was apparently a success, as its run for fifteen days in January—and its revival
through the century—would soon attest.
47
Fielding went on to revise the work soon
after its premiere, adding a new scene for the lottery drawing and a few songs, and
both the first and second editions were published that same year by John Watts.
After helping to write a play that was purported to be by Charles Bodens, The
Modish Couple, Fielding finally was able to have his play The Modern Husband
performed at Drury Lane in February of that same year.
48
It can safely be assumed
that The Modern Husband was the play that solidified Fielding’s career as the top
dramatist in London. Not only did Colley Cibber write the Epilogue for the play, the
cast of characters was quite distinguished in the theater world: Cibber played Lord
Richly, his son Theophilus Cibber played Captain Bellamont, Wilks was Mr.
Bellamont, and Theophilus’s wife Susannah was Lady Charlotte Gaywit. Most
astoundingly, it was dedicated “To the Right Honorable Sir ROBERT WALPOLE,
Knight of the most Noble ORDER of the GARTER.”
Since the reasons for the inconsistent relationship (and eventual enmity)
between Fielding and Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745) have been
debated hotly for years, I will only briefly sum up their influence on Fielding’s
theatrical career. When Fielding first arrived in London, his connections—especially
those to Lady Mary, a friend of Walpole himself—would have encouraged his
courting of Walpole’s patronage. However, in the beginning of his dramatic career
46
Earl of Ilchester, ed., Lord Hervey and His Friends, 1726-38 (London: John Murray, 1950), 69.
47
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 125.
48
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 127.
20
Fielding supported the Opposition, viciously attacking Walpole in several of his
ballad operas and plays, and quite understandably this patronage was denied to him.
Fielding returned to Walpole’s side around 1741 (and by the time he wrote his
autobiographical memoirs—published posthumously as Voyage to Lisbon well after
Walpole’s death—he described the Great Man as “one of the best of Men and of
Ministers”).
49
But this flattery was too late to save his theatrical livelihood. The
Ministry’s Licensing Act ended Fielding’s abuse of the Walpole administration
during the seasons of 1736 and 1737 by effectively terminating his dramatic career
entirely. Though Fielding for the most part agreed with Walpole’s constitutional
principles, he abhorred “pollitricks” and the personal excesses of politicians,
Walpole included.
50
Brian McCrea sums up nicely the reasons for Fielding’s regular
switching of political allegiances, suggesting that they “were casual, and his goal of
success as a playwright [was] probably foremost in his mind.”
51
In May, The Tragedy of Tragedies was revived on the Drury Lane stage, with
added music and dances, and Miss Raftor and Theophilus Cibber among the players.
Fielding had also begun work on two more plays, The Old Debauchees, an overtly
anti-Catholic piece, and The Covent-Garden Tragedy, an afterpiece farce that
49
Battestin, A Henry Fielding Companion (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 2000), 153-
55.
50
Brian McCrea, Henry Fielding and the Politics of Mid-Eighteenth-Century England (Athens,
Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1981), 1-25.
51
McCrea, 24-25. See also Thomas R. Cleary’s Henry Fielding: Political Writer (Waterloo: Wilfred
Laurier Press, 1984) and Sheridan Baker’s “Political Allusion in Fielding’s Author’s Farce, Mock
Doctor, and Tumble-Down Dick,” PMLA 77/3 (June 1962), 221-31, Hume, “Henry Fielding and
Politics at the Little Haymarket, 1728-1737,” in The Golden and the Brazen World: Papers in
Literature and History, 1650-1800, ed. John M. Wallace (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1985),
79-124, John Loftis, The Politics of Drama in Augustan England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), J.
Paul Hunter, Occasional Form: Henry Fielding and the Chains of Circumstance (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Univ. Press, 1975), and Pat Rogers, Henry Fielding (New York: Scribner, 1979).
21
included several well-known prostitutes, bawds, and pimps as characters.
52
After
they opened together in June, The Covent-Garden Tragedy was withdrawn
(presumably because its extreme licentiousness was generally considered to be in
such poor taste), and Fielding substituted his newest ballad opera The Mock-Doctor
in its place as the afterpiece to The Old Debauchees.
53
The puff piece announcing
the staging of this new comedy appeared in the Daily Post (16 June 1732):
We hear there is now in Rehearsal, at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, a new Farce, call’d
The MOCK DOCTOR: Or, The DUMB-LADY CUR’D. The piece of Moliere from which
this is alter’d, and adapted to the English Stage, is justly esteem’d to contain the purest and
most natural Humour that has appear’d in any Language. As the OLD DEBAUCHEES
(which is not long enough in itself for a whole Night’s Entertainment) has met with great
Applause from the Town, the Author, lest it might suffer by the Addition of any old worn-out
Entertainments, has permitted this Performance to come on at a more disadvantageous
Season than he at first intended.
The Mock Doctor, a ballad opera based on Molière’s play Le Médecin malgré
lui, first opened on 23 June 1732, and then resumed as a revised version on
Fielding’s benefit night, 16 November 1732.
54
The plot is rather light, though
somewhat violent: Dorcas (played by Miss Raftor) plays a trick on her husband
Gregory—who has just beaten her—by telling James and Harry, employees of Sir
52
According to Roberts, The Old Debauchees was based on Jesuit Father Girard’s seduction of Miss
Catherine Cadière in 1731. See his The Ballad Operas of Henry Fielding, 1730-1732: A Critical
Edition, Ph.D. diss. (University of Minnesota, 1960), 13.
53
In one attack on The Covent-Garden Tragedy (Grub-street Journal, 15 June 1732), the author,
“Dramaticus,” states that instead of putting on the play again, the managers should “invite the
audience to some noted Bawdy-house in Drury-lane, giving the old Lady timely notice to have her
Whores, Bullies, Cullies, &c. in readiness. There would be no difference in the Entertainment.”
54
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 137. The author of The Comedian did not think much of the piece:
“…and the Success of the Mock-doctor is more ow’n to the extraordinary good Action of him
[Theophilus Cibber] and Miss Raftor than to the Merit of the Writer, tho I doubt not but the Faggot-
binder and his Wife make as good Figures in English as in French.” (Anon., “Some Observations on
the Present State of the Theatres in LONDON, and on Elocution”, The Comedian, or Philosophical
Enquirer, ed. Thomas Cooke (London: F. Cogan, 1733), vii, 39) That Fielding knew French and
translated several French plays himself no doubt has quite some bearing on the themes and
characterizations of his ballad operas. Fielding added two new scenes and eight songs (all for Miss
Raftor) to the original Molière. The second “edition”—really a slightly varied reissue of the first
edition—deviated a bit further from Molière. For a list of the variants between the two editions see
22
Jasper, that he is a doctor. James and Harry take Gregory to Sir Jasper’s house—but
not without beating him thoroughly first for protesting that he is not a doctor!—in
order that he may cure Jasper’s daughter Charlotte, who is mute. Charlotte is actually
pretending to be mute because she would rather marry her lover, young Leander,
than the old man her father has chosen for her. Wily Gregory dresses Leander up as
an apothecary so that he may gain access to Charlotte’s rooms, and thus arranges for
the two lovers to run off together. In the end everything turns out neatly: Gregory
takes his revenge on his wife for her trick, Dorcas escapes her punishment and
exposes Gregory’s lies, and then Leander and Charlotte return from their elopement
at the critical hour with the happy news that Leander has received his uncle’s entire
estate. Jasper of course gives them his blessing, and Leander promises to make
Gregory a real doctor in thanks for his help in reuniting him with Charlotte. The
Mock Doctor is dedicated to the infamous French quack doctor, John Misaubin.
55
The vilification that Fielding had been receiving in the press, particularly in
the Grub-Street Journal, had not abated with the ending of the run of the unpopular
The Covent-Garden Tragedy. Fielding’s character continued to be denounced as
lewd and he was said to be solely responsible for “the horrible profanation of the
Stage at present.”
56
Though Fielding would never deny his youthful libertinism and
Marti K. Brewerton’s Henry Fielding’s The Mock Doctor; Or the Dumb Lady Cur’d and The Miser:
A Critical Edition, Ph.D. diss. (Univ. of North Dakota, 1971).
55
John Misaubin was a French Huguenot physician and a notorious British quack doctor. William
Hogarth satirized him in Plate 5 of the Harlot’s Progress, and he is again satirized as one of the
doctors in Fielding’s Tom Jones. In the novel, Fielding says that Misaubin told people to address
letters to him as "To Dr. Misaubin in the World" for "there were few People in it to whom his great
Reputation was not known.” See Barry Hoffbrand, “John Misaubin, Hogarth’s Quack: A Case for
Rehabilitation,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 94/3 (March 2001), 143-47.
56
This was written by “Dramaticus” in the Grub-Street Journal, 15 June 1732.
23
indiscretions,
57
he still made numerous attempts to defend his character. Under the
name of “Philalethes” (“Lover of Truth”), Fielding wrote a letter to the Daily Post in
defense of his stage works. It ends thus:
P.S. Whether his Scurrility on the Mock Doctor be just or no, I leave to the Determination of
the Town, which hath already declared loudly on its Side. Some Particulars of the Original
are omitted, which the Elegance of an English Audience would not have endur’d; and which
, if the Critick had ever read the Original, would have shown him that the chaste Moliere had
introduced greater Indecencies on the Stage than the Author he abuses: I may aver he will
find more in Dryden, Congreve, Wycherly, Vanbrugh, Cibber, and all our best Writers of
Comedy, nay in the Writings of almost every Genius from the Days of Horace, to those of a
most Witty, Learned, and Reverend Writer of our own Age [i.e. Swift].
58
The Mock Doctor further achieved the triumph of opening the following 1732-33
season at Drury Lane; as the queen herself had commanded it.
59
Unfortunately,
changes would soon be put into motion this season that would forever affect the
future of Fielding’s dramatic career.
The beginning of 1733 was prosperous for Fielding. His new play, The
Miser, which was based on Molière’s L’Avare, was extraordinarily successful, again
owing much to London favorite Miss Raftor. Fielding also wrote another ballad
opera for this season which he called Deborah; or, a Wife for You All. It played only
once, as an afterpiece to The Miser at Kitty Raftor’s benefit on 6 April, and was
never published. Though it is now lost, one may surmise that it parodied Handel’s
oratorio Deborah, which had opened less than a month before by the king’s
57
Fielding’s biographer and closest friend James Harris wrote about this rakish period in Fielding’s
life:
“Leaving School, he went to Leyden, whence returning soon to England, he fell into that Life, to
which great Health, lively Witt, and yt flow of juvenile Spirits, so copious at this period, naturally
lead every young man, unchecked by graver authority. His Company was highly pleasing, and his
acquaintance of course became very extensive. He conversed not only with persons the first in
fashion and quality, but with infinte others of indiscriminate rank, with whom either chance or choice
he was associated.” This is from Harris’s unpublished “An Essay on the Life and Genius of Henry
Fielding, Esq.” (1758), which is in the personal collection of the Earl of Malmesbury. Quoted in
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 144.
58
Cited in Battestin, Henry Fielding, 143.
24
command at the Opera House at the Haymarket on a Saturday night. That an
oratorio was scheduled for the first time ever on a night usually reserved for an
Italian opera caused much sensation in the press, and a faction of opera-lovers sought
to boycott Handel’s new work. It is easy to guess that Fielding had decided to join
the anti-Handel forces and mount a production that satirized the famous composer’s
new oratorio.
60
Though the 1732-33 season was Fielding’s most prosperous year,
61
it would
also prove to be the most difficult of his illustrious dramatic career. The royal patent
again was granted to the triumvirate of Cibber, Wilks, and Booth, but Booth sold his
share in the partnership this same year to John Highmore. Soon after, Wilks died,
and his wife’s share in the triumvirate was controlled by her deputy, John “Jack”
Ellys. Cibber initially gave his share to his son, Theophilus, but later in 1733 sold it
instead at a higher price to John Highmore.
62
Theophilus, convinced that he had been
59
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 162.
60
See Battestin, Henry Fielding, 164-5. “The Town would understand that if they came to ‘Kitty’
Raftor’s benefit, they would be treated to a burlesque of Handel’s oratorio. If, as seems likely, that is
what Fielding gave them, we may imagine the reactions of the King to this mockery of his favorite
composer, and of Walpole to any further possibility that his pet ‘project’ and Handel’s might be
satirically associated. Only pressure from this high up can plausibly account for the fact that
Fielding’s Deborah not only never had a second performance, but was never published.” (165) See
Roberts, “Henry Fielding’s Last Play, Deborah; or, a Wife For You All (1733): Consisting Partly of
Facts and Partly of Observations Upon Them,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library LXVI (1962),
576-88.
61
Battestin reminds us that during the 1732-33 season “no fewer than six of his comedies were at one
time or another in production: at Drury Lane, besides the revised Mock Doctor, The Miser, and the ill-
fated Deborah, there were revivals of The Lottery and The Tragedy of Tragedies; at the Little
Haymarket rival comedians staged The Old Debauchees, as well as paying Fielding the tribute of
producing a musical version of Tom Thumb called The Opera of Operas, with a score by Thomas
Arne. Few playwrights in the history of the English theatre have enjoyed such popularity as this.”
(Henry Fielding, 167)
62
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 162.
25
deprived of his birthright, persuaded some other prominent actors to secede from the
Drury Lane company and begin an open rebellion in protest.
63
If he wanted to continue to make a living as a dramatist, Fielding would have
to choose sides between the rebel actor’s company—now at the Little
Haymarket—and the Drury Lane patentees’ provisional new company. As Hume
describes the situation, “the rebel actors would try to get the patentees turned out of
the Drury Lane theatre while the patentees attempted to have the rebel actors shut
down by the courts.”
64
Fielding had finally decided to back the patentees at Drury
Lane during all of the 1732-33 season, but soon had great cause to regret this mistake
when the rebel actors won their suit. Fielding’s ballad operas and plays would have
little chance of being staged at Drury Lane now that Theophilus Cibber and his
cohorts were in charge.
1734-1735: A Playwright for Hire
In 1733 Fielding had begun work on a new play, The Universal Gallant: or,
The Different Husbands, which was not staged until February 1735.
65
However, he
decided instead to renew the success of The Author’s Farce and added to it a new
ballad opera as an afterpiece. This was The Intriguing Chambermaid, which was
adapted from Jean François Regnard’s Le Retour imprévu (1700). The Intriguing
63
A detailed description of the Actor’s Rebellion of 1733 may be found in Hume, Henry Fielding,
155-64. See also Theophilus Cibber, A Letter from Theophilus Cibber, Comedian, To John
Highmore, Esq. [1733?], BL 1889.d.1(32).
64
Hume, Henry Fielding, 165.
65
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 169.
26
Chambermaid was another Kitty Raftor (now Kitty Clive) vehicle, and Fielding used
it to express his disgust with the newly-formed “Opera of the Nobility.”
The so-called “Opera of the Nobility” was a rival opera company that
established itself first at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre during the 1733-4 season
and soon moved into George Frideric Handel’s territory, the King’s Theatre, for the
next three seasons. The Opera of the Nobility had the distinct advantage of having
the most thrilling singers, having lured the popular castrato Francesco Bernardi
Senesino away from Handel and also having booked both Francesca Cuzzoni and
Farinelli (Carlo Broschi). It also mounted a campaign to boycott all of Handel’s
performances, and soon the English upper classes were divided. The rival Italian
companies made it even more difficult for the ballad opera writers to be successful.
66
Fielding’s dedication to Kitty Clive preceding The Intriguing Chambermaid deplores
this situation and attacks the Opera of the Nobility, appealing to the patriotic feelings
of the public:
It is your Misfortune to bring the greatest Genius for acting on the Stage, at a time when the
Factions and Divisions among the Players have conspired with the Folly, Injustice, and
Barbarity of the Town, to finish the Ruin of the Stage, and sacrifice our own native
Entertainments to a wanton affected Fondness for foreign Musick; and when our Nobility
seem eagerly to rival each other, in distinguishing themselves in favour of Italian Theatres,
and in neglect of our own.
The plot of The Intriguing Chambermaid is changed very noticeably from
Regnard with the substitution of the valet Merlin for the pert chambermaid Lettice
(Mrs. Clive). The ballad opera opens with saucy Lettice scheming to help young
66
Hume declares, I believe erroneously, that “despite Fielding’s growls…at the popularity of ‘Italian’
Warblers’, opera was irrelevant to the problems of English actors and playwrights.” (Henry Fielding,
171)
27
lovers Valentine and Charlotte. She waylays Charlotte’s elderly suitor, Mr.
Oldcastle, and tells him to stay away from Charlotte, insulting and teasing him:
Lett. ..and to let you see I think you fit for a Husband, I’ll have you myself. ! Who can be
more proper for a Husband, than a Man of your Age and Taste? for I think that you cou’d not
have the Conscience to live above a Year or a Year and half at most: And I think a good
plentiful Jointure wou’d make amends for ones enduring you as long as that; provided we
live in separate parts of the House, and one and a good handsom Groom of the Chambers to
attend one. [She sings an air]
Master Valentine’s father Goodall returns home from the Indies, and Lettice lies in
wait at the door of the house in order to intercept him so that he does not find out that
his son has been accruing tremendous debts while under the influence of unsuitable
acquaintances. Lettice uses many clever tricks to throw him off the track, but
eventually the secret is found out. Valentine asks forgiveness from his father and
Goodall convinces Charlotte’s benefactor that the two young people should be
married.
Even the success of this new ballad opera was not enough to revive the
fortunes of Fielding and the patentees—Theophilus Cibber and the other actors had
won their suit, and in March of 1734 they returned to Drury Lane.
67
Fielding was
forced to leave Drury Lane for the Little Haymarket, where he produced his formerly
rejected ballad opera, Don Quixote in England (now expanded into a three-act
version including many new airs from the ill-fated Grub-Street Opera). It was
during this year, also, that Fielding’s secret new position as Opposition satirist at The
Craftsman journal had begun, and in the fall he married Charlotte Cradock.
When Fielding returned from Bath, where he and Charlotte had been married,
he immediately tried to reconcile with Theophilus Cibber and attempted to launch
67
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 172.
28
two new works on the Drury Lane stage. The first was the play The Universal
Gallant, which though rehearsed the previous season had never been performed, and
the second was Fielding’s newest ballad opera, An Old Man Taught Wisdom; or, the
Virgin Unmasked, which was an afterpiece to another play. The first night, 6
January 1735, was not a success for the new afterpiece, but after several revisions
(including the elimination of eight airs) An Old Man Taught Wisdom would go on to
be one of the longest-lasting works in the repertory.
68
In fact, Clive would later
reprise the popular role of the main character, ditzy Lucy, in a sequel, Miss Lucy in
Town, in 1742.
An Old Man Taught Wisdom (often billed simply as The Virgin Unmask’d)
opens with the wealthy Goodwill in conversation with his silly daughter, Lucy. He
has amassed a fortune that will go to Lucy upon marriage, and he asks her whether
she would like to find a husband. Lucy says that she would rather have a new coach,
but when pressed, replies that she would like to marry Mr. Thomas—a lowly
footman, much to her father’s dismay:
Lucy. A Footman! he looks a thousand times more like a Gentleman than either Squire
Foxchase or Squire Tankard, and talks more like one, ay, and smells more like one too. His
Head is so prettily drest, done all down upon the top with Sugar, like a frosted Cake, with
three little Curls of each side, that you may see his Ears as plain! and then, his Hair is done
up behind just like a fine Lady’s, with a little little Hat, and a Pair of charming white
Stockins, as neat and as fine as any white-legg’d Fowl; and he always carries a great
swinging Stick in his Hand, as big as himself, that he wou’d knock any Dog down with who
was to offer to bite me. A Footman indeed!…Icod, I shou’d have had him before now, but
that Folks told me I shou’d have a Man with a Coach, and that methinks I had rather have a
great and a great deal.
68
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 181.
29
Good. I am amaz’d! But I abhor the mercenary Temper in the Girl, worse than all.—What,
Child, wou’d you have any one with a Coach? Wou’d you have Mr. Achum?
Lucy. Yes indeed, wou’d I, for a Coach.
Good. Why, he is a Cripple, and can scarce walk across the Room.
Lucy. What signifies that?
Throughout the rest of the ballad opera, Lucy accepts the proposals of one suitor
after another, including her ugly cousins Blister, an Apothecary, Coupee, a Dancing-
Master, Bookish, a Student, Quaver, a Singing-Master, and Wormwood, a Lawyer.
In the end, however, she runs off with the footman Mr. Thomas, who certainly seems
to be the most sensible match for the girl.
Fielding’s prospects at the end of the 1734-35 season were at an all-time low,
primarily because of the unfortunate Universal Gallant. He now had a wife to
support, and he had made many enemies by taking sides during the Actor’s
Rebellion. Hume describes Fielding’s circumstances during this time:
For the second year in a row his income from the theatre was probably little more than £100,
and in 1734-35 it may have been significantly less. Worse yet, the prospects of getting new
mainpieces staged were increasingly poor. Drury Lane had gone sour for him—and was
about to embark on a repertory policy that basically excluded new plays. Covent Garden and
Goodman’s Fields were headed in much the same direction. In 1734-35 not even the Little
Haymarket could serve as a refuge: it was occupied the whole season by a visiting troupe of
French comedians. Lincoln’s Inn Fields was available, but fringe company activity had
fallen to its lowest level since 1727-28.
Fielding had some luck when Charlotte’s mother died and left her daughter a small
inheritance. Their money troubles abated for a while, and he began to look around
for alternate theaters where his works would be accepted.
30
1736-1737: Fielding Becomes the “Great Mogul”
Fielding retired to the country with his wife Charlotte, but returned to London
in January 1736 in a legal battle with his creditors.
69
After unsuccessfully shopping a
new (unnamed) play to John Rich over at Covent Garden, Fielding decided to set
himself up as manager at Little Haymarket, and was assisted in this endeavor by his
friend James Ralph.
70
Though scholars have long been confused about the specifics
of Fielding’s company—from how he assembled his acting troupe to how long he
was actually in charge of performances at the Little Haymarket—it is clear that he
was essentially the impresario at the venue for most of the performances of the 1736
and 1737 theatrical seasons.
71
Fielding’s company would prove to be enormously
influential, as it was the first troupe in modern history to present two seasons of
entirely contemporary plays and ballad operas.
In February 1736, as Fielding’s comical puff announces, “the Great Mogul’s
Company of English Comedians, Newly Imported” was ready to take on the two
warring Italian opera companies by appealing to the audience’s patriotic feelings
with a new play:
HAY-MARKET
By the Great Mogul’s Company of English Comedians,
Newly Imported.
AT the New Theatre in the Hay-Market,
Friday, March 5, will be presented
PASQUIN,
A Dramatic SATYR on the Times.
72
69
See Battestin, Henry Fielding, 190-91.
70
For more on the play probably proposed by Fielding, see Hume, Henry Fielding, 200-201. Davies
mentions the collaboration between Fielding and Ralph in his Memoirs of Garrick: “About the year
1735, he [Ralph] commenced a managing partner with Mr. Fielding in the Hay-Market theatre.” (183)
71
For a full description of how Fielding came to have his own company, see Hume, Henry Fielding,
203-209.
72
London Daily Post, and General Advertiser, 24 February 1736, and 5 March 1736. The end of this
second puff jests: “N.B. The Cloaths are old, but the Jokes intirely [sic] new…”
31
It is not an exaggeration to describe Fielding’s play Pasquin as a tremendous
success, as it ran for forty-three consecutive performances, and played more than
twenty more times before the end of the season.
73
More significantly,
contemporaries such as Aaron Hill saw Pasquin as the beginning of a sort of theatre
reformation; in The Prompter of 2 April 1736, he wrote that for the first time “That
the Stage may, (and as it may, ought to) be supported without PANTOMIME”:
The ingenious Author of Pasquin, conscious of how dangerous it might be, to venture
Common Sense in the Stile of Corregio at first, has, in Imitation of some of the best of
Painters, form’d to himself a Manner, out of different Stiles, which (tho’ the Particulars may
be traced) is, in the whole, Original.
74
Fielding’s only ballad opera for his 1736 season, Tumble-Down Dick: or, Phaeton in
the Suds, was appended as an afterpiece to Pasquin. It is another rehearsal play,
written to follow this Pasquin specifically, and the afterpiece contains some of the
play’s characters.
Tumble-Down Dick parodies both the pantomimes of John Rich and the
recently produced entertainment The Fall of Phaeton: or, Harlequin a Captive.
75
The Fall of Phaeton had been a popular Drury Lane entertainment with machinery
by William Pritchard, music by Thomas Augustine Arne, and scenery by Francis
Hayman. The title page of the published version of Tumble-Down Dick satirizes The
73
Battestin describes the play as “the greatest ‘hit’ of the decade…not since The Beggar’s Opera had
London witnessed anything like the popularity of Pasquin…In short, [Aaron] Hill did not much
exaggerate the case when he declared that Pasquin “PLEASED EVERY BODY.” (Henry Fielding,
193) The name of the play even has satirical connotations, as “Pasquino” was the nickname of a
statue in Rome onto which people put anonymous satirical verses on St. Mark’s feast day.
74
The Prompter, 2 April 1736.
75
Fielding dedicates the opera to John Rich, theater manager and the most popular Harlequin of his
day, by using his stage name, “Lun.” The dedication is also an insult to Rich, because as theater
director he refused one of Fielding’s plays and even accused him of plagiarizing Pasquin from John
Hoadly. (Battestin, Henry Fielding, 202-203). The dedication reads to “Mr. JOHN LUN, Vulgarly
call’d ESQUIRE.”
32
Fall of Phaeton by describing itself as “Being (‘tis hop’d) the last Entertainment that
will ever be exhibited on any Stage. Invented by the Ingenious MONSIEUR SANS
ESPRIT. The Musick compos’d by the Harmonious SIGNIOR WARBLERINI. And the
Scenes painted by the Prodigious MYNHEER VAN BOTTOM-FLAT” (see Fig. 1.1). In
the Dedication, Fielding sardonically “thanks” Rich for his previous refusals of his
plays and ballad operas—the primary reason Fielding developed his own company:
I am oblig’d to you for the Indifference you shew’d at my Proposal to you of bringing a Play
on your Stage this Winter, which immediately determin’d me against any further pursuing
that Project…
The plot of Tumble-Down Dick is a farce based on Ovid’s story of the sun
god Phoebus (Apollo) and his son Phaeton, who convinces his father to let him drive
the chariot of the sun for one day. Though all of the gods involved in the tragic myth
do appear in Fielding’s entertainment, it seems that the comic interludes, with
Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot, and multitudes of dancers, take up much more space
than the alleged plot. In fact, all of the characters, both “serious” and comic, insist on
dancing and singing all through the ballad opera in order to celebrate everything that
occurs. Throughout, the action is commented upon by Fustian, an author, and
Sneerwell, a critic, and the music occurs under the direction of Machine, a composer.
Perhaps a falling-out with Kitty Clive caused Fielding to parody her with the wanton
character of Clymene, Phaeton’s mother. He uses the role to make jibes at those
husbands who allow their wives to sleep with important men in order to gain
something for themselves; in the ballad opera, Clymene berates her husband, Old
Phaeton, for admonishing her for this very deed:
Cly. Good Cobler, do not thus indulge your Rage,
But, like your brighter Brethren of the Age,
33
Think it enough your Betters do the Deed,
And that by Horning you I mend the Breed.
Old Phae. Madam, if Horns I on my Head must wear,
‘Tis equal to me who shall graft them there.
Cly. To London, go, thou out-of-fashion Fool,
And thou wilt learn in that great Cuckholds School,
That every Man who wears the Marriage-Fetters,
Is glad to be the Cuckhold of his Betters;
Therefore, no longer at your Fate repine,
For in your Stall the Sun shall ever shine.
At the end of the ballad opera, the gods Jupiter, Neptune, and Phoebus enter
to bicker about the unfortunate fate of Phaeton, who has been killed by Jupiter during
his mad ride across the sky in his father’s chariot. They distract themselves from the
argument by taking shots at The Fall of Phaeton at Drury Lane and John Rich’s
management in general over at Covent Garden:
76
Jup. I sha’l dispute with you here no longer; so either take up your Lanthorn, and mind your
Business, or I’ll dispose of it to somebody else. I would not have you think I want Suns, for
there were two very fine ones that shone together at Drury-Lane Play-House; I myself saw
‘em, for I was in the same Entertainment.
Phoeb. I saw ‘em too, but they were more like Moons than Suns; and as like any thing else,
as either. You had better send for the Sun from Covent-Garden House, there’s a Sun that
hatches an Egg there, and produces a Harlequin.
Jup. Yes, I remember that; but do you know what Animal laid that Egg?
Phoeb. Not I.
Jup. Sir, that Egg was laid by an Ass.
Phoebus then resigns himself to losing his only son:
Phoeb. Well, if I must, I must; and since you have destroy’d my Son, I must find out some
handsome Wench, and get another.
76
A contemporary describes a pantomime at Rich’s theater: “The scene represents a farmhouse, in
front of which is a dunghill with an egg, the size of an ostrich’s, on it. This egg, owing to the heat of
the sun, grows gradually larger and larger; when it is of a very large size, it cracks open, and a little
Harlequin comes out of it. He is of the size of a child of three or four years old, and little by little
attains a natural height.” From A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. & George II.:
The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to his Family, transl. and ed. Madame van Muyden
(London: John Murray, 1902), 274-75.
34
The final scene of Tumble-Down Dick shows Machine, Fustian, and Sneerwell
observing the Drury Lane theater and Covent Garden, “two Play-Houses Side by
Side…both their Doors are shut up.” There is a pantomime of actors coming to
knock on the doors of both of the theaters and then a quarrel between them and the
managers. Fustian is confused by the sack in the hands of the managers:
Fust. Pray, Sir, what is contain’d in that Sack?
Mach. Sir, in that Sack are contain’d Articles for Players, from Ten Shillings a Week, and no
Benefit, to Five Hundred a Year, and a Benefit clear.
Fust. Sir, I suppose you intend this as a Joke; but I can’t see why a Player of our own
Country, an in our own Language, should not deserve Five Hundred, sooner than a fawcy
Italian Singer Twelve.
Mach. Five Hundred a Year, Sir! Why, Sir, for a little more Money I’ll get you one of the
best Harlequins in France; and you’ll see the Managers are of my Opinion.
Harlequin and Columbine arrive on stage to be fawned over by the managers of both
of the theaters, and silliness ensues when a dog in a Harlequin costume also arrives
and is bid upon, too, all at the obvious expense of the English actors. The ballad
opera (as usual) ends with a tune sung by the whole chorus, decrying the recent
political antics of John Rich.
All in all, Fielding’s first season as manager was a success. Not only were his
own two works (Pasquin and Tumble-Down Dick) major achievements financially,
but Fielding produced many other new entertainments as well, including a relative
flop by his partner James Ralph (The Astrologer), Henry Carey’s popular ballad
operas Chrononhotonthologos and The Honest Yorkshireman, and George Lillo’s
tragedy (best known as The Fatal Curiosity), among other works.
Fielding’s second season as impresario opened with reports in the Daily
Advertiser of a new theater about to be built for the purpose of housing his troupe of
35
players.
77
In the meantime, he was attempting to stage a new ballad opera, Eurydice,
or the Devil Henpeck’d, with Charles Fleetwood, the new theatrical manager at
Drury Lane. Evidence that Fielding’s name would garner attention throughout
London is seen in the fact that the opening night of this piece was a benefit for the
author.
78
Unfortunately, however, this was the first and last showing of this ballad
opera. Battestin describes how this happened, and the story is well worth quoting in
full:
The damning of Eurydice was owing, in part, to circumstances beyond Fielding’s control. It
was customary at Drury Lane that the footmen who attended their masters and mistresses
were granted places free of charge in a gallery of their own. From this superior position,
besides the drunken chatter they kept up, they hurled down noisy judgements on the play and
on their “betters” in the Pit. During the winter of 1736-7 this behavior had become
intolerable. Responding to complaints of his clientele, Fleetwood offered to build a lobby
where the footmen might be accommodated during the performance remote from the ears of
the audience. This potentially explosive situation detonated on the opening night of
Fielding’s play, Saturday, 19 February, when the Pit rose up against their tormentors, drove
them out of the house, and refused to allow the main piece, Addison’s Cato, to be performed
until Theophilus Cibber came to the front of the stage and promised that in future the gallery
would be closed to the footmen. The footmen did not submit tamely to this discipline.
Having regrouped outside, they stormed the theatre in force, and, using a hatchet to break
down the door to their gallery, resumed their accustomed places while the players were
performing the first Act of Cato. Though they kept some order while the play was in
progress, at the end of each Act they expressed their triumph with, as one witness reported,
“huzzaing, tossing of Hats, and the most obstreperous of Vociferation.” Before Act IV
opened, the Pit rose again. The High Constable of Westminster was summoned, who, with
the help of a posse, confined the footmen to their gallery until the play was over, when
several arrests were made.
79
77
Daily Advertiser (4 February 1737), quoted in Battestin, Henry Fielding, 211: “Whereas it is agreed
on between several Gentlemen, to erect a New Theatre for the exhibiting of Plays, Farces,
Pantomimes, &c. all such Persons as are willing to undertake the said Building, are desir’d to bring
their Plans for the same by the 2d of May next ensuing, in order to be laid before the said Gentlemen,
the Time and Place of which Meeting will be advertis’d in this Paper on the last of April.” Hume also
discusses this as important evidence of Fielding’s plans for the future, one which obviously included a
theatrical career. (Henry Fielding, 220, 224-34)
78
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 213. Hume believes that Fleetwood had actually commissioned the
afterpiece from Fielding, as he received a benefit night on the première performance.
79
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 213. The quote within is taken from the Daily Journal (22 February
1737).
36
It seems, then, that no matter which afterpiece was appended to Cato, it would have
failed miserably.
The plot of Eurydice is a satire on Virgil and Ovid’s story of the legendary
musician Orpheus and his wife. In Fielding’s version, Eurydice is a London
socialite, and Orpheus—to the amazement of everyone, including Pluto’s wife
Persephone—is still determined to go down into the underworld to bring her back to
life. The twist in Fielding’s telling of the story is that Eurydice is happily enjoying
the social life in Hell and does not relish the thought of returning to married life with
Orpheus. She tricks him into looking back at her as they leave, so that she might
remain there forever. Fielding also inserts an “Author” and a “Critick” between the
scenes and several courtiers who comment on various foibles of London society.
Interestingly, the character of Orpheus speaks only in recitative, a satire on
the liberal use of this singing style in Italian operas. Fielding makes his patriotism
and disdain for Italian opera quite plain throughout the ballad opera:
Crit. I see Mr. Orpheus is come to his Recitativo again.
Auth. Yes, Sir, just as he lost his Senses. I wish our Opera Composers could give a good a
Reason for their Recitativo.
Crit. What would you have them bring nothing but mad People together into their Operas?
Auth. Sir, if they did not bring abundance of mad People together into their Operas, they
would not be able to subsist long at the extravagant Prices they do, nor their Singers to keep
useless Mistresses; which, by the by, is a very ingenious Burlesque on our Taste.
Crit. Ay, how so?
Auth. Why, Sir, for an English People to support an extravagant Italian opera, of which they
understand nor relish neither the Sense nor the Sound, is heartily as ridiculous and much of a
piece with a Eunuch’s keeping a Mistress: nor do I know whether his Ability is more
despised by his Mistress or our Taste by our Singers.
On Monday, 21 March, Fielding’s last play, The Historical Register for the
Year 1736, opened on the Little Haymarket stage. “The brashest of all political
dramas, it was precisely the opportunity Walpole wanted, a play that would put
37
Parliament in a mood to place the theatres under restraint.”
80
Eurydice Hiss’d was
added to The Historical Register on 13 April, and its attacks on Walpole and the
Ministry were even more apparent.
Though Fielding’s plays and ballad operas were not the only vicious anti-
Ministry works playing in the theaters,
81
they still greatly influenced the presentation
of Walpole’s Licensing Act to the House of Commons on 24 May, and its eventual
passing on 21 June. The Licensing Act, also sometimes called the Censorship Act,
did not directly impose censorship, but instead limited the number of playhouses by
revoking licenses. This was achieved because there were many in the Ministry and
Parliament who were either concerned about the morality of certain plays or (more
often) with the satirical content that vilified the current administration. Fielding
violently protested against the Act in print several times. During the bill’s
consideration by Parliament, Fielding possibly published an article in The Craftsman
that decried the “absolute Power” of Walpole over the theaters, and acutely predicted
“one of the great and original Ends of dramatical Entertainments.”
82
There would
be no more great satires or theatrical experimentation of any kind (the content of
most ballad operas), and theatre managers would have to be more careful than ever
in what they chose to stage.
James Harris, Fielding’s friend and biographer, put forth the notion that the
Licensing Act was passed primarily to silence Fielding:
How well those Performances were received, those who saw them, may well remember.
Never were houses so crowded, never applause so universal, nor the same Pieces so often
80
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 217.
81
Hume tells us that between January and May of 1737 there were over 100 anti-Ministerial
performances occurring in the London theaters. (Henry Fielding, 240)
82
[Fielding?] in The Craftsman, 28 May 1737.
38
repeated without interruption, or discontinuance. Tis enough to say that such was ye force of
his comic humour and poignancy, that those in power in order to restrain him, thought proper
by a Law to restrain the Stage in ye general, bearing even by this act of Restriction the
highest testimony to his abilities. The Legislature made a Law, in order to curb one private
man.
83
Indeed, Fielding’s last performance as theater manager was on 23 May, with a final
performance of the troublesome Historical Register and Euridice Hiss’d as a benefit
to actress Eliza Haywood.
After 1737: A Dramatic Career Comes to an End
Fielding was now only thirty years old. His theatrical career effectively
silenced, he now had to turn to some other means of living in order to support his
young family. In addition to contributing more articles to The Craftsman and editing
The Champion, Fielding was also received into the Society of the Middle Temple in
order to study law. This new pursuit was ridiculed in the press:
How hard on Poets, how severe their Fates,
Since Death alike the Bard and Hero waits!
F[ieldin]g must die, ah too untimely Doom!
F[ieldin]g must die, like Pasquin or Tom Thumb…
So he, tho’ haply as a Poet dead,
Shall teem more dreadful, with a Lawyer’s Head,
Which all the former’s Venom shall retain,
And hiss and spit to vex Mankind again.
84
Eventually, Fielding would have the last laugh, as he became in later life one of the
most prominent and influential justices of the peace in England’s history.
The best-known aspect of Fielding’s life was his career as a novelist.
Fielding’s wildly successful parody of Richardson’s Pamela, An Apology for the Life
of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (best known as simply Shamela), was published in 1741,
83
Harris, “Essay on Fielding,” quoted in Battestin, Henry Fielding, 234.
84
The Church Yard: A Satirical Poem (London: T. Cooper, 1739), 14-15.
39
the year after he passed the bar. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews
followed during the next year. It was his novel The History of Tom Jones, A
Foundling (published in 1749), however, that cemented his place in literary history.
85
On 6 May 1742, Fielding presented his last ballad opera—a final attempt for
the stage—at Drury Lane: Miss Lucy in Town (a sequel to The Virgin Unmasqued
written in 1737). The title character, played again by Kitty Clive, is a newlywed
country girl who comes to town with her naive husband Thomas (the former
footman) and is tricked into taking rooms in a house of ill repute (the madam,
Mother Haycock, is based on the real-life brothel-keeper “Mother” Haywood). Lucy
wants to be a fine city lady, and Haycock and her assistant Tawdry craftily instruct
her. The first thing, Tawdry tells her, is that she must not kiss her husband.
Wife. Why, don’t fine Ladies kiss their Husbands?
Taw. No, never.
Wife. O-la! but I do not like that tho’; by Gole, I believe I shall never be a fine Lady, if I
must not be kiss’d. I like being a fine Lady in other Things, but not in that; I thank you. If
your fine Ladies are never kiss’d, by Gole, I think we have not so much Reason to envy them
as I imagin’d. [She sings an air.]
Taw. O you mistake me, Madam; a fine Lady may kiss any Man but her Husband—You will
have all the Beaus in Town at your Service.
Wife. Beaus!…And pray then, why must I like them better than my own Husband?
Hay. Because it’s the Fashion, Madam. Fine Ladies do every Thing because it’s the Fashion.
They spoil their Shapes, to appear big with Child, because it’s the Fashion. They lose their
Money at Whisk, without understanding the Game; they go to Auctions, without intending to
buy; they go to Operas, without any Ear; and slight their Husbands without disliking them;
and all—because it is the Fashion.
Lucy is further duped into offering her favors up for sale, but is saved in the
end by her husband and her father, who have come to take her home to the country.
85
See Harold Bloom, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (New York: Chelsea House, 1987), Maurice O.
Johnson, Fielding’s Art of Fiction: Eleven Essays on Shamela, Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and
Amelia (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), Henry Fielding and Sheridan Warner
Baker, Tom Jones: An Authoritative Text, Contemporary Reactions, Criticism (New York: Norton,
1973), Patrick Reilly, Tom Jones: Adventure and Providence (Boston: Twayne, 1991), and Battestin,
Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Tom Jones; A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968).
40
Many suitors visit Mother Haycock in their attempts to purchase Lucy’s charms,
including Mr. Zorobabel (a rich Jew), Signior Cantileno (another castrato character,
played by John Beard, the famous Handelian tenor), and a Mr. Ballad. The skirt-
chasing Lord Bawble is the most ardent of the suitors, and his character appears to
satirize Lord Middlesex, the director of a later incarnation of the Opera of the
Nobility. Although the first Opera of the Nobility was disbanded in 1738, Lord
Middlesex (Fielding’s “Lord Bawble”) set up yet another Italian opera company to
rival Handel’s that same year. After the performance of Miss Lucy in Town and the
portrayal of “Lord Bawble,” Middlesex and the other directors complained to the
Lord Chamberlain and tried to sue the subscribers to recoup their losses for the
season, about 17,000 pounds.
86
Battestin calls Miss Lucy in Town Fielding’s “only attempt to resume writing
for the stage after the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 put an end to his career as a
dramatist.”
87
It was a relatively successful afterpiece, and received six
performances.
88
Fielding was attacked for its salacious subject matter—the satire of
a well-known bawd—and was criticized for his assault on Methodism and the Opera
of the Nobility in A Letter to a Noble Lord, “an anonymous pamphlet addressed to
the Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain, and Licenser of the stage.”
89
86
Battestin, Henry Fielding Companion, 243. Fielding, by this time also a lawyer, was later retained
in defense of the subscribers in 1745, and with this new level of involvement, his journalistic attacks
on the Middlesex company increased. In 1745, Fielding also became the author of The True Patriot,
and used the journal to continue to denounce Italian opera as “Catholic, foreign, effeminate..[and]
unpatriotic.” It should be noted that the Jacobite Rebellion was occurring at this time.
87
Battestin, Henry Fielding Companion, 183.
88
Hume, Henry Fielding, 266.
89
Battestin, Henry Fielding Companion, 183.
41
Though many older sources tell us that Miss Lucy in Town was banned, it was
in fact revived the following fall. Other sources suggest that the famous actor David
Garrick was a collaborator on the ballad opera.
90
There is no proof of this, despite
the fact that he and Fielding were friends. They did use the same actors in their
theatrical works, staged only three days apart in the same theater.
91
Fielding’s last
theater venture was his play The Wedding Day, which was written along with Don
Quixote in 1729 but not staged until February 1743. The Wedding Day received a
respectable six performances, but was not profitable, even with Garrick in one of the
leading roles.
Hume is unequivocal about the effect of the Licensing Act on Fielding’s
dramatic ambitions and on the development of English theater music and opera:
Had there been no Licensing Act of 1737, the developments of the 1740s might have
equalled those of the 1670s. But the imposition of censorship and the suppression of all
theatres except Drury Lane and Covent Garden abruptly terminated the lively
experimentation of the thirties—and ended Fielding’s promising career as playwright and
manager.
92
He goes on to write that “the effects of the Licensing Act on English drama can
scarcely be overstated: secure in their possession of a monopoly, the patent theatres
chose to stage few new plays, and almost never any that were innovative or
controversial.”
93
90
Garrick (1717-1779) was one of England’s most famous actors, playwrighst, and impresarios. He
influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the eighteenth century, and was
particularly well-known for his roles in Shakespearean plays. See Jean Benedetti’s David Garrick
and the Birth of Modern Theatre (London: Methuen, 2001) and Peter Holland, "David Garrick" ed.
Martin Banham, The Cambridge Guide to Theatre (London, Cambridge University Press, 1992), 378-
80.
91
See Hume, Henry Fielding, 266. It is Charles Woods who suggests this collaboration with Garrick,
but without evidence. See his The Author’s Farce: (original version) (London: Edward Arnold, 1967).
92
Hume, Henry Fielding, viii.
93
Hume, Henry Fielding, viii.
42
It can be safely stated that it was the Licensing Act that forced Fielding from
a profitable career as a playwright into another profession as writer of novels.
Additionally, it ended experimentation within the ballad opera genre and greatly
curbed the proliferation of new ballad operas. It seems, from a perusal of White’s A
Register of First Performances of English Operas, that after 1737 only one new
ballad opera was premiered each year (and nearly always at Drury Lane). In 1738,
there were no new ballad operas on the stage; in 1739, one new ballad opera
appeared, and there were none in 1740. Thomas Augustine Arne’s first of two ballad
operas, The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, was the single one of the 1741 season,
and in 1742, the only new ballad opera staged was Fielding’s Miss Lucy in Town.
94
The tradition of premiering one new ballad opera a season continued for only
a short period. After 1746, the craze for ballad operas had evidently ended,
according to White’s Register, as no new ones were staged.
95
The fashionable ballad
operas were replaced by burlettas and other types of English opera. For a time,
however, the ballad operas held a place of paramount importance in the eighteenth-
century playhouses, and the innumerable logistics of staging these popular pieces is
discussed below in Chapter II.
94
See White, Register, 34-37. For contemporary criticism of this ballad opera, see the pamphlet A
LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD…Occasioned by a Representation at the THEATRE ROYAL in Drury-
Lane, of a FARCE, called Miss LUCY in Town. (London: Printed for T. Cooper, 1742). BL 641.e.28.
95
White, Register, 37-42.
43
Fig. 1.1. Title page, Tumble-Down Dick (1736)
44
CHAPTER II:
STAGING FIELDING’S MUSICAL WORKS
Staging Plays and Ballad Operas in Early Eighteenth-Century London
The number of operating playhouses with ballad operas in the repertoire
ranged from three to five during the period when Fielding was writing for the stage:
Drury Lane, where the triumvirate (Cibber, Booth, and Wilks) reigned supreme; the
Little Haymarket, where Fielding’s scratch company took over in the 1730s;
Goodman’s Fields (open from 1729-1742, having moved locations in 1732); and
John Rich’s Lincoln’s Inn Theatre (open from 1714-1744), whose company
eventually moved to his new Covent Garden Theatre, which opened in 1732 and
stood until the beginning of the nineteenth century. According to Arthur Scouten, the
Drury Lane Theatre could hold about 1,000 people; Covent Garden and Lincoln’s
Inn Fields could hold around 1,400 each; the Little Haymarket accommodated only
about 800, and Goodman’s Fields even fewer—about 700.
1
The only opera house in
London, the King’s Theatre, held somewhere around 1,400 people, though one
advertisement in the Daily Advertiser for a Farinelli benefit in 1735 declares that “a
Contrivance will be made to accommodate 2,000 People.”
2
The audiences for ballad operas often included members of the aristocracy,
but merchants and other persons of the middle class made up the largest part of the
crowd. Attendance was particularly high on the nights when royalty attended. The
1
Much information about the theaters during this period can be found in the introductions to The
London Stage, especially iii: 1729-1747 (Carbondale, 1965), xix-xxxii, clxi. See also Hume and
Arthur Hawley Scouten, eds. The London Theatre World, 1660-1800 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
45
King and Queen were favorites of the opera at the King’s Theatre, but the Prince and
Princesses went more frequently to the playhouses where ballad operas were
commonly staged. Members of the royal family were in attendance for performances
of many of Fielding’s dramatic pieces.
The theatrical season in 1729 for both Drury Lane and John Rich’s company
(the patented companies) started in mid-September, with performances on alternate
days until the middle of October, when London society returned from the country.
The theatres were closed on 23 and 24 December for Christmas and on 30 January to
mark the martyrdom of Charles I. Most premieres were staged in January and
February of the season, and during Lent there were no performances on Wednesdays,
Fridays, and during Holy Week. March saw the production of the benefit pieces, and
the season ended in May. During the summer, actors could find work at fair theaters,
principally Bartholomew Fair (held in August), Southwark Fair (opened after the
Bartholomew Fair ended, with the same entertainments), Tottenham Court Fair (also
held in August), and Mayfair (held appropriately in May).
3
When the non-patented companies (the Little Haymarket company and
Odell’s new Goodman’s Fields company) started up in 1729, they began to perform
on nights when the other theaters were closed. For example, when a French troupe
played at the Little Haymarket during Lent in 1735, no one blinked an eye,
presumably because they were foreign. Soon, the managers of all of the houses
Univ. Press, 1980). For lots of good information about staging practices, see Cecil Price’s Theatre in
the Age of Garrick (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973).
2
Daily Advertiser, 13 March 1735.
3
London Stage, xlii-xliii.
46
staged productions on as many days as possible, including the forbidden days, in
order to compete for audiences.
The prices of tickets for ballad operas varied. Generally, the “common
prices” for plays and burlesques during this period were four shillings for boxes, two
shillings and sixpence for the pit, one shilling and sixpence for the lower gallery, and
one shilling for the upper gallery.
4
However, theater owners frequently charged
higher prices for benefits, revivals, or any other type of production on which they
thought the public would spend more. Traditionally, seats were half price, sometimes
called “after money,” if one came in between the main piece and the afterpiece.
Additionally, part of the cost of the ticket was typically refunded if one left before
the afterpiece. For his performances at the Little Haymarket in 1736, Fielding
charged standard prices: four shillings for the boxes, 2s.6d. for the pit, and 1s for the
gallery (there was only one gallery in the theater). Hume estimates that if the house
was about two-thirds full, Fielding probably grossed somewhere around an average
of £56 for each non-benefit performance.
5
The pit of the theater had the most room, but the aristocracy often desired
better seats and were willing to pay for them. Managers in the playhouses created
boxes, most of which were constructed on the “apron” of the stage (the part of the
stage which extends in front of the curtain). There were sometimes boxes on the
sides of the stage also, with standing room and even scaffolding for nights of greatly
4
London Stage, lxv. Since there were five shillings to a crown, and four crowns to a pound, we can
average that (even with today’s exchange rates) the tickets would have cost from ca. $10 US to $40
US in today’s American money, depending on where the theatergoer wanted to sit.
5
See Hume, Henry Fielding, 215-16, for a description of how he estimated these figures.
47
anticipated crowds, which were a frequent source of irritation to the performers,
whose movements were restricted (see Fig. 2.1, Hogarth’s painting of the prison
scene in The Beggar’s Opera). Theater managers from Rich to Garrick attempted on
numerous occasions to limit the number of persons on stage, but were unsuccessful;
certainly the large profits obtained from the high prices of these seats mollified the
managers somewhat.
It was usual for ladies and gentlemen to send their footmen and other servants
several hours before the show to hold seats. Announcements in the papers
instructing servants to come early usually indicate that a play was doing well.
Fielding announced in the Daily Advertiser on 21 March 1737, regarding the
Historical Register: “None will be admitted after the House is full; for which
Reason, the sooner you come, or secure your Places, the Better.” It seems the gentry
often desired to sit in the orchestra in order to be closer to the action on the stage;
unfortunately the orchestra pit at Drury Lane held space only for about eight or ten
musicians, and there was not much room for extra audience members.
6
An
announcement in the Daily Post and General Advertiser for Arne’s Comus on 6
March 1738 stated that “To prevent any Interruption in the Musick, Dancing,
Machinery…’tis hoped no Gentleman will take it ill that he cannot be admitted
behind the Scenes, or into the Orchestra.”
7
In 1736, the Little Haymarket took in on average eighty pounds a night, and
Goodman’s Fields around thirty pounds.
8
Only Henry Giffard at Goodman’s Fields
6
London Stage, lxiv.
7
The London Daily Post and General Advertiser.
8
London Stage, lxxiv.
48
tried subscriptions, in 1736, but this must have failed, as he did not try it again and
no other managers used subscriptions for plays or ballad operas later. We know that
at Covent Garden, Rich’s company grossed about £8,000 (or £70 for each
performance) during the 1735-36 season. Additionally, Rich gained income by
renting Lincoln’s Inn Fields while he was at Covent Garden. Hume has estimated
that Fielding’s Little Haymarket company made a profit of somewhere between
£1,000 and £1,400 between March and July during the 1736 season.
9
Rich’s budget in 1740-41 for 150 performances is quite illuminating. He
spent £6,104 in salaries (discussed further below), £100 in scenery and machines,
£522 for costumes, £62 for heating the theater, £85 for lighting, £769 for repairs, £80
for taxes, £215 for property rental, and £206 for “music.”
10
Prompters were an integral part of putting on the ballad opera.
11
Located on
the left-hand side of the stage (usually in full view of the audience), the prompter not
only helped with forgotten lines, but indicated changes in scenery and acts, cued the
dancers, and even filled in for actors who could not go on for some reason.
Prompters usually used a bell to signal the beginning of the music, and these
indications are still found in the ballad operas. For instance, a direction for the
9
Hume, Henry Fielding, 219.
10
London Stage, lxxvi. “Music” expenditures are most likely the musicians’ wages, the harpsichord
rental, and possibly money for the copyist. Salaries—not just to pay the actors and musicians—also
included wages for those paid to clean or light the lamps; managers also paid wages to barbers,
doorkeepers and ticket-takers; other incidental expenses added up: brushes and brooms, chamber-pots,
and advertising.
11
For an excellent discussion of the roles of prompters during this period (particularly Chetwood) and
on the techniques of rehearsal in general, see Tiffany Stern’s Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 194-239.
49
“Musick-Bell” to be rung by the prompter, William Chetwood, is found at the
beginning of Eurydice:
12
(The Musick-Bell rings) Enter the Author in a Hurry. A Critick following.
Auth. Hold, hold, Mr. Chetwood; don’t ring for the Ouverture yet, the Devil is not dressed…
Costumes for plays and especially pantomimes were elaborate and usually a
large expense. Detailed descriptions of dresses, robes, waistcoats, jackets, breeches,
hats, and wigs are found throughout Rich’s itemized lists of his wardrobe. A large
portion of each of the theaters’ budgets went towards acquiring new costumes and
replacing old ones. Rich spent £966 on costumes alone during the 1746-47 season,
and Lampe and Arne’s company at the Little Haymarket paid £32.10s. for costumes
for the run of only one work, The Opera of Operas.
13
Despite the large amounts
spent on costuming the players, the clothes were sometimes out of style.
Contemporary papers are full of jokes about the shabbiness of the costumes. In the
24 January 1735 issue of The Prompter (no.22), a writer grumbles:
I have frequently seen a Duke, in a Coat half a Yard too long for him; and a Lord High-
Chamberlain, that has shed most of his Buttons. I have seen Men of proud Hearts
submitting, unnaturally, to strut in tarnish’d Lace; And there is a Certain Knight of the
Garter, who condescends to tye back his Wig, with a Packthread. When a King of England
has honour’d the Stage, with his whole Court, in full Splendor, about him, I’d have
undertaken to purchase the Cloaths of all his Nobility, for the Value of Five Pounds…
It was common in the playhouses of the early eighteenth century to use the same
costumes for all plays set in the past, regardless of the period or country.
14
Garrick
would become an innovator by selecting costumes that were historically realistic.
12
William Rufus Chetwood was well-known to London audience. In addition to his position as
prompter at Drury Lane, he was also the author of two moderately-successful ballad operas, The
Lover’s Opera (1729) and The Generous Free-Mason (first performed in 1730 and printed in 1731).
13
London Stage, cxix. See also Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, “J.F. Lampe and English Opera
at the Little Haymarket in 1732-3,” Music & Letters 78/4 (Nov. 1997), 526.
50
Interestingly, judging from the budgets surviving for Lampe and Arne’s 1732-33
season at the Little Haymarket, costumes did not figure prominently into the budget
for the ballad operas they performed.
15
We might surmise that the performers in the
non-patented companies supplied many of their own clothes.
We do not know what Fielding paid John Potter for the use of the Little
Haymarket each night his company took the stage. But we know that Lampe paid
Potter £4 per performance in 1732-33, which included the use of the theater’s
scenery and costumes, and possibly lighting and cleaning and carpentry wages.
16
In 1736, Giffard moved his troupe to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and was ready to
sell the theater at Goodman’s Fields and everything in it. A notice for an auction ran
in the London Daily Post and General Advertiser on 26 July 1736, which gives us a
glimpse of the types of items owned by a theater staging ballad operas during this era
(note that the music was in score, not parts):
Men and Womens Cloaths, or Cloath, Velvet, and Silk embroider’d, laced and plain,
properly adapted to all the Entertainments of the Stage; as also various Sets of Scenes, with
Machines and other Decorations, belonging to several Pantomime Interludes; large Glass
Lustres, rich Screens, and Velvet Chairs with Gilt Frames, a large Harpsichord, with a
Quantity of Musick in Score.
Scenery was also often quite complex and detailed.
17
Francis Hayman and
John De Voto designed scenes in the 1730s and 40s at Drury Lane; De Voto also
worked at Goodman’s Fields.
18
Hayman’s scenery for The Fall of Phaeton at Drury
14
Roger Fiske, English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford and New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1986), 255.
15
For the runs of the ballad operas performed there, the cost of costumes was around 5% to 11% of
the total expenditures, respectively. See Milhous and Hume, “J.F. Lampe,” 521.
16
Milhous and Hume, “J.F. Lampe,” 513.
17
In Joseph Andrews, III, ii, 167, Parson Adams says that scenery is integral part of the drama, though
it is the province of the painter and not the poet.
18
London Stage, cxxi. See also chapter 3 on “Scenery and Technical Design” by C. Vassar in Hume
and Scouten, London Theatre World.
51
Lane received much enthusiasm in the press—it was no doubt parodied in Fielding’s
Tumble-Down Dick. Thomas Lediard, who had formerly worked at the opera house
in Hamburg, constructed very new and unusual scenery for J. F. Lampe and Arne’s
experimental season at the Little Haymarket during 1732-33. His lighting and
scenery for Britannia in 1732 included translucent panels with backlighting,
transparent pillars and pyramids—all hung with portraits of heroes.
19
More usually,
the stages were lit by oil lamps on the wall, and candle-lit by chandeliers and
footlights. The cost of lighting was quite high; Rich averaged around two pounds
each day for candles and sixty pounds a year for oil.
20
The theaters themselves usually had extravagant decorations. A report
of the decorations at Rich’s brand-new Covent Garden Theatre appears in the Daily
Journal on 18 September 1732:
We hear that Mr. Harvey and Mr. Lambert have been employ’d for some time in painting the
Scenes for the New Theatre in Covent-Garden; and that Signior Amiconi
21
…is to shew his
Art in the Ceiling of that Theatre; and…hath prepared a Design, in which Apollo is
represented in an Assembly of the Muses, dignifying Shakespeare with the Lawrel. And as
the several Hands employ’d, require some further time for compleating their Undertakings,
we are informed the Theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields will be opened in a few Days, it being
now determined, not to act in that of Covent Garden, till the Decorations are quite finished.
Rehearsals were held during the day, usually beginning around 10 a.m. at the
theater.
22
Scouten relates that Fielding held rehearsals at his home on at least one
occasion, as he announced in the paper on 17 August 1734 that he would “Rehearse
19
Milhous and Hume, “J.F. Lampe,” 508.
20
London Stage, lxvi-lxvii.
21
This is the same Jacopo “Amiconi” (or Amigoni) who painted a well-known portrait of Farinelli.
See Daniel Heartz, “Farinelli Revisited,” EMc 18/3 (Aug. 1990), 430-43. Fielding satirized the same
Amigoni in III, vi, of Joseph Andrews. For the many links between the painter and Fielding, see
William B. Coley, “Fielding, Hogarth, and Three Italian Masters,” Modern Language Quarterly 24/4
(Dec. 1963), 386-91; John B. Shipley, “Ralph, Ellys, Hogarth, and Fielding: The Cabal Against
Jacopo Amigoni,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 1/4 (June 1968), 313-31; and Coley’s rebuttal in
Eighteenth-Century Studies 2/3 (Spring 1969), 303-307.
52
his Play, and Practise his Musick, at his own House….”
23
The actors generally
rehearsed any given work for around two weeks. No extra amount was paid to the
actors for rehearsals, and they were often fined if they were late.
24
The ballad operas were advertised in the daily London papers; the ads cost
around 2 shillings a day. The large “Great Bills” were printed out separately and cost
£1.1s. for a set. Though steep, the advertising costs were necessities for those
staging these highly competitive ballad operas and plays.
Fielding’s Ballad Operas: The Actor-Singers
The airs in the ballad operas were sung by the actors, usually performers with
natural-sounding voices and no professional training. The singing was usually of the
comedic variety and not always of the best quality, but there is much evidence that
many of the singers had very fine voices. Several of the male singers, in particular,
went on to great acclaim singing for Handel’s company. The female singers were
also usually quite good; a contemporary critic praised Fielding’s favorite singer-
actress Kitty Clive’s voice: “Miss Raftor [as she was then being called] is without a
Superior, if we except the foremost Voices in the Italian Operas.”
25
22
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 254.
23
London Stage, clxxix.
24
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 254.
25
The Comedian, vii, 40. “Kitty” Clive, née Raftor, was one of Fielding’s favorite performers, and he
wrote many roles especially for her. Kitty appeared as Chloe in The Lottery, Kissinda in The Covent-
Garden Tragedy, Dorcas in The Mock Doctor, Lappet in The Miser, the title role in Deborah, Harriot
in The Author’s Farce, Lettice in The Intriguing Chambermaid, and as Lucy in An Old Man Taught
Wisdom and again in Miss Lucy in Town. For further information on the professional relationship
between Kitty Clive and Fielding, see Berta Joncus’s recent dissertation A Star is Born: Kitty Clive
and Female Representation in Eighteenth-Century English Musical Theatre, D.Phil. diss. (Univ. of
Oxford, 2004).
53
Catherine Clive, née Raftor, was one of Fielding’s favorite singer-actresses,
and he wrote vehicles specifically to showcase her comic talents and her unaffected
singing style (see Fig. 2.2).
26
Clive and Fielding began their working relationship at
Drury Lane in 1730, and she would become the star of some of Fielding’s most
successful ballad operas, including The Lottery, The Mock Doctor, An Old Man
Taught Wisdom, The Intriguing Chambermaid, and Miss Lucy in Town. The pert
chambermaid persona was one of her most popular, as was her naïve country girl in
London. Clive also starred in Fielding’s other non-musical plays, including The Old
Debauchees, The Covent-Garden Tragedy, and The Miser. In the Introduction to
The Mock Doctor, Fielding describes her genius for both singing and acting:
But I cannot, when I mention the rising Glories of the Theatre, omit One, who, tho’ she owes
little Advantage to the part of Dorcas [Clive’s role in The Mock Doctor], hath already
convinced the best Judges of her admirable Genius for the Stage: She hath sufficiently shewn
in the Old Debauchees, that her Capacity is not confined to a Song, and I dare swear they
will shortly own Her able to do Justice to Characters of much greater Consequence.
Clive had more songs than any other of Fielding’s female actresses, and usually
more than the men with whom she costarred. Berta Joncus describes the relationship
betweeen Fielding and Clive as mutually beneficial: she popularized his songs, and
he made her a celebrity. This 1732 verse aptly illustrates the success of their
association:
By HINT [Fielding]
27
and KEYBER [Cibber] form’d to please the Age,
See little RAFTOR mount the Drury stage.
FENTON [star of The Beggar’s Opera] outdone with her no more compares,
Than GAY’s best Songs with HINT’s Mock Doctor’s Airs.
26
See Joncus, A Star is Born, Chapter IV. Charles Burney describes: “Her singing, which was
intolerable when she meant it to be fine, in ballad farces and songs of humour was, like her comic
acting, every thing it should be.” in A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present
Period (London: Printed for the Author, 1789), IV, xii, 654.
27
“Hint” was Fielding’s pseudonym for his writings during the Covent-Garden Tragedy controversy
in the press.
54
Lament, O Rich! Thy Labours all are vain,
HINT writes and RAFTOR acts in Drury Lane.
28
Clive and Fielding became estranged when the company led by Theophilus Cibber
returned to Drury Lane after the Actor’s Rebellion, and Fielding later satirized her
performance as the star of The Fall of Phaeton in his Tumble-Down Dick in 1736.
Despite this undoubtedly rocky relationship, Fielding would always think highly of
her talents.
29
Fielding also had a large number of first-rate male singers performing his
airs. The first of these was Charles Stoppelaer (d. 1772), an Irish tenor who began his
career on the Little Haymarket stage during the 1729-30 season.
30
Stoppelaer found
success as a comic actor who sang the main roles in Fielding’s The Author’s Farce,
The Lottery, The Intriguing Chambermaid, and The Grub-Street Opera—and
28
“To Miss Raftor on her Success in Acting Polly Peachum,” Anon, “To Miss Raftor,” Grub-Street
Journal, 17 August 1732. Quoted in Joncus, A Star is Born, 134.
29
In his novel, Amelia, he wrote “Such indeed was her Image, that neither could Shakespeare
describe, nor Clive act a Fury in higher perfection.” See Battestin, ed. Henry Fielding: Amelia
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 43.
30
See the Biographical Dictionary, which believes that the New Grove is incorrect in its identification
of “Stoppelaer” as Charles’s brother Michael. The basis of this supposition is a careful comparison of
the documentary evidence of the roles of each of the two singers, who are brothers. Charles
Stoppelaer is put forward as the better singer, the member of the Drury Lane troupe, and a later
member of Handel’s company. Although Michael Stoppelaer did sing some ballad opera roles on the
London stage, including parts for Fielding (he played Leander and later Helebore in performances of
The Mock Doctor at Goodman’s Fields, and Wormwood in The Virgin Unmask’d), he never achieved
the status of his brother as a singer. Michael was also used as an entr’acte entertainer at Covent
Garden, where he frequently sung “Mimic Songs,” and was known as a painter and caricaturist.
Charles Stoppelaer’s acting and singing career was extensive. During the 1729-30 season at the
Haymarket Theatre, he played Sparkish and Signor Opera in The Author’s Farce and Constant in
Rape upon Rape. Later at Goodman’s Fields he played Cleara in Tom Thumb. 1731 was the year of
his first appearance on stage at Drury Lane, where he later played Leander in The Mock Doctor.
Charles chose to stay at Drury Lane during the Actor’s Rebellion in 1733; some later parts there
included Ramilie in The Miser, King Arthur in The Opera of Operas, Valentine in The Intriguing
Chambermaid, and Marplay Senior in The Author’s Farce. He joined Handel at Covent Garden
during the 1734-35 season, but still played Lovemore at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Charles also entertained
with entr’acte songs. Later he played Leander in The Mock Doctor, and he sang the usual Lovemore
and Valentine roles through at least 1740. It seems that he was at Drury Lane while still singing at
Covent Garden; he appeared there as Quaver in An Old Man Taught Wisdom; or The Virgin
Unmask’d, and a Priest of Aurora and Mercury in The Fall of Phaeton, among numerous other roles.
55
performed many other lead roles in Fielding revivals well into the 1740s. Thomas
Salway (ca.1706-1743), started his singing career in Pepusch’s choir at Cannons, and
then joined Rich’s company both at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Covent Garden. He
performed in ballad operas and pantomimes for Rich, and sometimes took petticoat
roles, such as the title character in Gay’s Achilles.
31
Salway performed the role of
Quaver, a singing master, in Fielding’s Old Man Taught Wisdom, where he no doubt
brought down the house with Fielding’s version of “Dimmi caro.” John Beard
(ca.1717-1791), whom Dibdin called “the leading English singer of his day,” was
probably Fielding’s most famous tenor.
32
He sang as a boy in the Chapel Royal and
would later be a member of both the Drury Lane and Covent Garden companies.
Beard’s second wife was Rich’s daughter Charlotte, and he took over management of
Covent Garden in 1761.
33
Beard sang the role of Signior Cantileno in Fielding’s
Miss Lucy in Town, where out of the nine tunes used in the piece he had three solo
airs and two additional airs with other characters. After their ballad-singing careers,
Beard, Salway, and Stoppelear all became performers in Handel’s opera company,
which attests to the high quality of their voices.
One can tell which of Fielding’s singers had the best voices, for he gave those
actors the most airs in his ballad operas. Most of the singing roles went to Mrs.
Clive, Stoppelaer, Salway, Beard, John Harper, William Mullart, Mrs. Atherton, and
Mrs. Nokes. We can assume that Theophilus Cibber (who played Jack Stocks and
31
Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson, “Salway, Thomas,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxii, 188.
32
See Winton Dean, Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London, 1959).
33
Winton Dean, “Beard, John,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie
and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), iii, 19.
56
Gregory for Fielding) either had a terrible voice or did not know how to sing, for he
never had any singing parts.
Fielding’s scratch group of players assembled for his period at the Little
Haymarket was not a real “Company,” as the Great Mogul advertised in his puff
piece. More likely, the actors were recruited for specific performances. Hume states
that out of the forty-four actors known to have performed in Fielding’s troupe during
the 1736 season, “fourteen were veteran fringe performers…Eight were fairly new
fringe performers. Three were established junior performers at other houses. No
fewer than seventeen were apparently new to the London theatre…”
34
The most talented and best known of Fielding’s performers during his Little
Haymarket period was Charlotte Charke (Colley Cibber’s daughter), whom he had
recruited from Drury Lane. Mrs. Charke (1713-1760) was a veteran performer, and
was also famously a transvestite. She married the violinist and theater composer
Richard Charke, but spent a great deal of time traveling as a man throughout
England, usually with her daughter, under the name of “Charles Brown.” In 1736,
Mrs. Charke was “engaged at Four Guineas per Week” and “cleared Sixty Guineas”
at her benefit for Pasquin. She was previously making £3 each week at Drury
Lane.
35
She was well known for her pants roles (she satirized her father as Lord
Place in Pasquin), and must have had a tolerable singing voice, as she had a few airs
as Clymene in Fielding’s Tumble-Down Dick.
34
Hume, Henry Fielding, 207. See his Chapter V on Fielding’s years as impresario at the Little
Haymarket.
35
Hume, Henry Fielding, 216n.
57
Salaries for the actors varied widely from house to house. At Covent Garden,
John Rich gave the top actors a set salary for the season. For example, Christiana
Horton made £250 during the 1735-36 season, and Samuel Stephens made £200.
Everyone else was paid per performance, as was typical. Working for Rich,
Stoppelaer made 13s.4d. for each performance; William Mullart 10s., Anne Hallam
and Jane Bullock each 16s.8d. The top actors also received benefit performances,
which substantially contributed to their incomes, but the lowest-ranked actors made
as little as 1s.8d. each performance and would have no benefit.
36
As for Drury Lane in 1729, we know from accounts that each of the members
of the triumvirate made £753 6s.8d. plus £60 “By a clear benefit,” and the actors did
quite well also. Anne Oldfield received £420 plus £60 by benefit, Mary Porter £266
plus £60, John Mills, Sr. £200 plus £60, and Sarah Thurmond £166 plus £20 for a
benefit.
37
Lampe and Arne staged both English operas and ballad operas at the Little
Haymarket in 1732-33, and their paylists show that for the actors in “a fringe
production the top of the scale for ballad opera was no more than half what it was for
opera seria.”
38
The total paid to all performers came to under £5 each night.
The salaries for the Italian opera singers dwarfed those of the playhouse
singers in comparison. Although usually inflated by rumors and by the press, the
opera stars had royal patronage, subscriptions, and therefore a higher budget for
36
Hume, Henry Fielding, 217-18.
37
Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 22 August 1781. This article compares salaries in
1729, 1742-43, and 1781. See Judith Milhous and Robert Hume’s A Register of English Theatrical
Documents 1660-1737 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Univ., 1991), ii, 736-37.
38
Milhous and Hume, “J.F. Lampe,” 519.
58
wages. In 1729, Paolo Rolli wrote to Senesino that the budget for singers was to be
£4,000, and that they could no longer afford him (see Table 2.1).
39
Benefit performances brought in a tremendous portion of certain actors’
incomes. In addition to the price of the tickets, members of the gentry would also
customarily add a little extra. When the esteemed Mrs. Oldfield was granted a
benefit in 1729, the Universal Spectator discussed the amount of money she might
have made:
And supposing the Tickets which came in at the usual Rates, there was about £240 in the
House: But her Benefit is generally reckoned at £500 several Persons of Quality, &c. giving
five, ten, and twenty Guineas each. There was the greatest Appearance of Ladies of Quality
at her Benefit that ever was known, and the House so excessive full, Stage and all, that the
Actors had scarce Room to perform.
40
In 1737, sixteen of the forty-two performances by Fielding’s company were
benefits.
41
Even Mr. Green, a prompter, had his own benefit on 2 June 1731 at the
Little Haymarket.
42
Benefits were also done for the author, whose main income for writing the
ballad opera would be from these performances. Usually there was at least one
benefit night for the author, and traditionally this was the third night of the run.
Authors were usually allowed the profits from every third night throughout the first
unbroken run; once a play entered the repertory no other profits would be paid to the
writer. Hume posits that authors usually netted somewhere between £50 and £250
39
Quoted in Milhous and Hume, “Opera Salaries in Eighteenth-Century London,” JAMS 46/1 (Spring
1993), 37. See Posthumous Letters, from various celebrated men, addressed to Francis Colman, and
George Colman, the Elder (London: Cadell and Davies, 1820), 21-29. Senesino was later added to the
company for the price of £1,400. These figures were extraordinary when one considers the average
cost of living for a Londoner in the mid-eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson had an annual pension of
around £300, and this was a very good income during this period.
40
Universal Spectator, 8 March 1729.
41
Hume, Henry Fielding, 233.
42
Hume, Henry Fielding, 56.
59
for a benefit night.
43
A contemporary of the triumvirate relates an anecdote
concerning authors’ benefits and new plays:
Booth has, with great Frankness, often publickly declared at Button’s [a coffee house on
Russell Street in Covent Garden], that they did not design or desire to act any new Play,
whether it was good or bad; and he gave the true and natural Reason for it, which was, that
their House was always full, and therefore they must loose [sic] whenever the Profits of a
third or sixth Night were on this Occasion deducted [for the Author].
44
Knowing that this was the case, it is a wonder that new pieces were ever acted at all.
The Writing and Production of the Music: Authors, Composers, and Other
Collaborators
Collaborative effort between the author, the music director and arranger of
the tunes (often one and the same), the musicians and singers, choreographers and
even the publishers of the stage work was common practice in the eighteenth-century
theater. Both authors and theater managers made casting decisions; usually the
author could hand-pick the cast. Davies mentioned that the “most difficult and
irksome task which a manager of a theatre can perhaps undergo, arises from his
connection with authors.”
45
There was no “director” of a ballad opera; if it was a new work, the author
would direct the actors (sometimes to the great irritation of the theater impresario),
or if it were old, the manager directed. Benjamin Victor described the triumvirate’s
method of directing:
If a new Play was coming on, the first three Readings fell to the Share of the Author. If a
revived Play, it fell to the Share of that Manager who was the principal Performer in it. The
Readings over, there followed a limited Number of Rehearsals, with their Parts in their
Hands; after which, a distant Morning was appointed for every Person in the Play to appear
perfect, because the Rehearsals only then begin to be of Use to the Actor…Thus the
43
Hume, Henry Fielding, 23-27.
44
The Laureat, 96.
45
Davies, 169-70.
60
Rehearsals went on, under the Eye of a Person who had Ability to instruct, and Power to
encourage and advance those of Industry and Merit; and to forfeit and discharge the
negligent and worthless.
46
Interestingly, actors could not turn down a part, and very rarely did they ever fight
over a role.
47
Frequently the theater managers also starred in their own productions,
as was the case with Cibber and Rich.
Because dancing was such a large part of the entertainment in the pieces
performed in the London playhouses, there were often resident dancing-masters or
choreographers to create dances for the productions.
48
Dancing-masters, like
composers, were also affiliated with a specific theater, and during this period
included Anthony Francis Roger at Drury Lane from 1729 until his death in 1731,
John Thurmond (also dancing-master at Drury Lane, except for a short period at
Goodman’s Fields), and M. G. Desnoyer (1735-40).
49
The innovative John Weaver
was also at Drury Lane for a short period in 1733.
50
The choreographers at Covent
Garden were Leach Glover (d. 1763) and Charles Lalauze (d. 1775), while Henry
Holt (fl. 1729-39) was at Goodman’s Fields.
51
As the choreographers were also
usually dancers, they sometimes became known for particular roles in the commedia
46
Benjamin Victor, A History of the Theatres of London and Dublin…(London: Printed for T. Davies,
1761-1771), II, 6-7.
47
Hume, Henry Fielding, 21-22. Exceptions sometimes occurred over the role of Polly in The
Beggar’s Opera, which was a part dearly coveted by actresses.
48
The term “choreographer” was not used during this period; “dancing-master” was the name
generally used to describe someone who taught the dances in the theaters, and these dancing-masters
usually choreographed the numbers also. See Moira Goff’s “‘Actions, Manners, and Passions’:
Entr’acte Dancing on the London Stage, 1700-1737,” EMc 26/2 (May 1998), 213-28.
49
London Stage, clxxix.
50
See Richard Ralph, The Life and Works of John Weaver (London: Dance Books, 1985) for more
information about this famous dancing-master.
51
London Stage, clxxix, and Biographical Dictionary, vi, 234-35, vii, 396-97, and ix, 120-22. Glover
was also at Lincoln’s Inn Fields during the season of 1723-24, and worked for Covent Garden from
1732 onwards. Lalauze began his relationship with Covent Garden in 1735. Holt was at Goodman’s
Fields from 1732 to 1733, then worked for a time at the Little Haymarket and Drury Lane before
seeking his fortunes in America.
61
dell’arte-inspired pantomimes (Thurmond often danced as Scaramouch, for
example), and they were frequently billed with their roles, as was “Roger, who plays
the part of Pierrot.”
52
The importance of dancing in entertainments of this period is evidenced by
the large number of dancers on the theater managers’ paylists. There were seventy
performers on the payroll at Drury Lane during the 1730-1 season, and thirty-six of
them were dancers (many of them were probably actors with dancing skills). Rich
had twenty-eight dancers on his payroll at Covent Garden during the 1741-42
season.
53
Moira Goff takes a look at the large increase of dancers at the theaters
during the early part of the century:
For the 1700/1701 season there survive advertisements for over 100 performances [at all of
the theaters], only three of which explicitly mention dancing; the only named dance was a
French Scaramouch. By the 1709/1710 season, of more than 350 performances listed by The
London Stage, over 70 (or about 20 per cent) included dancing and over 20 dances were
individually named. By 1736/1737, with advertisements surviving for about 700
performances, more than 250 (over 35 per cent) of the bills include entr’acte dancing and
more than 50 dances are given specific names.
54
We do know that the dancers, whether hired just for specialized entr’acte
performances or on staff for the main pantomimes, cost quite a large part of a
theater’s budget.
55
As staged dance became a central attraction in London, it
developed into a high-level art form that needed specialized personnel, and the
highly-competitive theater managers were willing to pay for the best.
52
This was Roger’s first known billing on 3 May 1720 at the King’s Theatre.
53
London Stage, clv.
54
Goff, “‘Actions, Manners, and Passions,’” 219.
55
Judith Milhous says that “For several decades in the mid-eighteenth century, dance appears
regularly to have claimed something like 25 percent of the theatres’ performer budget, a remarkably
high figure. This figure declined precipitously in the 1770s, as ‘English Opera’…became a major part
of the repertory.” See her article, “The Economics of Theatrical Dance in Eighteenth-Century
London,” Theatre Journal 55/3 (2003), 481-508.
62
At the smaller houses, composers or theater managers would frequently hire a
music leader who would then in turn employ the musicians needed for the
performance. For Lampe and Arne’s performances of ballad operas during the 1732-
33 season at the Little Haymarket, someone named “Mr Vezan” (possibly Francis
Vezein, a violinist) was paid 5s “for attending Musick.”
56
Another leader working
with London musicians during this time is Rogers (first name unknown), who
worked in connection with Lampe and Arne at the Little Haymarket.
57
Richard
Jones led Drury Lane until 1729, when Richard Charke (husband of actress
Charlotte) took over until 1736.
58
Copyists were integral to music-making in the playhouses. Undated receipts
belonging to the triumvirate (possibly from the period 1714-16) log expenses for the
copying of music: 18s.6d. for copywork by Will to Giles for “Songs with
Instrumentall parts Coppyed for Mr Turner,” and another for 7s.6d. for copywork for
Turner (“Myrtilla” and “Sibillar”).
59
Unfortunately, these copied parts were usually
kept in the possession of the theaters, and as a result of the disposable nature of the
items (and one too many theater fires) very few of them survive.
For the popular French comédies en vaudevilles, “composers were employed
to organize a small orchestra, work with the playwrights in selecting appropriate
56
Milhous and Hume, “J.F. Lampe,” 519.
57
It is possible that Mr. Rogers is either Roger Rogers (fl. 1739) or Henry Rogers (fl. 1739-44),
musicians both listed as original subscribers to the Royal Society of Musicians on 18 August 1739.
58
Fiske and Linda Troost, “Charke, Richard,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), v, 496-97.
59
BL Egerton MS 2159, fol. 30-31. See Milhous and Hume, Register, 924. “Myrtilla” is unknown,
but “Sibillar” could possibly refer to the copying of Handel’s “Sibillar gli angui d’Aletto,” an aria
from Rinaldo. “Mr Turner” could be Purbeck Turner, a singer at the theater who was active from 1706
to circa 1728.
63
vaudevilles, and eventually to write original songs, called ariettes.”
60
It was also
usual for each English playhouse to have a composer on staff to choose and arrange
music for intervals and the plays. John Rich hired many of the best composers in
London, including Pepusch, John Frederick Lampe (ca. 1702-1751), and John
Galliard (ca. 1687-1749). Giffard had the lesser-known Peter Prelleur (ca. 1685-
1741), George Monroe (Monro) and John Christian Eversman (fl. 1724-1739) at
Goodman’s Fields, and Arne and Henry Carey worked at Drury Lane.
61
Richard
Leveridge sang with Rich’s company from 1714 onwards and composed entr’acte
songs and other airs for his plays.
62
The composer who seemed to work most often with Fielding was a certain
Mr. Seedo (first name unknown), who might have been a regular composer on staff
at the Little Haymarket before working at Drury Lane from 1731 to 1734.
63
The
Lottery was the first known collaboration between Seedo and Fielding, and Seedo
composed ten of the airs in both editions of the ballad opera. In The Mock Doctor,
Seedo composed three of the airs (inexplicably, Fielding replaced two of the first
60
Clifford Barnes, “Vaudeville,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie
and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxvi, 342.
61
See Biographical Dictionary, xii, 151-52 and v, 129-30. Prelleur was a harpsichordist, organist,
and composer of theater music who was at Goodman’s Fields from 1740-41; he was known in his day
as the author of The Modern Music Master and The Art of Playing on the Violin. Eversman wrote
theater music with Prelleur, and played the violin and the harpsichord. He was at Lincoln’s Inn Fields
during the 1726-27 season, and had a benefit there in 1728. He also worked as violin soloist at
Goodman’s Fields during the 1732-33 season. Carey was at Drury Lane from 1732-33. Arne was at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields under Rich from at least 4 November 1732 “to represent English Opera’s after
the Italian manner, on Mondays and Thursdays during the Winter season;” after 1734 he was on staff
at Drury Lane (see Biographical Dictionary, i, 108-17). See also Fiske, English Theatre Music, 115.
62
Biographical Dictionary, ix, 265. Milhous and Hume have published an article which details paylist
and salary instructions to Drury Lane’s treasurer, Richard Castleman. These documents date from
1715-30 and include many instructions for paying the musicians as well as the names of some of the
musicians on staff, giving us a bit more of the picture. See Milhous and Hume, “Memos to the
Treasurer at Drury Lane, 1715-1730,” Theatre Notebook 45/1 (1991), 16-30.
63
Hume mentions that a benefit was given to Seedo at Drury Lane on 9 June 1732, which presents
some evidence that he was the theater’s composer-in-residence.
64
edition’s original Seedo airs with two new songs composed by Seedo in the second
edition). Roberts and L. J. Morrissey seem to work on the supposition that Seedo
also composed some of the airs in The Welsh Opera (revised as The Grub-Street
Opera), which is possible since the work played at the Little Haymarket, when the
composer was in residence there at that time.
64
In addition, Seedo composed at least
one air, an overture, and act tunes for the 1734 revival of The Author’s Farce.
65
Mr. Seedo even responds from the orchestra pit to a question from Luckless
in the third act of the 1734 edition of The Author’s Farce:
Luck. …Let us begin immediately: I think we will have an Overture play’d on this Occasion.
Mr. Seedo, have you not provided a new Overture on this occasion?
Seedo. I have compos’d one.
Luck. Then pray let us have it…
Seedo’s newly composed airs are generally in a pastoral ballad style or even
galant in nature, with a simple structure in binary form (see, for example, his
“Farewel, ye Hills and Valleys” in Appendix I). His music occasionally includes
Italian-style da capo arias. “Dear Sir, be not in such a Passion” from The Lottery is
appended onto the end of the previous tune, which is set to “Son confuso,” an Italian
air by Handel. Seedo deftly writes a da capo duet that fits with the Italianate nature
64
L. J.Morrissey, “Fielding and the Ballad Opera,” Eighteenth Century Studies, 4 (1971), 386-402
and E.V. Roberts, “Mr. Seedo’s London Career and His Work with Henry Fielding,” Philological
Quarterly XLV/I (Jan. 1966), 179-90.
65
Fiske and Cholij, 33. It is also possible that if Seedo was already in residence at the Little
Haymarket when The Author’s Farce was first performed in 1730 he could have had something to do
with the music in the first version of the ballad opera. In addition, Roberts believes that he may have
also directed the music for the afterpiece The Intriguing Chambermaid and composed the air “When
Modesty Sues for a Favour” for this ballad opera. Since the same tune (unidentified) is also found in
Don Quixote in England, Roberts posits that Seedo could have composed the music for this opera as
well. Finally, Roberts supposes that since several of the tunes in The Lottery (set by Seedo) were used
earlier in The Grub-Street Opera, that the composer would have also collaborated on the first ballad
opera with Fielding. See Roberts, “Mr. Seedo’s,” 184-87.
65
of the preceding tune (see Appendix I). Seedo’s music for The Lottery is discussed
more fully below in the Case Study.
It is difficult to ascertain how much of a part Fielding had in the composition
or arranging of the music for his theatrical works. We know that he wrote his own
poetry for the airs used in his ballad operas, and he probably set the words to the
tunes himself. Price reminds us that only a few short years earlier, it was unusual for
the authors of stage works to have anything to do with the settings of the music.
66
Ballad opera would change the role of the author, who was now also a poet writing
lyrics for tunes he chose himself. Author/music arranger collaborations were not as
substantial as they would be for later operatic writers. Even though we know that
Fielding worked with Seedo, as was the case for The Lottery and The Mock-Doctor,
it is unlikely that the composer had much to do with the selection of the tunes.
Seedo’s role as the theater composer would have been to arrange them in time for the
performance, add an overture and possibly some act tunes, and occasionally suggest
substitutions. Generally, in the published song-books of the era, songs would have
one or more designations as to the author or composer; for instance, the words “by
Mr. Fielding” would denote that Fielding wrote the words to the air (usually a pre-
existing tune), and “Set by Mr. Seedo,” would mean that the following tune was
composed by Seedo. Of note is the fact that although many successful playwrights
of this period did occasionally attempt a ballad opera (for instance, James Ralph only
66
Price quotes the preface to Roger Boyle’s The Tragedy of King Saul (1703): “…To give an
advantage and adopt it in some measure to the air of the times, the reader is here and there entertained
with poetical interludes of Ghosts, Furies, etc. which the publisher has taken care be set to Musick by
the best hands…” (xix)
66
wrote one), most wrote none at all.
67
Fielding must have had a particular interest in
music to have written eleven musical stage works.
Battestin writes that “Fielding was a gifted song writer, with a knack of
composing a lively, witty lyric.”
68
We do not know if Fielding had any musical
training, and we do not know for certain if he owned any music books in his library
aside from the French plays with airs included in the volume (see Chapter III below).
It is assumed that he had a copy of the publisher John Watts’s Musical Miscellany,
which is a chief source for the tunes in Fielding’s works.
69
Most likely, Fielding
chose the airs himself, either because of their value in terms of satire or because he
simply liked them. He might also have chosen these particular tunes because he
thought that John Watts would be more likely to publish them, and this theory is
discussed further below.
Publishers and scores
Fiske counts forty-one ballad operas that were published with their airs.
70
Only the melody lines were printed, and the text was not underlaid. The ballad
67
Granted, composer Henry Carey wrote three ballad operas, for which he composed the music.
However, no other author came close to as many musical stage works as Fielding. For instance,
although Colley Cibber wrote twenty-six plays in his lifetime, only two of these pieces could be
termed ballad operas (and one was simply an expansion of the other).
68
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 113. Lockwood expands on this statement by saying that Fielding’s
“songs especially suggest n extraordinary talent for musical theatre…[His] invention in fitting verses
to the tunes, and integrating them with the action of the play, is very keen, as also his ear for the tone
of the finished songs, where hopelessly ludicrous words are harmonized if not also even somehow
humanized by the musical setting.” (212)
69
Harold Gene Moss gives evidence that Fielding owned or had used a copy of the Musical
Miscellany when selecting his music for The Grub-Street Opera and The Author’s Farce by
comparing the lyrics of one particular air, “Silvia, My Dearest,” with all of the source songs. See his
“’Silvia, My Dearest’: A Fielding Ballad-Opera Tune and a Biographical Puzzle,” South Atlantic
Bulletin 38/2 (May 1973), 66-71.
70
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 597-9.
67
operas were not typically published with their bass lines, though these were readily
available in other publications.
71
The printed versions very rarely included overtures.
There is, of course, the exception of the third edition of The Beggar’s Opera, which
included both the bass lines and an overture in full score. Other contemporary ballad
operas published with an overture include Gay’s Polly, Pepusch and Essex Hawker’s
The Wedding (1729), and Thomas Cooke’s Penelope (1728). Many late eighteenth-
century revivals of ballad operas contain overtures, but by this time it was common
to publish one with the printed opera.
In fact very few English operas, of the ballad type or otherwise, were printed
in full score. Fiske lists only eleven English operas published in full score between
1743 and 1762, and two operas as oblong two-stave vocal scores during the same
period. (Interestingly, between 1763 and 1782 over eighty such vocal scores for
operas were published, and only two in full score!)
72
Unfortunately, vocal scores—
though of much more use than unaccompanied airs or no airs at all—give us little
help in the way of understanding the composition of a “typical” ballad opera
orchestra.
Obviously the decision by publishers not to print these ballad operas in full
score was an economic one, in the same way that they eventually decided to print
71
Bruce Brown has suggested to me the possibility that the ballad tunes might not have had bass lines,
as was usual in French practice, where tunes were often sung unaccompanied (personal
correspondence, 14 October 2006). However, I think that the presence of bass lines in all of the airs
in the MS versions of The Devil to Pay and The Lottery in the British Library show that using bass
lines was common practice during performance. A recent study of harpsichords in the London theaters
during this period has shown that they accompanied the voices even if they were not used during the
dance numbers; see Judith Milhous and Curtis Price’s “Harpsichords in the London Theatres, 1697-
1715,” EMc 18/1 (Feb. 1990), 38-46.
72
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 294. The two operas published in vocal scores before 1762 were
Arne’s Comus (1745) and Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley (1752).
68
only vocal scores instead of full scores in the later English operas. Not printing bass
lines or overtures made it possible for publishers of ballad operas to print the same
airs over and over again in different ballad operas. Additionally, the printing could
be done very quickly, and editions of the plays currently on stage in London could be
available within a very short amount of time to the interested public.
The primary publisher of ballad operas in London was John Watts. In
addition to the important six-volume The Musical Miscellany, Watts published most
of the ballad operas written—nearly twenty-seven in all.
73
Watts was the principal
publisher of Fielding’s dramatic works. Other publishers included J. Williams, who
published the first edition of The Mock Doctor (though Watts published the second
edition); A. Millar (Miss Lucy in Town); E. Rayner (The Welsh Opera); and J.
Roberts, who first published The Author’s Farce (Watts published the second
edition) and possibly owned the rights to The Grub-Street Opera.
74
Eurydice was
published only later in Fielding’s Miscellanies (1743), by Millar.
It was common practice for authors of ballad operas to make arrangements
with a publisher for publication rights before the work was staged. This allowed the
publisher to have the printed edition available to the public the day of the premiere or
shortly afterwards.
75
The rights were sold to the publisher, and no royalties would
come to the author in the future. How much did the author of a ballad opera make by
73
Frank Kidson and Peter Ward Jones, “Watts, John,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxvii, 123.
74
For the rather lengthy and convoluted history of the printing of The Welsh Opera and The Grub-
Street Opera, see “A Note on the Text” in L. J. Morrissey’s edition of The Grub-Street Opera, 13-24.
Suffice it to say, there were three different versions of The Grub-Street Opera printed in 1731, and
Morrissey gives considerable evidence that none of them were printed by either Roberts or Watts.
69
publishing his piece? A handwritten receipt for the sale of Ebenezer Forrest’s Momus
Turn’d Fabulist: or Vulcan’s Wedding reads as follows:
Rec’d of Mr. Watts ffifteen Guineas for one Moiety of an Opera call’d Momus turnd
ffabulist or Vulcan’s Wedding. I say rec’d for the Use of Mr. Forrest per Jno. Rich. NB I
acknowledge to have rec’d a Note or Writing under the hand of Mr Jno. Ozell whereby he
signifies that on his part he is satisfyed for his other Moiety. Jno Rich.
76
Theophilus Cibber made £45 from John Watts for the publication rights to his play
The Lover: or the Libertine Hypocrite on 4 November 1730.
77
James Ralph received
£12 4s from Watts in 1733 for the publication of The Cornish Squire.
78
Charles
Coffey received £5 5s on 5 May 1735 from Watts for The Merry Cobler, the sequel
to The Devil to Pay.
79
A publication agreement dated 4 April 1732 survives between
Fielding and Watts for The Old Debauchees and The Covent-Garden Tragedy:
Received then of Mr John Watts the sum of twenty Guineas for the Copies of a Farce of three
acts called the despairing Debauchee and a Tragedy called the Covent-Garden-Tragedy or by
whatever other names they shall be called which I promise to assign over to the said John
Watts. Henry ffielding.
80
The money that could be made from publication, then, varied considerably.
Publishers were sometimes reluctant to take on the risks of publishing ballad
operas, as they had to pay for engraving, printing, paper, and selling. It was
particularly expensive to include the tunes for the ballad opera’s numerous airs in the
printed text, and it was relatively unusual for publishers to do so. We had already
seen that only forty-one printed ballad operas exist with tunes. With very few
75
See Cross’s annotated bibliography, which lists the various editions of Watts’s Fielding
publications and the speed at which each edition was published, 290-321. See also S. S. Kenny’s
chapter on “The Publication of Plays” in Hume and Scouten, eds., London Theatre World.
76
BL Add. MS 38, 728, fol. 184. See Milhous and Hume, Register, 747. “Moiety” signifies a payment
made in two (approximately) equal parts.
77
BL Add. MS 38, 728, fol. 45. See Milhous and Hume, Register, 759.
78
BL Add. MS 38, 728, fol. 18. See Milhous and Hume, Register, 821.
79
BL Add. MS 38, 728 fol. 52. See Milhous and Hume, Register, 854.
80
Printed in facsimile by Cross, opposite III, 360.
70
exceptions, Watts was the only publisher of ballad operas that included the music for
the airs. Therefore, if Fielding wanted his ballad operas published with their tunes,
he would do well to write a piece which would appeal to Watts. Since Watts had
good business sense, he rarely published works that had not opened at one of the
larger patent theaters or been penned by a respectable author with a commercial
success. Fielding adds the experienced publisher to the crowd in his Historical
Register, where the play on stage is failing:
And John Watts
Who was this Morning eager for the Copy,
Slunk hasty from the Pit, and shock [sic] his head.
Watts already had a very large collection of woodcuts of music that could
easily be used to print tunes in his ballad opera editions; his six-volume Musical
Miscellany (1729-1731) had 477 airs, and many of them were used by Fielding and
other savvy ballad opera authors. This would presumably make the use of these
particular tunes very appealing to those who wished to include music in their printed
edition. As Morrissey reports, “[I]f a playwright were to sell his ballad opera to a
publisher who could print it with music, he would have to sell it to Watts…So, while
the number of Watts’s woodcuts may not have limited a playwright, a concern for
what appeared to be Watt’s taste may have. This certainly must partly have
determined Fielding’s choice of music.”
81
That Fielding’s decisions were helped
along by financial considerations related to the rapidly-expanding print industry and
theatrical marketplace cannot be discounted.
82
81
L. J. Morrissey, “Henry Fielding and the Ballad Opera,” 394.
82
Joncus is working on a book which discusses the commercial aspects of the genre’s production and
its relationship to the publishing house of John Watts. As of this writing it is titled Staging the Street
Ballad: The Eighteenth-Century Origins of Mass Popular Music.
71
A printed ballad opera mainpiece usually cost 1s.6d., so if Fielding made £20
for the rights to a work, it would have to sell around 260 copies just to make the
price of the copyright profitable to Watts. Once the rights to a ballad opera were
sold to a publisher, authors would not make money from later editions of the work.
Therefore, pieces were seldom revised by the author in subsequent editions because
they had nothing to gain from this. Fielding only republished a work after it had
been pirated by someone else, as was the case with The Grub-Street Opera.
The only other way authors could make money from the printed ballad opera
was through the dedication. Although there were instances of large cash presents to
authors of plays from dedicatees such as George I, Hume suspects that most
dedications brought in no money and were worth probably about ten or twenty
pounds when granted at all.
83
Mostly, political connections could be made through
the dedications, a common practice with most authors. Fielding’s dedication to
Walpole in The Modern Husband was probably an attempt at obtaining the favor of
the Ministry.
The London entertainments were frequently pirated in numerous illegal
editions and reprints that were circulated throughout Ireland and Scotland. After the
Licensing Act, a censor had to approve everything produced in the London
playhouses. A copy of the libretto or play had to be submitted to the censor before
opening night, and many of these manuscript copies survive. An addition to the
ending of The Intriguing Chambermaid that was to be used for a benefit performance
for Mrs. Clive can be found in the Larpent Collection of the Huntington Library in
83
Hume, Henry Fielding, 26-27.
72
San Marino, California. A new song is included: “Life of a Beau,” which was
already one of Mrs. Clive’s “signature” tunes (see Ex. 2.1).
84
A manuscript copy of
Miss Lucy in Town can also be found in the Larpent Collection, which is nearly
identical to the printed version.
85
***
The entire production of a ballad opera was collaborative in nature, including
its writing, staging, and printing. Indeed, the printed text of a ballad opera (as well
as those of other eighteenth-century plays or operas) only just begins to display the
different authors or personalities involved in its multifaceted creation.
86
The various
revisions of Fielding’s ballad operas confirm this; the additions for Mrs. Clive in the
Larpent Collection, the cuts of the censor, the mistakes of the copyist, the decisions
of the printer—all are also evidence. We cannot separate the opera’s text from its
production, and must always remember when reading or performing these pieces that
multiple authorship was the standard of the day.
84
See Joncus, A Star is Born, 189-94. Clive first sang this air, composed by Henry Carey, in James
Miller’s The Coffee House (1738). The song, along with its variation, “The Life of a Belle,” was
reprised in several other ballad operas in which Clive appeared.
85
These are LA 33 and LA 77 (Miss Lucy in Town and The Intriguing Chambermaid addition,
respectively).
86
An early eighteenth-century contemporary, writing in The St. James’s Journal (8 December 1722),
complained about being able to see only the printed text of a play, as it had lost all of the nuances of
the performance he remembered:
This Play [The Conscious Lovers, which did not last long on the stage] has since appear’d in
Print, and is to pass a more dangerous Probation now than ever. The Industry, the Lights, the
Musick, the Company, all the little Baits and Subordinations of good Humour and Applause,
where are they?
73
Fig. 2.1. The Beggar’s Opera, prison scene (c.1729-31). Painting by William
Hogarth.
One of the most interesting facets of this type of complex production is the contribution of the
audience and performers. This is explored further below in Chapter III.
74
Fig. 2.2. Kitty Clive (1740). Oil on canvas by William Verelst. By permission of the
Garrick Club.
75
Table 2.1. Table of Salary Comparison
Royal Academy singers (1729)
87
Drury Lane actors (1729)
88
Antonio Maria
Bernacchi
1,200 guineas Colley Cibber £753 plus £60 for a
benefit
Antonia Margherita
Merighi
£1,000 or £900
plus a benefit
Barton Booth £753 plus £60 for a
benefit
Stradina (Anna
Maria Strada del
Pò)
£600 plus a benefit Anne Oldfield £420 plus £60 for a
benefit
Annibale Pio Fabri £500 Mary Porter £266 plus £60 for a
benefit
Francesca Bertolli £450 John Mills, Sr. £200 plus £60 for a
benefit
Johann Gottfried
Riemschneider
£300 Sarah Thurmond £166 plus £20 for a
benefit
87
These are the rumored salaries as reported by Paolo Rolli to Senesino on 25 January 1729. They
are quoted in Deutsch, Handel, 235 and in Milhous and Hume, “Opera Salaries,” 37.
88
As quoted in Milhous and Hume, “J. F. Lampe,” 519.
76
Ex. 2.1. Carey, “The Life of a Beau” in The Complete English Songster… [1762?]
77
CHAPTER III:
BALLAD OPERA
Inception and Evolution of Ballad Opera
Gay and Pepusch’s The Beggar’s Opera opened on 29 January 1728 at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre and was instantly the hit of the season. This first ballad
opera was a scathing and innovative satire of politics, high society, and especially the
reigning entertainment of the day, Italian opera.
1
The use of disreputable lower-class
characters and the vulgar setting (parts of it take place in Newgate prison), as well as
the mix of popular operatic airs and traditional ballad tunes appealed tremendously
to London audiences. In its first season, it ran for a total of sixty-two performances,
one of the longest recorded runs in the history of the English stage.
2
A letter from Jonathan Swift suggesting a “Newgate pastoral” possibly gave
Gay some impetus for writing The Beggar’s Opera. Produced by the enterprising
John Rich, The Beggar’s Opera was said to have made “Gay rich and Rich gay,” an
oft-quoted play on words.
3
The staggering influence of The Beggar’s Opera cannot
be overstated. Gay’s imitators immediately began writing their own ballad operas,
copying Gay’s low-life and pastoral aspects, the ballad tunes used, even the satiric
jabs at high society and Walpole’s Ministry. Eric Walter White, in his Register of
1
Edmond Gagey, in his monograph on Ballad Opera (New York, 1937) reminds us that several
contemporaries of Fielding’s, including Pearce and Burney believed that Gay was attempting to rival
Italian opera, not criticize it. (19)
2
Curtis Price and Robert Hume, “Ballad opera,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), ii, 555. I believe that the record
was broken by Agatha Christie’s play, Mousetrap, which is still running in London today.
3
Indeed, Gay probably made around ₤750 in author’s rights alone while Rich cleared well over
₤7,000 during the production’s first two seasons. This number was calculated by Sir St Vincent
Troubridge in his “Making Gay Rich, and Rich Gay,” Theatre Notebook VI (1951), 14-20.
78
English Operas, counts around fifty new ballad operas produced between 1728 and
1735 alone.
4
Considering the small number of new works in English produced in the
years preceding The Beggar’s Opera, these figures are impressive indeed.
5
Though the work was a popular success and would later prove to be more
influential than ever expected, The Beggar’s Opera was censured for its political
attacks on the Ministry. Furthermore, the farce was widely denounced for its rosy
depiction of a life of crime; even the venerable Dr. Johnson would later say that
“[t]here is in it such a labefactation of all principles, as may be injurious to
morality.”
6
Gay’s sequel Polly (1728) was censured by the Ministry and was not
allowed to be performed; his last ballad opera, Achilles (1733), was not a success.
7
Ballad opera was in fashion for roughly nine years, from its inception in 1728
to the passing of the Licensing Act in 1737. Gagey has argued that ballad opera was
destined for immediate “degeneration,” explaining that “[i]n his first attempt Gay
had brought the form to such high perfection that it could not be improved upon,
although a number of capable authors, like Fielding, adopted it and were successful
in their own way.”
8
Most twentieth-century musicologists blamed this degeneration
on the repeated use of certain ballad tunes, which presumably lost their satiric edge
4
White, A History of English Opera (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 178.
5
As previously stated in Chapter One, White’s Register shows that there were only fourteen new
operas in total staged in London from 1720 until the first performance of The Beggar’s Opera.
(White, Register, 22-24)
6
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D… (London: Charles Dilly, 1791), I, 488. See
Johnson’s Life of Gay in The Poetical Works of John Gay… (London: Printed for E. Jeffrey, 1795) I,
5-16 for more of his views on The Beggar’s Opera and the corruption of society.
7
For an interesting look at Gay’s legacy, see Dianne Dugaw’s “Deep Play”– John Gay and the
Invention of Modernity (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, and London: Associated Univ. Presses,
Inc., 2001).
8
Gagey, 8. Many of Fielding’s contemporaries agreed with this, as did this writer in the British
Journal, or the Traveller (9 January 1731): “…I am not speaking of such scandalous Rubbish as has
79
as they accumulated meanings too numerous for the audiences to recall. Such a
historiographical premise is no longer tenable. The ballad opera craze was still in full
swing the year of the Licensing Act, and undoubtedly would have continued to be
written and performed for many more years if the fringe theatres had not been shut
down. In addition, the audience’s familiarity with the music was one of the primary
reasons for the success of the genre.
Though scholars generally agree that Fielding was the single exception, for
most of the authors after Gay the genre of ballad opera “quickly became little more
than a way of padding out farces with popular music.”
9
Indeed, even Fielding
abandoned the full-length ballad operas for shorter afterpieces, which proved to be
much more successful (only three out of his eleven ballad operas were full-length).
The declining taste for ballad opera is evident in a letter to The Prompter in 1735,
where the author (posing as the ghost of John Gay) says that he is sorry that he ever
wrote “The fatal Beggars Opera” and started the unfortunate ballad opera craze. The
author also decries a recent production of the ballad opera Macheath in the Shades at
Covent Garden, calling it a “pernicious Germ of the Unnatural Root I had first
planted.”
10
followed the Beggar’s Opera, the Success of which Opera is no Honour to the Nation,…tho I do not
deny that a Ballad-opera may be wrote worth Commendation.”
9
Price and Hume, 555.
10
The Prompter, no. 39 (15 March 1735). Quoted in Milhous and Hume, Register, 841. The author
of The Comedian also thinks very little of these ballad operas: “…I cannot avoid reflecting, with some
Surprise, on the Consequences of the Beggar’s Opera, which is a truly reasonable entertaining Piece,
and a just and good Satire on a prevailing ridiculous Taste; yet it has given Birth to Rubbish more
absurd than the Operas on which it is a Satire. I do not deny but a Ballad-opera may be well written;
but we have many Instances of pleasing Tunes supporting what are called Ballad-operas, which have
no Degree of Merit in the Words which are sayed or sung.” (vii, 40)
80
Despite the pervasive influence of The Beggar’s Opera in English theater and
in comic opera in general, there is perhaps too much emphasis put on the originality
of Gay’s masterpiece. Roberts, in his Drama Survey article, “Eighteenth-Century
Ballad Opera,” stated that “Gay at one stroke had created the ballad-opera form full-
blown…”
11
As we shall see below, this is not strictly true. Various genres, both
English and French, had an impact on The Beggar’s Opera and on other ballad opera
writers such as Fielding.
A Problem of Genre: Fielding and the Definition of “Ballad Opera”
In essence, Gay “invented” the genre of ballad opera by designating The
Beggar’s Opera as such. Its themes, characterizations, and use of popular airs spring
immediately to mind when a definition of a ballad opera is called for. We shall see
that “ballad opera” is quite a difficult term to circumscribe. However, there are some
general characteristics that can be specified and which are not disputed.
Price and Hume define ballad opera as a distinctive, English form, with
spoken dialogue and traditional or popular airs sung by the actors.
12
The genre of
ballad opera includes works that are in three acts or fewer, usually written in prose,
and have many songs that are interspersed, all or at least partly set to popular tunes
(usually specified in the printed versions of the works).
13
Overtures and dances are
11
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century Ballad Opera: The Contribution of Henry Fielding,” Drama Survey I
(1961), 78.
12
Price and Hume, 555.
13
Ballad operas could also include songs composed in a ballad style. Examples include those by
Henry Carey’s ballad operas, which contain his own ballad-type tunes. Many of these songs were
appropriated by later ballad opera authors (even Fielding), and were printed in songbooks and
miscellanies along with other ballad or traditional tunes. Additionally, many of Fielding’s own later
ballad operas have a majority of newly composed music in a ballad-opera style.
81
frequent, and there is no recitative (I have found several exceptions to this in
Fielding’s ballad operas, but recitative is used only as a burlesquing device.) The
topics are realistic, satiric, pastoral, and sentimental. There is no strict form—usually
burlesque, pantomime, or “rehearsal” types are used.
14
Many early ballad operas, as in the case of The Beggar’s Opera, were written
in three acts and would have had main billing for the evening. More frequently,
however, ballad operas would have been written in one or two acts and used as
afterpieces. Due mainly to the influence of theater manager John Rich, the afterpiece
during this time was being developed into an important part of the evening’s
entertainment.
15
The afterpieces received billing along with the mainpieces, and
never would have been divided up in between the acts of the mainpiece. Since they
were often paired with a (non-musical) serious or tragic play, afterpieces also usually
included most of the evening’s music.
16
The majority of Fielding’s ballad operas
were afterpieces, and only three were full-length. Roberts erroneously believes that
from “this high proportion of afterpieces, it is clear that Fielding regarded ballad
opera as an inferior form.”
17
However, afterpieces were a significant part of London
entertainment, and were not regarded as lesser works.
14
Gagey, 7. It must be noted that Gagey deviates from his own definition of “ballad opera” several
times throughout his book, discussing several pieces which do not fit his definition.
15
See Paul Sawyer, “John Rich’s Contribution to the Eighteenth-Century London Stage,” in Essays
on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage: The Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored by the
Manchester University Dept. of Drama, ed. Kenneth Richards and Peter Thomson (London: Methuen,
1972) 85-104, Kevin Pry’s “Theatrical Competition and the Rise of the Afterpiece Tradition 1700-
24,” Theatre Notebook 36/1 (1982), 21-27, Leo Hughes, “Afterpieces: Or, That's Entertainment,” The
Stage and the Page: London's 'Whole Show' in the Eighteenth-Century Theatre, ed. George
Winchester Stone (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981), 55–70. and Denise Elliott Shane, “John Rich
and the Reopening of Lincoln's Inn Fields,” Theatre Notebook 42 (1988), 23–31.
16
Michael Burden: “Afterpiece,” Grove Music Online (Accessed 13 February 2006).
17
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 80.
82
An exploration of the origins of the term “ballad opera” is properly begun by
first defining the ballad air. The fourth edition of Bailey’s Dictionary (1728)
described “ballad” as a “Song, commonly sung up and down the Streets;” it can also
signify a traditional song “set to a specified old air.”
18
For several centuries in
England, the most popular tunes of the day appeared on broadside sheets and were
distributed by printers throughout the town, usually with new words to the familiar
airs. Often ballad singers stood on street corners and performed the ballads (a
frequent occurrence in both London and in Paris). According to Gagey, Gay had
quite a literary interest in ballad singers, and wrote ballads himself, as Fielding did.
19
News or any type of important recent event—especially some tidbit of scandal—was
fodder for these ballad songs. There was also a fashion for composing dialect songs,
as Scots, Welsh, and Irish tunes were prevalent throughout this period; some French
and Italian tunes were also used by the ballad-writers.
Characteristically, the ballad operas used previously existing tunes. In fact,
the ballad opera was successful because the audience knew the original words and
music, and could make the connections intended by the author.
20
The ballad opera
airs were sometimes “traditional” folk songs or ballads, but popular tunes of various
types and operatic arias were used more frequently. Despite the different types of
music selected, however, the authors furnished new words for all of it and integrated
18
Gagey, 27.
19
Gagey, 5, 27. Interestingly, ballad singers were often included as dramatis personae in ballad
operas for the mere purpose of singing the songs that were current on the streets. In summer of 1728
Fielding wrote a ballad satirizing Walpole called “The Norfolk Lanthorn” (to be sung to the tune of
“Which nobody can deny”). It appeared in The Craftsman on 20 July 1728 anonymously. See
Battestin, “Four New Fielding Attributions: His Earliest Satires of Walpole,” in Studies in
Bibliography 36 (1983), 69-109; also Battestin, Henry Fielding, 68-70.
20
Roberts, Ballad Operas of Henry Fielding, 87.
83
the songs into the drama, only occasionally using them for variety or entr’acte
entertainment.
21
Defining “ballad opera” as a genre has always been problematic, as from its
inception it was both similar to other genres (as we shall see below), and yet was
designated by the author and his contemporaries as something entirely original.
David Perkins believes that “sorting by genre is valid if the concept of genre was
entertained by the writer and his contemporary readers [or audience].”
22
This was
certainly the case—note the large number of works called “ballad operas” by their
authors after the success of The Beggar’s Opera—but the idea of genre was much
more fluid during the eighteenth century than it is today. No doubt intending to
satirize this very loose concept, the 20 February 1735 issue of the Grub-street
Journal contains a mock puff for a pretend new pantomime called The History of the
Fall of the Tower of Babel, a “Play, or opera, or farce, or pantomime, (for it may be
called any or all of these)…”
Genre, commonly used to denote type when discussing dramatic and literary
texts, is also usually “a reflective category, a way of classifying and systematizing
dramatic texts and performances after the fact.”
23
Through much of history the
recognized genres (satire, tragedy, comedy) were considered fixed. These genres
21
Price and Hume, 555.
22
David Perkins, Is Literary History Possible? (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press,
1992), 15.
23
Michael Goldman, On Drama: Boundaries of Genre, Borders of Self (Ann Arbor: Univ. of
Michigan Press, 2000), 3. Alastair Fowler protests that genre is not taxonomic, that it is not a class but
a type, and therefore has no boundaries in his Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of
Genres (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1982). For more on genre, see Heather Dubrow’s
Genre (London and New York: Methuen, 1982), Adena Rosmarin, The Power of Genre (Minneapolis:
Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1986), and James Battersby, Reason and the Nature of Texts (Philadelphia:
Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). For an excellent scheme for studying genre and
84
were “pure”—for example, tragedy and comedy were completely separate and
should not mix. Rules dictated the appropriate subjects, structure, style, and
emotional effects for each genre.
24
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
though, the clear definition of these genres weakened, therefore causing historians
numerous problems in the classification of various dramatic and operatic types.
Allardyce Nicoll once attempted to list the various names given to ballad operas by
their writers; these designations include: Opera, Comic Opera, Opera-Comedy,
Ballad-Opera, Burlesque Opera, Comedy, Farce, Comic Masque, Farcical Opera,
Interlude, Dramatic Piece, Musical Entertainment, Dramatic Fable, Tragi-Comi-
Farcical Ballad-Opera, Tragi-Comi-Operatic Pastoral Farce, Tragi-Comi-Pastoral
Farcical Opera, and Histori-Tragi-Comi-Ballad-Opera.
25
A piece that today might be
called “ballad opera,” then, had myriad designations during the eighteenth century. It
should be noted that Fielding did not designate any of his ballad operas as such.
One can also see the different definitions of the term “ballad opera” at work
when there is an attempt to list the pieces in the genre. Price and Hume count around
eighty ballad operas written between the first performance of The Beggar’s Opera
and the mid-1730s.
26
Nicoll’s list of ballad operas in his History of Early Eighteenth
Century Drama distresses Gagey, as the list “seems to include musical plays other
than ballad operas.”
27
Indeed, most Fielding scholars generally have not made a
distinction between his ballad operas and other theatrical works, and usually
parody/burlesque, see Gérard Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree (Lincoln: Univ.
of Nebraska Press, 1997).
24
M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt, 1999), 108.
25
Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama 1700-1750 (Cambridge: The Univ.
Press, 1929), 237n.
26
Price and Hume, 555.
85
characterize the ballad operas as “plays.” Although Hume describes Fielding’s
musical works as ballad operas throughout his monograph Henry Fielding and the
London Theatre, in the New Grove Dictionary (2001) he and Curtis Price define the
term “ballad opera” as a “misnomer,” and further describe the works as “plays
(almost always comic, usually farcical) into which a variety of songs have been
worked.”
28
Similar problems arise when trying to study French operatic and
theatrical music of this same period; M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet, when describing the
origins of opéra comique, explained that “to separate ‘opera’ and ‘play’ into neat
categories does a disservice to French theatre of the eighteenth century.”
29
Furthermore, it seems that every scholar who has written anything substantial
on ballad opera seems to have been intent on dividing it up into different “types.” As
can be expected, all of these numerous groups overlap quite a bit and are confusing
in their divisions.
30
Roberts only classifies Fielding’s ballad operas into two
categories: the burlesques (The Author’s Farce, The Grub-Street Opera, Don
Quixote, Tumble-Down Dick, and Eurydice) and the intrigue farces (The Lottery, The
Mock Doctor, Deborah, The Intriguing Chambermaid, An Old Man Taught Wisdom,
27
Gagey, 221n.
28
Price and Hume, 555.
29
M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet, “Opéra comique,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xviii, 478.
30
Gagey divides ballad opera into five different types: low-life operas, pastoral operas, farce and
intrigue, satire and burlesque, and topical operas (such as those concerning social scandal and
politics). Nicoll also separates the genre into five different species, though they are rather distinct
from Gagey’s groups: satirical, pure burlesques, farces, sentimental dramas, and pastorals. Hume
refuses to treat “ballad opera” as a separable entity from Fielding’s other stage works (Henry
Fielding, 256), but does list them under “traditional comedy” (Don Quixote), “entertainment” (The
Lottery, The Mock Doctor, Intriguing Chambermaid, Old Man Taught Wisdom), “burlesque” (Welsh
Opera, Grub-Street Opera, Deborah, Tumble-Down Dick), and “topical satire,” placing Eurydice in
between topical satire and burlesque. Miss Lucy in Town (probably because Fielding’s exact
contribution to the piece is uncertain) is not on the list; Hume mentions it in his book only in an
appendix.
86
and Miss Lucy in Town).
31
In light of the pages of extensive classification one reads
in Hume, Nicoll, and Gagey, I find his designations to be both concise and
applicable.
Hume has written extensively on drama and genre, though he concentrates
mainly on the comedy genre. He believes the work-audience relationship
(particularly important in ballad opera because of the numerous layers of meanings
in the texts of the tunes) can be used to classify and define our ideas of comedy.
32
This “awareness of the audience” can be explained as a series of expectations or
signals from the author or actors to the spectators of a play. That the dramatic “text”
is produced by the actors and the singers on the stage must be considered by anyone
who wishes to give a reading of a dramatic work.
33
Ballad opera functions, as other
types of comedy, by focusing on stock expectations (laughter, a happy marriage at
the end) and by stylizing and intellectualizing them.
34
With ballad opera, the
innumerable and sophisticated meanings of the different “texts,” both musical and
nonmusical, combined with manipulation and stylization of audience expectations,
created a genre which undoubtedly was perfect for employing satire and parody.
Significantly, the work-audience relationship helps to define ballad opera as a genre.
31
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 79-80.
32
Hume, The Rakish Stage: Studies in English Drama, 1660-1800 (Carbondale: Southern Univ. Press,
1983), and his “The Multifarious Forms of Eighteenth-Century Comedy,” in The Stage and the Page:
London’s “whole show” in the Eighteenth-Century Theatre (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press,
1981).
33
Goldman reminds us that “[i]f subtexts were in fact reducible to text, there would be no need for
actors.” (49)
34
Alexander Leggatt, English Stage Comedy 1490-1990: Five Centuries of a Genre (London and NY:
Routledge, 1998).
87
“Playing” the Audience: Ballad Opera, Fielding, and the Significance of the
Work-Audience Relationship
The association between the writer of ballad operas, his actor-singers, and the
playhouse spectators during the early eighteenth century was a complex and
overlapping one, with boundaries difficult to define; nonetheless, this close
relationship was absolutely integral to the success of the genre of ballad opera. It is
clear that Fielding was aware of this important connection, and particularly exploited
the special relationship between the players and the audience in his ballad operas. In
fact, we shall see that he used specific devices, including those found in England’s
well-established tradition of spoken theater, in order to draw in the audience
members and make them aware of their role in his performances.
Chiefly, Fielding spoke directly to his audience and communicated meaning
through his music, especially by using preexisting music in his ballad operas. With
borrowed tunes, the listeners were often acquainted with the previously constructed
texts and could make associations with them. Fielding, assuming recognition of the
music and its prior texts, made subtle jokes that the audience was certain to
understand, therefore drawing them “in” to the jest. Using preexisting music was
one of the most important means by which Fielding and other ballad opera authors
imparted additional information to their audiences. An excellent contemporary
description of a similar effect can be found in Colley Cibber’s Apology…:
...when the Movement of the Air, and Tone of the voice, are exquisitely harmonious, tho’ we
regard not one Word or what we hear, yet the Power of the Melody is so busy in the Heart,
that we naturally annex Ideas to it of our own Creation, and, in some sort, become our selves
the Poet to the Composer…
35
35
Colley Cibber, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, and Late Patentee of the
Theatre-Royal…(London: Printed by J. Watts, 1740), 66-67.
88
Most of these “ideas” annexed to the familiar airs would have been ones already
introduced to the audience by prior performances of the tunes in other ballad operas.
We shall see that the same airs were used time and time again in numerous stage
works, apparently in order to reinforce certain stereotypes or to make particular
sentiments transparent to the spectators.
It must be stressed that many levels of meaning abounded in the ballad airs,
and eighteenth-century London audiences would have been very aware of this while
listening. As in French operas-comiques, spectators would have been attentive “to
several registers simultaneously: allusions not just to the work being parodied, but
also…to the performance history of its subject, to other recent theatrical productions,
on various stages, and even to critical writings.”
36
The longevity and performative
history of the ballad airs before (and after) their use in Fielding’s ballad operas
ensured that several allusions existed by the time audiences heard the tunes. When
audiences heard Sweetissa announce her love for Robin in The Welsh Opera (1731)
to the tune of “Young Damon Once the Happiest Swain,” for example, they no doubt
would have remembered other recent professions of love sung to this exact same air.
Contemporary uses of the tune—all expressions of love—would have just been heard
in the anonymous Love and Revenge (1729), Coffey’s The Beggar’s Wedding
(1729), Charles Johnson’s The Village Opera (1729), and Edward Phillip’s The
Chamber-Maid (1730), among others. Fielding’s tunes were therefore well chosen
36
Bruce Alan Brown, “Les Rêveries renouvelées des Grecs: Facture, function and performance
practice in a vaudeville parody of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride (1779),” in Timbre und Vaudeville:
Zur Geschichte und Problematik einer populären Gattung im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Bericht über
den Kongress in Bad Homburg 1996 (Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1999), 330-31.
89
in order to align with their previous meanings so as to strengthen these kinds of
associations in the listener’s minds.
Prologues and epilogues contained direct addresses to the audience, breaking
down the performer-audience barrier even further, as the actors usually spoke them
while still in character. Fielding included many witty prologues before his ballad
operas. In the Introduction to Don Quixote in England, the “Manager” and “Author”
converse, making fun of three different prologues that are commonly spoken on the
stage (they pull them out of their pockets one by one in order to make fun of each in
turn). The first prologue to be mocked laments “the fallen State of the Stage” (a
common topic) and describes how this particular play will “restore true Taste.” This,
replies the Author, “hath been the Subject of almost every Prologue for these ten
Years last past.” The second type of prologue criticized by the two seems to have a
popular format: “The first twelve Lines inveigh against all Indecency on the Stage,
and the last twenty Lines shew you what it is.” The last prologue in the Author’s
pocket is by someone who has not even read the play and “hath fallen very severely
on Farce.” The Author then explains the idea behind the action in his own ballad
opera about to be acted (Don Quixote in England). He jokes that prologues generally
put the audience to sleep before the drama even begins. A “Player” enters,
complaining that the audience is making such a noise that “if we don’t start
immediately, they will beat the House down before the Play begins.” The Author
replies that they are not to worry: the cat-callers are friends of his who are supposed
to be resistant to the ballad opera at first, but will “be converted at the End of the
First Act.”
90
In general, actors spoke the prologues, and the actresses spoke the epilogues.
Later in the eighteenth century the actors began to address the audience in their own
names; this is common in most of the performance vehicles of Kitty Clive. The
prologues and epilogues usually protested contemporary issues (especially theatrical
issues such as competition from foreign performers), appealed to patriotism,
addressed morality or taught a lesson, or made fun of the author or the public.
37
Sometimes the prologues and epilogues are little entertainments within themselves.
The epilogue of Fielding’s The Author’s Farce is one such interlude, as it is
essentially a short, three-paged play called “Four POETS sitting at a Table.”
38
37
For more on prologues and epilogues, see Pierre Danchin’s estimable Introduction to his edition of
The Prologues and Epilogues of the Eighteenth Century, 7 vols. (Nancy, France: Presses
Universitaires de Nancy). The edited volume contains many of the most important prologues and
epilogues of the century. Fielding wrote a very patriotic epilogue in his Universal Gallant, and used
the approach of appealing to women in order to keep their men in line:
…What can he mean in such an Age as this is,
When scarce a Beau but keeps a Brace of Misses?
They Keep! why Gentlemen, perhaps, ‘tis true,
So do our sweet Italian Singers too.
What can one think of all the Beaus in Town,
When with the Ladies such Gallants go down?
Th’ Italian Dames, should this Report grow common,
Will surely pity us poor English Women.
By the vast Sums we pay them for their Strains,
They’ll think, perhaps, we don’t abound in Brains?
…Now for the Wits—but they so nice are grown,
French only with their Palates will go down.
French Plays Applause have, like French Dishes, got,
Only because you understand them not.
Happy Old England, in those glorious Days,
When good plain English Food and Sense could please:
…They knew by manly Means soft Hearts to move,
Nor ask’d an Eunuch’s Voice to melt their Nymphs to Love.
--Ladies, ‘tis yours to reinstate that Age,
Do you assist the Satire of the Stage!
Teach foreign Mimicks by a generous Scorn,
You’re not asham’d of being Britons born;
Make it to your eternal Honour known,
That Men must bear your Frowns, whenever shown
That they prefer All Countries to their own.
38
The epilogue is in verse, spoken by the four poets on such topics as critics, pleasing the town, wit,
and women, among others. The Author enters and declares that since they are taking so long to
91
The final tunes of the ballad operas also included admonitions or requests for
favor from the audience. This can be seen in Kitty Clive’s penultimate stanza of
“Had your Daughter been physick’d well, Sir, as she ought” (sung to the tune of
“The Yorkshire Ballad”); this is the last air in both editions of An Old Man Taught
Wisdom. The “playing” for the favor of the audience is even more important when
one considers that Clive is still in character:
LUCY
…
My Fate then, Spectators, hangs on your Decree,
I have brought kind Papa here, at last, to agree;
If you’ll pardon the Poet, he will pardon me,
With my Down, down, [down, up and down, derry,
derry, derry, down, up and down, derry, derry, down] &c.
Let not a poor Farce then nice Criticks pursue,
But like honest-hearted good natur’d Men do,
And clap to please us, who have sweat to please you,
With our Down, down, &c.
CHORUS.
Let not a poor Farce then, &c.
It must be emphasized that most of the new plays of this era, including most
of the ballad operas, were written as performance vehicles for the actors. Audiences
would have been quite familiar with their favorite performers, eagerly followed their
careers and personal lives, and would have known their particular talents, theatrical
styles, and personalities. It is significant that the ballad opera audiences would have
felt as if they knew the characters. Authors such as Fielding would naturally have
played up to the audience’s expectations. Joncus has already shown that Kitty
Clive’s star persona was carefully constructed by those who wrote her theatrical and
conclude, he will have the epilogue spoken by a cat. A woman dressed as a cat comes on the stage,
and a Player enters, furious that his epilogue will be spoken by a cat. The “cat” speaks the epilogue
nevertheless, making amusing comparisons between women and cats.
92
musical pieces, mainly Fielding and Carey. This point is crucial to understanding the
musical construction of the ballad operas. We have previously seen that old songs
were frequently reworked; however, the earlier characteristics and meanings
remained and were immediately interpreted by the audience. Fielding’s later ballad
operas show us that new songs were also written expressly for particular actor-
singers; this new material would have to perpetuate what they already knew about
the characters on the stage from previous performances. It follows then that Fielding
was still able to speak directly to his audience and impart meaning even with his
newly composed music, as it would still carry associations related to the actor-
singers performing the tune.
Fielding’s use of the actor-singer John Harper in several of his ballad operas
is one example of playing to the audience’s expectations of a known character.
Harper, a fat, jolly man who played many signature character roles during his time
with the Drury Lane troupe, occasionally took comical skirt roles, but most often was
cast as a typical robust working-class Englishman. Many of Harper’s most famous
characters were misogynists; his role as the wife-beating Jobson in The Devil to Pay
(1731) would have come quickly to the minds of the ballad opera spectators.
Fielding’s audiences surely would have thought of this disagreeable Jobson when
presented with Lucy’s detestable suitor Blister in The Old Man Taught Wisdom. (“I
hate you, and I can’t abide you,” Lucy cries, “…you are such a great ugly thing, I
can’t bear to look at you; and if my Papa was to lock me up for a Twelvemonth, I
shou’d hate you still.”) Perhaps the audience would have also remembered Harper’s
combination of cobbler and cuckold, the character Crispin, in Odingsells’s Bays’s
93
Opera (1730)—especially when Blister jokes with daft Lucy about becoming her
husband despite the fact that she loves Mr. Thomas, the footman (obviously his
attraction has something to do with her fortune):
Lucy. …[Married women say] that you will tell me one Story before Marriage, and another
afterwards, for that Marriage alters a Man prodigiously.
Blist. No, Child, I shall be just the same Creature I am now, unless in one Circumstance; I
shall have a huge Pair of Horns upon my Head.
Lucy. Shall you! that’s pure, ha, ha, what a comical Figure you will make! but how will
you make ‘em grow?
Blist. It is you that will make ‘em grow.
Lucy. Shall I? by Goles! then I’ll do’t as soon as ever I can; for I long to see ‘em! do, tell
me how I shall do it.
Blist. Every other man you kiss, I shall have a Pair of Horns grow.
Lucy. By Goles, then, you shall have Horns enough; but I fancy you are joaking now.
[They sing Air V, in which Blister tells her that English men carry their horns in their
pockets.] But you shall wear yours on your Head, for I shall like ‘em better than any other
thing about you.
Another player who would no doubt become affixed in the minds of the
spectators was Charles Macklin, who performed the heavy-drinking and boorish
Squire Badger in Don Quixote in England, the lawyer Wormwood in An Old Man
Taught Wisdom, and the repugnant Jew Zorobabel in Miss Lucy in Town. The latter
role of a rich Jew, in particular, would have been unforgettable to audiences, as
Macklin had just (in 1741) become one of the most celebrated actors of his time with
his evil characterization of Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (see
Fig. 3.1). No doubt the character of Zorobabel was written into the 1742 Miss Lucy
opera solely to capitalize on his recent portrayal of Shylock. Unfortunately,
Macklin’s excellent yet villainous depiction of the infamous Jew did much to foster
anti-Semitic feeling in England during the coming century. It certainly did not help
that Macklin himself had quite an iniquitous private life which sometimes coincided
with his onstage portrayals: later accused of the murder of fellow actor Thomas
94
Hallam (who also played roles in several of Fielding’s ballad operas), Macklin
served as his own lawyer and was acquitted of the crime.
Undoubtedly, any attempt at objectivity in the minds of the spectators when
watching a play or ballad opera conflicted with their preexisting notion of the actor’s
socially conferred identity. In addition, the players’ on-stage personas both
contributed to the performances and shaped how and what Fielding wrote for them.
It is of note that the actors would have been Fielding’s critical script readers as well
as his first audience. For these reasons, a grasp of the relationships between
particular players is quite important for the modern reader and performer. As I will
explore further in Chapter IV, very little information about performance practice can
be gleaned from the printed texts of Fielding’s ballad operas. Understanding that
these pieces were vehicles for the actor-singers gives us much needed insight into
how surviving dialogue, music, and lyrics would have been performed.
The intimacy of the relationship between actors and spectators in ballad
operas was furthered by several traditional theatrical practices in England. One
unique aspect of English theater-going that undoubtedly contributed to the close
work-audience relationship was the opportunity for the playhouse spectators to sit in
boxes along the apron of the stage, or sometimes even on the stage itself (see Figs.
2.1 and 3.2). Though the King’s Theatre had boxes along the parterre (as did
practically all eighteenth-century theaters), the practice of actually sitting on the
stage was certainly not allowed at the opera house—only the smaller theaters
allowed patrons upon the stage. According to theatrical accounts and imagery, this
95
practice was common in the French playhouses as well (see Fig. 3.3).
39
The
inconvenience this caused the actors must have been enormous, and it
unquestionably would have curtailed any attempt at realism or “naturalism” for most
of the theatrical experience. From Tate Wilkinson’s memoirs:
My kind reader, suppose an audience behind the curtain up to the clouds, with persons of a
menial cast on the ground, beaux and no beaux crowding the only entrance, what a play it
must have been whenever Romeo was breaking open the supposed tomb, which was no more
than a screen on those nights set up, and Mrs Cibber prostrating herself on an old couch,
covered with black cloth, as the tomb of the Capulets, with at least (on a great benefit night)
two hundred persons behind her, which formed the back ground…The stage spectators were
not content with piling on raised seats, till their heads reached the theatrical cloudings; which
seats were closed in with dirty worn out scenery, to inclose [sic] the painted round from the
first wing, the main entrance being up steps from the middle of the back scene, but when that
amphitheatre was filled, there would be a group of ill-dressed lads and persons sitting on the
stage in front, three or four rows deep, otherwise those who sat behind them could not have
seen, and a riot would have ensued: So in fact a performer on a popular night could not step
his foot with safety, least he either should thereby hurt or offend, or be thrown down amongst
scores of idle tipsey apprentices.
40
Being seen was an important part of theater-going during this period, and
certainly sitting on the stage was the best way to be noticed by the crowd. It was the
fashion to make oneself as conspicuous as possible; this is especially true for beaux
and their ladies. Tawdry in Miss Lucy in Town describes the “fine ladies” at the
theater to Lucy: “Why, if they can, they take a stage-box, where they let the footman
sit the first two acts, to show his livery; then they come in to show themselves,
39
John Lough, in his Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1957), says that aristocrats (mostly the young male “fops”) sat in the premières
loges or on the stage. This practice of sitting on the stage grew during the seventeenth century in
various theaters in Paris and lasted until 1759, when it was abolished at the Comédie Française. We
know that writers sat on the stage; on separate occasions even Corneille and Molière did so. (114-17)
Barbara G. Mittman’s Spectators on the Paris Stage in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
(Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1984) includes chapters on the development of stage seating and
discusses the economic considerations of the practice. It is noteworthy that the Opéra was the first to
eject stage spectators (at the end of the seventeenth century), but it took much longer to abolish this
practice at the other two playhouses.
40
From Tate Wilkinson’s Memoirs, quoted in London Stage, iv, 110-11, 114.
96
spread their fans upon the spikes, make curtsies to their acquaintance, and then talk
and laugh as loud as they are able.”
41
Spectators sitting on or near the stage—and becoming part of the
performance with their antics—are a tangible indication of this merging of and
overlap between audience and players. The architecture of the theatrical space was
also important for our understanding of this distinctive audience-performer
relationship. Long before the age of gas lighting, the meager candlelight that
illuminated the playhouses would have made the theater-going experience quite
intimate. Footlights at edges of the stage, sconces near boxes, and lights placed
behind the curtains of the back scene area would not have lessened much the close
darkness of the theater (Garrick would eventually add even more candles in the
hangings over the main platform, making it the brightest part of the house).
42
Additionally, by today’s standards, the playhouses were considerably smaller. In the
late seventeenth century, Drury Lane held around 800 people; in 1733 it held around
1,000 spectators; in 1790 it was expanded to hold 2,300 seats; finally, the new Drury
Lane in 1794 held more than 3,600 people.
43
This undeniably had an effect on the
audibility and the types of dialogue and music written for the theater. The ballad
opera audience’s experience, then, was certainly more intimate than that of later
English opera-goers, and differed considerably from the later theatrical experiences
of their children and grandchildren.
41
These “spikes” were set around the edges of the stage, presumably to keep rioters and other eager
audience members from leaping upon the stage during a performance.
42
Nicoll, The Garrick Stage: Theatres and Audience in the Eighteenth Century (Manchester:
Manchester Univ. Press, 1980), 116.
43
Hume, The Rakish Stage, 218.
97
Significantly, the early eighteenth-century audience knew their
responsibilities during ballad opera and other theater performances quite well. To
start with, it was the audience’s role to make or break a performance; to make
catcalls, throw orange peels and apples, clap and hiss. John Dryden once said that
these were “the privileges of a free-born subject.”
44
The eighteenth-century English
audience was quite responsive, and we have already seen that they were sometimes
violent and prone to riots. The German traveler and Garrick aficionado Georg
Christoph Lichtenberg wrote of a memorable theater-going experience in London in
1775:
In the Rival Candidates,…this year he [Weston] spoke the epilogue in the company of a big
dog…On the second occasion on which I saw the play Weston, for the first time, wearied of
speaking his epilogue and refused to appear; the audience took this in very bad part, and
“Epilogue! Epilogue!” resounded from all the throats which had done their best to wake
Richard the Third from the dead; but still Weston did not appear. Several persons left the
boxes, but I had made up my mind to await the outcome of the matter. Suddenly there came
a shower, first of pears, then oranges, and next quart-bottles, on to the stage, one of them,
containing, I should think, three quarts, striking one of the glass chandeliers; and it looked
like turning into a riot, when Weston came on the stage with Dragon (that is the dog’s name)
as calmly as though he were always called for like this. There was a little hissing here and
there, but this soon died down.
45
A back-and-forth relationship between the actors and the spectators had long
been part of the English theatrical tradition. The prologues, epilogues, requests for
favor (and the actors’ granting of requests for epilogues or songs, as in the anecdote
above) all contributed to this special liaison. Additionally, a kind of “play within a
play” mindset was already part of the audience’s consciousness.
46
Some notable
44
Leo Hughes, The Drama’s Patrons: A Study of the Eighteenth-Century London Audience (Austin
and London: Univ. of Texas Press, 1971), 26. See his chapter one concerning the “Role and Rights”
of the audience.
45
Georg Cristoph Lichtenberg, Lichtenberg’s Visits to England, ed. and transl. by Margaret Laura
Mare and William Henry Quarrell, 28-29.
46
As Paul Alkon has pointed out devices of this type were common even in Shakespeare’s time
(personal communication, 28 January 2007). For instance, in Hamlet (Act 1, Sc. 5), the title character
98
examples of Fielding making use of this convention are passages in the ballad operas
where the players or “author” talks directly to the prompter, Mr. Chetwood, or the
orchestra manager, Mr. Seedo, during the show.
47
At the beginning of Tumble-Down
Dick, for example, the Prompter appears on the stage along three of the ballad
opera’s characters. They discuss the upcoming afterpiece:
PROMPTER: MR. Fustian, I hope the Tragedy is over, for Mr. Machine is just come, and
we must practice the Entertainment.
Fust. Sir, my Tragedy is done; but you need not be in such Haste about your Entertainment,
for you will not want it this season.
Promp. That, Sir, I don’t know; but we dare not disoblige Mr. Machine, for fear he should go
to the other House.
Sneer. Dr. Fustian, do let us stay and see the Practice.
Of course, as Fustian (an author), Sneerwell (a critic), and Machine (a composer), are
discussing the “Entertainment” (the upcoming ballad opera afterpiece), they serve as
entertainment themselves to the real audience. The addition of the playhouse’s real
prompter to the “scene” certainly brings a new level to the idea of play within a play.
One important function of a playhouse audience was to determine the subtext
of the piece, especially if it was political.
48
For example, today it is nearly
sees a ghost in the cellarage—the trapdoor in the center part of the stage: “you hear this fellow in the
cellarage.” Fielding burlesques this scene in his play, Pasquin:
[Musick under the Stage.
Q. Ign[orance]. What hideous Musick, or what Yell is this?
Sure ‘tis the Ghost of some poor Opera Tune.
Sneer. The Ghost of a Tune, Mr. Fustian?
Fust. Ay, Sir, did you never hear one before? I had once a Mind to have brought the
Apparition of Musick in Person upon the Stage, in the Shape of an English Opera. Come, Mr.
Ghost of the Tune, if you please to appear in the Sound of soft Musick, and let the Ghost of
Common-Sense rise to it.
[Ghost of Common-Sense rises to soft Musick.
47
This “voice” of the author is particularly important in Fielding, as in at least ten of his plays the
“author” makes an appearance. See Anthony J. Hassall, “The Authorial Dimension in the Plays of
Henry Fielding,” Komos I/1 (Mar. 1967), 4-18.
48
Hughes, The Drama’s Patrons, 7. See also Hume, The Rakish Stage, 246: “Response to the work
must depend heavily on the standards brought to it, since the play itself does not present us with
explicit values and judgments. Evidently Gay either assumed that the audience would know what
standards to apply (and hence would know how to “read” his inversions), or intended to leave at least
some part of his audience puzzled and uneasy.” Hume’s main point here is that this type of “hidden”
99
impossible to interpret what Gay might have meant to convey with his The Beggar’s
Opera; we only can be certain of what contemporary audiences made of it. A
furious debate over the first ballad opera’s supposed moral content, its rumored
political subject matter, and even on whether or not it was attacking Italian opera
consumed the journals of the era and continues to interest modern scholars.
49
The
same can be said for many of Fielding’s works—particularly those that were deemed
so injurious to the political administration that they contributed to the drafting of the
Licensing Act. Fielding’s best plays and ballad operas often have scholars divided
on interpretation—particularly when it is political. However, neither Walpole nor
politics ever specifically appear in any of Fielding’s plots. And although he creates a
cast of suggestive characters, Fielding always allows the audience to draw its own
deductions from them. In short, the author is aware that any apparent meaning
depends on the audience.
We have already seen that ballad operas as a rule use stock characters,
devices, and plots. In fact, Hume has stated that nearly “every play written for
professional production in England between 1660 and 1776 is constructed from the
political/social attack makes pieces of this type more radical and subversive than any other kind of
satire.
49
The debate over whether Gay was carrying out a critical attack on Italian opera has been kept afloat
for decades. Bertrand Bronson wrote that there is “little probability that Gay intended a serious attack
upon Italian opera, and he may even have been somewhat appalled at the amount of damage caused
by his play. For his ridicule does not go beyond poking affectionate fun at conventions which, like
most conventions objectively regarded, have their ludicrous side.” See Bronson, “The Beggar’s
Opera,” in Studies in the Comic (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1941), 197-231. The other
position is taken by Arthur V. Berger “The Beggar’s Opera, the Burlesque, and Italian Opera,” Music
and Letters 17 (1936), 93-105. See also William McIntosh, “Handel, Walpole, and Gay: The Aims of
The Beggar’s Opera,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 7 (1974), 415-33 and Lowell Lindgren, “Camilla
and The Beggar’s Opera,” Philological Quarterly 59 (1980), 44-61. Hume has made it clear that
although Italian opera was a frequent satiric object, there was never a serious attempt to drive opera
out of London.
100
proven materials of popular drama.”
50
As the commercial theater of the eighteenth
century was certainly derivative, it follows that the ballad operas were doing well
because they made use of established theatrical conventions. Creating and meeting
the expectations of the spectators was an important part of writing a successful ballad
opera. Cognition studies have shown that familiarity and simplicity are the most
important attributes of an audience’s enjoyment of an aesthetic experience. A recent
study has concluded that “aesthetic pleasure is a function of the perceiver’s
processing dynamics: The more fluently perceivers can process an object, the more
positive their aesthetic response.”
51
Managing the audience’s expectations by using
familiar devices was bound to please. And evidence shows that this must have been
the case, as most of the playhouse offerings during this period were mostly “classics”
and repeated older favorites. Even the new “experimental” ballad operas used the
same old plots and characters, and most certainly they used the familiar veteran
actors who were already known to the audience.
For spectators, the theatrical experience in London was quite different
depending on whether one was attending a performance of a ballad opera or an
Italian opera.
52
To start with, ballad opera was non-elitist and had a different kind of
relationship with its audience. Italian opera was rarely conducive to a back-and-forth
exchange between spectators and performers, and there was rarely any “winking” at
an opera audience. According to 1707-8 drawings of the Queen’s Theatre we can see
50
Hume, The Rakish Stage, 5.
51
Rolf Reber, Norbert Schwartz, and Piotr Winkielman, “Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure:
Is Beauty in the Perceiver’s Processing Experience?” Personality and Social Psychology Review 8/4
(2004), 364-82.
101
that there were boxes on the proscenium (the “apron”) of the stage, and the same was
true with Covent Garden, where Handel’s company resided during the 1733-4 season
after the Opera of the Nobility took over the King’s Theatre (see Figs. 3.4 and 3.5).
However, unlike in the playhouses, there was no sitting directly on the stage at the
Italian opera.
The social and economic standing of an audience at the opera was higher than
that of ballad operas, and reports of income from the theaters support this. Opera
season subscribers paid the enormous sum of twenty guineas for fifty nights, and
walk-in tickets were also much more expensive.
53
We have already seen that the
opera singers made much more (see Table 2.1). We have also seen that the
playhouses had a repertoire of old favorites played by a cast of familiar and well-
loved actors. The opera had new singers and from six to ten brand new operas each
year. Though the budgets were larger for the opera companies at the King’s Theatre
and at Covent Garden, more money was lost overall (Milhous and Hume figured
average income for Handel’s company at around £11,000 and expenditures at about
£13,700).
54
Despite the prevalence of attacks or at least jokes made at the expense of the
operas performed at the King’s Theatre, it is worth noting that the relationship
between ballad opera and Italian opera was symbiotic. It seems clear that although
52
Handel, for example, was known to be a member of the elite and he relied on the support of people
of quality, who made up his audiences. See David Hunter’s “Patronizing Handel, Inventing
Audiences: The Intersections of Class, Money, Music, and History” in EMc 28/1 (Feb. 2000), 32-49.
53
During this part of the century, prices were 10s 6d for pit and boxes and 5s for the gallery, in
comparison with the playhouses, which charged 4s for a box, 2s 6d for the pit, 1s 6d for the first
gallery, and 1s for the second gallery. See Milhous and Hume’s chapter on “Handel’s London—The
Theatres” in Burrows, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Handel (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1997), 58.
102
Italian opera was a frequent object of satire, ballad opera could not have survived
without the existence of this “other” foreign, supposedly effeminate, upper-class
entertainment. The enormous number of Italian tunes that made up a large part of
the music of ballad operas is only one indication that this was the case; as we have
seen, Handel certainly influenced Fielding musically.
55
Even more importantly,
however, the Italian operas served as endless fodder for the satiric pens of the
English playhouse writers. In order for the ballad operas and their jests to be funny
(and they undoubtedly were, as revealed by the financial and popular success of
many pieces), the audience needed to know what was being attacked or parodied.
That the opera and the playhouse frequently shared audiences between them is
another clue that Italian opera and ballad opera were connected. And though
Fielding made fun of Italian opera conventions, we can see that he did this because
he knows that the audience gets his jokes: his “mimic” songs or parodied Italian airs
like “Son confuso” and “Dimmi cara” play off both the music and the text of the
original Italian arias. In addition, Fielding’s frequent use of erudite phrases and
quotations from plays demonstrates that he was not only a master of antique
literature, but also a connoisseur of old theatrical pieces. By using these learned jests
with his readers and spectators, he quizzes them about their other theater-going
experiences. These types of “in” jokes are perhaps comparable with what he does
with Italian opera.
***
54
Milhous and Hume, “Handel’s London,” 58-59.
55
Fielding used more Handel tunes than any other ballad opera composer, which is discussed further
below in my Case Study: The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera.
103
The eighteenth-century audience’s recognition of jokes, parodied music and
literature, and theatrical expectations is perhaps one of the most prominent yet
unexamined aspects of the elusive genre of ballad opera, and of Fielding’s operas in
particular. In fact, the audience’s awareness of its role in the performance of the
genre is what makes it entirely different from Italian and other “high art” operas of
the era. The audience’s consumption of a production and how it viewed particular
actor-singers affected the construction of the work and helped to establish the
success of ballad opera as a genre. This work-audience relationship is also important
for understanding how Fielding put together his ballad operas.
Today’s extremely different theatrical tradition—one where the audience
(usually) sits quietly, observing the action on stage and rarely participating—really
highlights the change in attitude during performance which altered around the same
time of Garrick’s reforms. Possibly the new focus on “naturalistic” acting practices
helped to expunge some of the older practices, particularly the ones whereby the
character is fully aware of the presence and role of the audience. This Restoration
and early eighteenth-century “performative” tradition was then slowly and quietly
erased. Still, Hume and Scouten remind us that there is “no reason to suppose that a
seventeenth-century audience was any less able to enjoy a play for different reasons
from different vantage points than a twentieth-century one.”
56
The eighteenth-
century playhouse audience had a tremendous amount of social, moral, and political
diversity, and an increasing interest in change and novelty, much like the theater-
going audiences of today.
104
English Influences on Ballad Opera
How did ballad opera evolve into Gay’s first masterpiece? Which genres,
English or French, may have influenced Fielding? Did the popularity of Italian
opera in London detract from the development of the genre of ballad opera?
Examining the history of opera and musical theater in England can help us to answer
these questions, though we should not neglect to look at the possible influence of
French theater traditions in the development of ballad opera.
Musical conventions in early opera and musical theater in England,
particularly the masque and “semi-operas,” strongly shaped the development of
ballad opera. Though the form and the themes of these pieces, which could be
described as “heroic and artificial,”
57
are very unlike those of the ballad operas, they
were still very important in the evolution of the genre. Not only were these masques
and semi-operas later stripped of their most memorable airs for use in ballad opera
parodies, but the weaknesses of early English opera brought changes to the London
theater world that would affect its growth for many years.
Masques, entertainments with music, dancing, and complex machines,
costumes, and scenery, developed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and
were in fashion throughout the Restoration.
58
In these favorite public entertainments,
there were dialogues, choruses, and music inserted before and after the acts. There
was also a considerable amount of dancing in these pieces. During the period of the
56
Hume and Scouten, “‘Restoration Comedy and its Audiences,” in Yearbook of English Studies 10
(1980), 45-69.
57
Gagey, 17.
58
Murray Lefkowitz, “Masque,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie
and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xvi, 53.
105
Restoration, Charles II became very interested in French music and dancing, and was
instrumental in bringing many French musicians and dancers to London. This French
influence is readily apparent in the choreography, poetry, and scenic design of
Restoration masques, for example in Shadwell’s masque Psyche (published 1675),
which was modeled on French works and notable for its French choreography.
59
Though later in the seventeenth century the fashion for pieces in French declined, the
English interest in their custom of musical interludes did not.
For much of the seventeenth century, opera and other theatrical
entertainments were not subsidized by the government, as the theater companies had
lost their royal patronage with the beheading of Charles I in 1649. The theaters were
closed until the end of the century, and reopened as private investments. In the
eighteenth century, George I reinstated patronage when he assisted the Royal
Academy of Music with a fixed amount from the royal coffers each year.
60
Opera
would consequently have to rely mainly on unpredictable season subscriptions,
public opinion, and the whims of the impresarios. Despite some years of success,
opera in England was generally a risky business. The playhouses, which produced
far less elaborate pieces (and with the money of the owners rather than subscription
holders), often gambled on experimental genres and were therefore fertile ground for
the development of the ballad opera.
English semi-operas, whose most enduring composers were Matthew Locke
and Henry Purcell, began to fall into decline soon after Thomas Betterton moved into
59
Lefkowitz, 55.
106
the small Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, though the Patent Company at Dorset Garden
and Drury Lane—directed by Christopher Rich—tried to continue to produce semi-
operas.
61
In 1703, John Vanbrugh built the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket
(known after 1714 as the King’s Theatre), and began to vie at once with the other
theaters for the new Italian operas and singers that were coming into vogue in
London. Though the Queen’s Theatre still presented some English semi-operas,
Vanbrugh soon replaced them with the more fashionable Italian operas, and these
competed viciously with the far less popular English entertainments at Drury Lane.
62
One of these Italian operas, Giovanni Bononcini’s Camilla, was translated into
English in 1706 and has been found to have influenced the development of both
Italian and English opera.
63
In 1707, Vanbrugh persuaded the Lord Chamberlain to issue an order
separating plays and operas, thus giving himself a monopoly on opera in London.
64
This restricted Christopher Rich at Drury Lane to performing plays only, and as
60
Unfortunately, his contribution was less than 10% of the company’s total costs. See Hume, et al.:
“London,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London:
Macmillan, 2001), xv, 111.
61
Hume, “London,” 112. See also Milhous’s Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, 1695-1708 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1979).
62
In 1706, the situation could be described thus:
Our stage is in a very indifferent condition. There has been a very fierce combat between the
Haymarket [Queen’s Theatre] and Drury Lane, and the two sisters, Music and Poetry, quarrel
like two fishwives at Billingsgate…Though Farquhar meets with success, and has the entire
happiness of pleasing the upper gallery, Betterton and Wilks, Ben Jonson and the best of
them, must give place to a brawling Italian woman, whose voice to me is less pleasing than
merry-andrew’s playing on the gridiron. ‘The Mourning Bride,’ ‘Plain Dealer,’ ‘Volpone,’ or
‘Tamerlane,’ will hardly fetch us a tolerable audience, unless we stuff the bills with long
entertainments of dances, songs, scaramouched entries, and what not.
See Percy Fitzgerald, A New History of the English Stage (London: Tinsley Bros., 1882), I, 240.
Curtis Price posits that the “Italian woman” is Margarita de l’Epine, a famous Italian soprano in
London at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
63
See Lowell Lindgren’s “I Trionfi di Camilla,” Studi musicali VI (1977), 89-159 and his “Camilla
and The Beggar’s Opera,” 44-61.
64
Hume, “London,” 114.
107
Vanbrugh preferred the more lucrative Italian operas, this division dealt a mighty
blow to the development of English opera. However, when Vanbrugh went bankrupt
within a matter of months and the two companies were reunited under the direction
of Rich at Drury Lane, it looked for a few years as if native operas could successfully
contest their Italian rivals.
65
When Heidegger’s Italian company shut down in 1717,
it looked for a time that Italian opera had lost its popularity in London.
During these formative years both the semi-opera and masque was also still
in vogue, and was staged mainly at Drury Lane. Eccles’s Acis and Galatea (1701)
was still frequently in the repertoire, and several new masques by Pepusch, Galliard,
and Leveridge were premiered.
66
It should be noted that numerous airs from these
works would become great favorites of the ballad opera writers during the next two
decades. In addition to influencing ballad opera, the popularity of English theatrical
masques seemed to stimulate Handel around 1719 into composing Acis and Galatea
(with text by John Gay).
67
Acis and Galatea was Handel’s only English opera, and
was originally conceived as a masque. The opera was first performed privately in
1721, but was later developed into a “pastoral” for Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1731 and
had another unauthorized performance at the Little Haymarket in 1732.
68
Aaron Hill
appealed to Handel to continue writing in the English tradition, but to no avail:
65
Purcell’s music enjoyed an auspicious revival on the stage in 1715 with a performance of The
Island Princess, and for many years thereafter his operas were performed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and
Drury Lane. Attesting to Purcell’s resurgence in popularity, White tells us that of Dioclesian alone,
there were nine new performances in 1716, ten in 1717, and three in 1718. (White, History of English
Opera, 171) Additionally, during the 1716-17 season, Lincoln’s Inn Fields under John Rich
(Christopher’s son) presented thirty-six performances of English operas. (Hume, “London,” 115)
66
White, History of English Opera, 171-2.
67
White, History of English Opera, 172.
68
White, History of English Opera, 166. For more information on Handel and Gay’s Acis and
Galetea, see Todd Seacrist Gilman’s dissertation on The Theory and Practice of English Opera and
108
HAVING this occasion of troubling you with a letter, I cannot forbear to tell you the
earnestness of my wishes, that, as you have made such considerable steps towards it, already,
you would let us owe to your inimitable genius, the establishment of musick, upon a
foundation of good poetry; where the excellence of the sound should be no longer
dishonour’d, by the poorness of the sense it is chain’d to.
MY meaning is, that you would be resolute enough, to deliver us from our Italian bondage;
and demonstrate, that English is soft enough for Opera, when compos’d by poets, who know
how to distinguish the sweetness of our tongue, from the strength of it, where the last is less
necessary.
I AM of opinion, that male and female voices may be found in this kingdom, capable of
every thing, that is requisite; and, I am sure, a species of dramatic Opera might be invented,
that, by reconciling reason and dignity, with musick and fine machinery, would charm the
ear, and hold fast the heart, together.
69
Despite the fact that Handel returned to using only Italian librettos (except, of course,
for his English oratorios), he nevertheless had a decided effect on the development of
English opera in the early eighteenth century. As for his influence on ballad operas,
Handel’s music was appropriated by the authors more than that of any other
composer.
In 1728, the former Queen’s (now King’s) Theatre in the Haymarket was the
only patented opera house in London, and it was the center of Italian opera with
Handel’s Royal Academy of Music. When ballad opera became the fashion during
this year, it was relegated to the realm of the two main playhouses (Drury Lane and
the Little Haymarket) along with the other “English operas” of the day, such as
masques, pantomimes, pasticcios, and various theatrical entertainments with music.
70
Related Genres in London, 1675-1745: John Gay, George Frideric Handel, Their Predecessors and
Contemporaries, Ph.D. diss. (University of Toronto, 1994), and Dianne Dugaw’s “Parody, Gender,
and Transformation in Gay and Handel’s Acis and Galetea,” in Eighteenth-Century Studies 29/4
(Summer 1996), 345-67.
69
Aaron Hill, The Works of the Late Aaron Hill, Esq…, I, (London: Printed for the Benefit of the
Family, 1753), 115-16. This printed letter is dated 5 December 1732. It should also be noted that Hill
has proclaimed Rinaldo—except for its language—an “English opera.”
70
Pasticcios had been common in the London theater from at least 1700, but the term was not used
until 1755. Even contemporaries made a distinction between haphazardly-selected musical pieces and
those which were musically and structurally cohesive. The first extended discussion of pasticcio in
England can be found in Anon. [John Ernest Galliard?], A Critical Discourse on Opera’s and Musick
109
After the introduction of ballad opera, other attempts at establishing English
opera were made by the impresarios at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. In 1732-33,
Thomas Arne declared himself the ‘Proprietor of the English Operas,’ and staged
full-length works by his son Thomas Augustine Arne and J. F. Lampe. These
experiments failed, unfortunately, as English opera had difficulty competing with the
Italian for social prestige and financial support.
71
It was during this time that a
second Italian opera company, the Opera of the Nobility, had been established, to the
great dismay of the already failing Royal Academy. The competition between the
two companies was fierce, and both would eventually fall into financial ruin.
In addition to the more ambitious masques and semi-operas, many other
lesser English musical entertainments had great influence on ballad opera; these
include farce jigs, pantomimes, plays with themes of “low” life, and early comic
operas. The first of these, the Elizabethan jig (or “jigg”), was a dramatic dance
without any spoken dialogue. It shows a great deal of similarity to ballad opera, as it
used ballad tunes, often acted out in order to illustrate the story.
72
Most of these
ballad tunes were extracted and later known as simply “jigs.”
73
in England (London: Printed for W. Lewis, and sold by J. Morphew, 1709). See Price, “Unity,
Originality, and the London Pasticcio,” in Bits and Pieces: Music for Theatre, ed. Lowell Lindgren.
Harvard Library Bulletin 2/4 (Winter 1991), 17-30.
71
Hume, “London,” 116.
72
Gagey, 6. The jigg was “a short burlesque comedy for two to five characters, sung in verse to one or
more well-known tunes, interspersed with much lively dancing and performed by a team of
professional comedians.” Jiggs were popular in England from about 1550 to 1750, and were used
mainly as afterpieces in early eighteenth-century playhouses. Thurston Dart and Michael Tilmouth
found traces of the earlier jigg in the acted ballad, best represented by D’Urfey’s Pray now John let
Jug prevail (from his burlesque opera The Wonders in the Sun, 1706). See Dart and Tilmouth, “Jigg,”
in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London:
Macmillan, 2001), xiii, 119.
73
See Charles Baskervill’s The Elizabethan Jig and Related Song Drama (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1929) for surviving material relating to the jiggs. Harold Love also discusses the role of the
jigg in his “The Fiddler on the Restoration Stage,” EMc VI/3 (July 1978), 391-99.
110
Pantomime had been important in England since the Renaissance. The stock
characters of the commedia dell’arte had been familiar to audiences for decades, as
were entertainments that included dancing and mime.
74
The tunes in pantomimes
were dances or jigs, now considered “traditional;” these same airs were used
frequently by ballad-opera writers. Pantomimes were a huge success during the
early decades of the eighteenth century and were a staple of Lincoln’s Inn Theatre
and Drury Lane well into the 1720s. Occasionally, troupes came from France to
entertain the English theatergoers.
75
Outside influences on this genre grew to include
contemporary Italian opera (both recitative and arias), French dances, English
masque scenery and machines, and the comedy of the commedia dell’arte.
76
Fielding’s Tumble-Down Dick shows the influence of pantomime on ballad opera: it
is a parody of John Rich’s The Fall of Phaeton (1736) (it also includes some jabs at
Harlequin Doctor Faustus [1723] and Pluto and Proserpine [1725], other popular
pantomimes of the day).
77
These early pantomimes were ballets with classical themes; however, it was
Rich who moved the genre of pantomime away from the lofty ideals of the
“Antients” and into the realm of mass entertainment.
78
Known by his stage name
“Lun,” Rich became famous playing Harlequin in the pantomimes at his theaters
74
Clive Chapman, “Pantomime,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie
and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xix, 43.
75
For example, during the 1718-19 season John Rich brought a French troupe to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
(Fiske, English Theatre Music, 73) Both Nicoll and Ben Ross Schneider’s Index to The London Stage
1600-1800, ed. William van Lennep, Emmett L. Avery, et al. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ.
Press, 1979) show that French plays were performed extensively in London during the eighteenth
century.
76
Chapman, “Pantomime,” 43. See also his dissertation on English Pantomime and Its Music, Ph.D.
diss., (London Univ, 1981), and his “Sir, It Will Not Do! John Rich and Covent Garden’s Early
Years,” The Musical Times CXXIII/1678 (December 1982), 831-35.
111
(Lincoln’s Inn Fields and later Covent Garden) from 1717 until 1748.
79
During the
years Rich was producing pantomime, the genre grew less like a ballet and more like
a “comic play, the characters and action of which were close to the stock elements of
the Italian comedy, with young lovers and resourceful servants outwitting jealous
parents and guardians…”
80
These age-old themes appear again and again in the plots
of ballad operas.
81
In addition to the pantomimes, Gagey cites “various burlesque and comic
operas” which he believes “may possibly have offered a few hints to Gay.”
82
The
English burlesque operas of the Restoration and early eighteenth century had many
special effects and no ballad tunes, but their wit and satire (and the occasional
inclusion of music stolen from other works) reminds one of the ballad operas. A
burlesque by Richard Estcourt called Prunella (1707) is an opera parody with songs
stolen from the English-language Camilla (1705) and Arsinoe (1706)—much in the
manner of ballad opera.
83
77
Nicoll believes that the two additional pantomimes are “glanced at” in Tumble-Down Dick. (256)
78
Quoted in Fiske, English Theatre Music, 70.
79
See Fiske, English Theatre Music, 72-93.
80
Chapman, “Pantomime,” 44.
81
Unfortunately, the plots of the pantomimes—often there were two simultaneously, one comic and
one serious—were convoluted or completely nonsensical, which was a point of contention for many
English writers. Fielding described his feelings on the matter in Tom Jones:
This Entertainment consisted of two Parts, which the Inventor [John Rich] distinguished by
the Names of the Serious and the Comic. The Serious exhibited a certain number of Heathen
Gods and Heroes, which were certainly the worst and dullest Company into which an
Audience was ever introduced; and (which was a Secret known to few) were actually
intended so to be, in order to contrast the Comic Part of the Entertainment, and to display the
Tricks of Harlequin to the better Advantage.
See Fielding, Tom Jones; An Authoritative Text; Contemporary Reactions; Criticism, ed. Sheridan
Baker (New York: Norton, 1973), 161.
82
Gagey, 19.
83
Gagey, 21.
112
English plays with music were called plays or operas interchangeably during
this period. Since the Restoration, “scarcely a play was acted without songs and
dances, either in the text or during the entr’actes.”
84
One of these plays with music,
more commonly called a burlesque opera, D’Urfey’s Wonders in the Sun, or The
Kingdom of the Birds (1706), was a source of tunes for later ballad opera writers
with its “great Variety of Songs in all kinds, set to Musick by several of the most
Eminent Masters of the Age.” The theme of this allegory was satire, as were the
ballad operas.
85
Gagey also finds influences for the ballad opera in plays of low life.
86
One of
the later plays, Richard Brome’s A Jovial Crew, or The Merry Beggar (1684), was
revived frequently on the stage in the eighteenth century. There is dancing and
singing, and the text includes six songs. One of them, “A begging we will go,” was a
favorite with the ballad opera authors and used by Fielding twice.
87
Gagey also finds
several other plays with highwaymen similar to the Macheath variety, most notably
John Thurmond’s Harlequin Sheppard (1724) and The Prison-Breaker, or The
Adventures of John Sheppard (anonymous, 1725). Not only is the notorious
84
Gagey, 24.
85
Another “burlesque opera” by D’Urfey called The Two Queens of Brentford, or Bayes No Poetaster
(publ. 1721), was never performed. A “rehearsal” play, it is full of political satire. Fielding had a
copy of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal (1671), which coined the term “rehearsal play,” in his own
library. He also had an extensive collection of plays by Congreve, Dryden, and Shakespeare, among
others. Carolyn Kephart has written about another possible ballad opera forerunner, and certainly
there are many similarities between the music and characters in the Duke of Newcastle’s The
Triumphant Widow (1674) and the first ballad opera. See Carolyn Kephart, “An Unnoticed
Forerunner of The Beggar’s Opera,” Music & Letters LXI/3-4 (July-Oct. 1980), 266-71.
86
“Beggars, whores, and thieves had long found a place in English drama—in Fletcher’s Beggar’s
Bush [1622], for example, and in Ben Jonson’s Masque of Gipsies [1621]…” (Gagey, 12) See also
Lucy Moore, The Thieves’ Opera (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998).
87
In 1731 The Jovial Crew was turned into a ballad opera, The Jovial Crew: a Comic Opera, with
music set by Arne. Fielding had a copy of the play by Brome in his library.
113
highwayman John Sheppard the main character, but there are thief-takers like the
Peachums, and a gang of thieves similar to those in Gay’s ballad opera.
88
As demonstrated above, Gay certainly did not invent the ballad opera form
alone, but he was influenced by scores of English operas, dramas, and themes.
Evidence that the ballad opera was not an entirely new genre is further strengthened
when we examine the theatrical entertainments evolving during the same era in
France, for the comédies en vaudevilles seem to be very much like ballad operas.
Ballad Opera, the French vaudeville, and the Théâtres de la foire
There are many tantalizing associations between French theater and ballad
opera. Daniel Heartz has asserted that “[b]efore The Beggar’s Opera London had no
local equivalent of a comedy woven out of several dozen popular songs.”
89
Although we have no direct evidence that Gay was influenced by his continental
counterparts when creating the genre, there is much to substantiate Fielding’s
familiarity with French theatrical practices. Indeed, Fielding’s ballad operas seem to
be a crucial element in the connection between ballad opera and the comédies en
vaudevilles.
We have already seen that France had influenced England with its music,
dancing, and opera for decades. Charles II encouraged French music at his court,
and even Purcell’s teacher, Pelham Humphrey, studied secular French music with
88
See Gagey, 13-16. Thief-takers were professional snitches who turned in criminals to the
authorities for money or protection. In The Beggar’s Opera, the Peachums schemed to turn in
Macheath because they were angry that he had married their daughter, Polly.
89
Daniel Heartz, “The Beggar’s Opera and opéra-comique en vaudevilles,” Early Music 27/I (Feb.
1999), 49. This article was republished in From Garrick to Gluck: Essays on Opera in the Age of the
Enlightenment (Hillsdale, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 2004).
114
Lully. It makes sense, then, that precedents for the ballad opera may be found in
French theater music of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries,
especially the comédies en vaudevilles, popular theater entertainments similar to
modern musical comedies. Though a direct link between the Gay’s first ballad opera
and the French theater has yet to be found, there are many suggestions that the
comédies en vaudevilles influenced the ballad opera authors. The contents of
Fielding’s library show that he was quite familiar with these French pieces. As we
will see, this serves as the best evidence to this date that the ballad opera genre has a
close relationship to the comédies en vaudevilles.
Gagey was the first to imply that ballad opera owed much to French
influences:
The indebtedness of Augustan drama to French comedy has never fully been analyzed. In all
probability it is far wider than ordinarily supposed, and it is not surprising to find that ideas
and situations in English ballad opera have been anticipated in the Comédie-Italienne, the
Comédie-Française, and the Théâtre de la Foire.
90
Of these three theatrical troupes, the repertory of the Théâtres de la Foire, popular at
the annual Paris fairs such as Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, most likely had the
most influence on the ballad opera form. Their entertainments, the comédies en
vaudevilles, used vaudeville tunes with new words to punctuate the action of the
farces.
The French vaudevilles were well-known “songs for dancing, drinking, and
satire” and were generally disseminated orally by street singers, as in England.
91
The
90
Gagey, 33.
91
Clifford Barnes, “Vaudeville,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie
and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxvi, 341. For recent scholarship on the vaudeville, see
Timbre und Vaudeville: Zur Geschichte und Problematik einer populären Gattung im 17. und 18.
115
vaudevilles were soon separated from their original texts but still could be identified
by their timbres. Timbres denoted the tags for the vaudevilles, usually a refrain or
even the first line, which indicated to the listener which tune was being sung.
92
Vaudevilles made up the bulk of the music used in the comédies en vaudevilles,
along with short opera excerpts, dances and instrumental interludes.
93
Described in
this way, the French entertainments seem very much like ballad operas!
In 1716, “the Opéra permitted the Théâtres de la Foire to give ‘spectacles
mixed with music, dance and symphonies under the name of Opéra-Comique.’”
94
The longer term, “opéra comique en vaudevilles,” usually designated an opera with
spoken dialogue and traditional tunes. This genre later transformed—with the
introduction of Italianate airs in the style of the intermezzi—into opéra comique
(sometimes also called comédies mêlées d’ariettes) in the 1750s and 60s.
95
Eighteenth-century opéra-comique, then, developed from the comédies en
vaudevilles as the composers dropped the traditional vaudevilles and replaced them
with newly composed music. Eventually, as in mid-century English opera, the opera
was sung throughout and included some recitative. Some of the primary comedic
elements of the comédies en vaudevilles remained, for example the stock bourgeois
Jahrhundert, Bericht über den Kongreß in Bad Homburg 1996, ed. Herbert Schneider (Hildesheim,
Zurich, New York: Georg Olms, 1999).
92
Lesage rather vaguely defines the vaudeville in the Preface to his ten-volume collection of the
Théâtre de la foire:
…le Vaudeville, espèce de Poësie particulière aux François, estimée des Etrangers, aimée de
tout le monde, & la plus propre à faire valoir les saillies de l’esprit, à relever le ridicule, à
corriger les m œurs.
See Alain-René Lesage and D’Orneval, Le Théâtre de la foire, ou L’opera comique (Amsterdam:
L’Honoré et Chatelain, 1723).
93
Barnes, 342.
94
James R. Anthony, “Théâtres de la Foire,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed.
S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxv, 342.
95
Bartlet, 477.
116
characters and the political satire. In addition, dance proved to continue to be an
integral part of later opéras-comique.
Clifford Barnes tells us that “the French style of comédie en vaudevilles itself
had an international influence,”
96
and explains that it affected the development of
ballad opera and Singspiel. Opéra comique later surpassed the comédies en
vaudevilles in popularity, in the same way that burlettas replaced the ballad opera in
England.
We have already seen that the English were accustomed to French dancing
and pantomime, as English playhouse impresarios often brought over foreign troupes
from the fairgrounds and the Théâtre-Italien during the early decades of the
eighteenth century.
97
The large number of French plays produced at the Little
Haymarket from 1718 to 1728 is evidence that English audiences were exposed to
the comédies en vaudevilles. For example, according to the Index to The London
Stage, Le Sage’s Arlequin Hulla, ou La Femme répudiée first played in London at
the Little Haymarket in March of 1722 for five performances, and was revived twice
more, in 1734 and 1735 (at both Goodman’s Fields and the Little Haymarket).
Another comédie en vaudevilles called Arlequin Invisible à la cour du Roy de la
Chine played at the Little Haymarket in December of 1721. Additionally, Les
Funérailles (with its characters called L’Opera, La Foire, La Comedie Françoise, La
Comedie Italienne, and Mr. Vaudeville) played in London in January of 1722 and
96
Barnes, 342.
97
See The London Stage, Part 2, and Sybil Rosenfeld’s Foreign Theatrical Companies in Great
Britain in the 17th and 18th Centuries (London: Printed for the Society for Theatre Research, 1955).
She shows that Rich made significantly more money during the seasons when the French comedians
were playing at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
117
L’Isle des Amazones was introduced to London audiences in December of 1724.
98
An advertisement for a piece by vaudeville creator Alain Lesage (or Le Sage) was
advertised in the Daily Post on 9 May 1726:
Le Tableau du Mariage. Never acted here before; composed by Monsieur Lesage. With a
new Dance, call’d Le Cotillon, performed by 12 dancers.
Many documents survive attesting to the popularity of the French troupes in
England. For example, a letter from Aaron Hill to John Rich dated 9 September
1721 describes his frustration in working out the use of the Little Haymarket with the
French players: “I suppose you know, that the duke of Montague, and I, have agreed,
and that I am to have that house half the week, and his french vermin, the other
half…”
99
A commentary on current entertainments written in 1720 shows that the
theaters were unfavorably affected by the success of the French comedians at the
Little Haymarket.
100
Gagey suggested that Gay “may very well have had knowledge of…the
French comédie en vaudevilles, which anticipated The Beggar’s Opera in the use of
familiar airs.”
101
He hypothesized that Gay’s two trips to France with the Pulteneys
in 1717 and 1719 might have sown the seeds for the ballad opera idea. Another
possible link implied by Gagey was Gay’s interest in the French custom of singing in
the audience, which he mentions in his Epistle to William Pulteney.
102
98
Listed in an appendix by Nicoll, 405.
99
Hill, II, 47.
100
See Letters of the late Thomas Rundle, L.L.D. Lord Bishop of Derry in Ireland, to Mrs. Barbara
Sandys, intro. by James Dallaway, 2 vols. (Glocester: R. Raikes, 1789), II, 17-23. Quoted in Milhous
and Hume, Register, 632.
101
Gagey, 6.
102
Gagey, 31.
118
In an article first published in 1999, Heartz traced a French dance air utilized
by Gay in The Beggar’s Opera.
103
The Beggar’s Opera was only the first of many
successful ballad operas that drew on tunes or dances from their closest Continental
neighbors; Gagey counts between fifteen and twenty French tunes used in various
ballad operas.
104
Furthermore, the scope of French influence is much broader than
the The Beggar’s Opera; indeed, we shall see that the impact of the comédies en
vaudevilles is more pervasive than simple musical borrowing.
105
There is no direct evidence that proves that Gay knew of the French comédies
en vaudevilles, but the same cannot be said for Fielding. Not only was he an
enthusiastic translator of French plays (two of his ballad operas are based on plays
by Molière and Regnard), but he also owned copies of significant early collections of
French fair theater repertory and vaudevilles in his library.
106
Fielding was certainly influenced by the plays and the vaudevilles used by
the Théâtres de la Foire. He owned the original three-volume set of Le Sage and
d’Orneval’s Le Theatre de la Foire, ou l’opera comique, a collection of the repertory
103
Heartz, “The Beggar’s Opera,” 42-53. The vaudeville that Gay used as Air 22 in The Beggar’s
Opera is called “Cotillion,” and it is first found in Feuillet’s Quatrième recueil de danses de bal
(1705). The dance was first performed in London in 1726. Heartz has established Lesage’s
preeminence in the genre of opéra-comique; see his “Terpsichore at the Fair: Old and New Dance
Airs in Two Vaudeville Comedies by Lesage,” first published in Music in Context: Essays for John
M. Ward, ed. A. D. Shapiro (Cambridge, MA: Dept. of Music, Harvard Univ., 1985), 278-304.
104
Gagey, 5. Admittedly, Gay used many more French tunes in his ballad operas than did any other
author.
105
Chetwood said “The French have borrowed from us, as well as we have from them.” See his A
General HISTORY of the STAGE, From its Origin in GREECE down to the present TIME…(London:
Printed for W. Owen, 1749), 46.
106
Watts published several volumes of Molière translations (many of them advertised in publications
of Fielding’s plays), but they were not translated by Fielding, as was long thought to be the case. See
Joseph E. Tucker, “The Eighteenth-Century English Translations of Molière,” Modern Language
Quarterly, 3 (1942). He did have all eight volumes of Molière’s Les oeuvres de Monsieur de Molière.
Nouvelle edition… (Paris, 1718) in his library. See Frederick G. Ribble and Anne G. Ribble,
Fielding’s Library: An Annotated Catalogue (Charlottesville, VA: Bibliographical Society of the
Univ. of Virginia, 1996), 219-30.
119
of the fair theaters which was first published in 1721 (see Fig. 3.6). (Seven
additional volumes were added from 1724 to 1737, which Fielding did not own.)
107
The tunes for the plays are included in the back of each volume.
The comedies of the Théâtre-Italien were published in Evaristo Gherardi’s
collection (in six volumes, 1694) and were first sold in England by Jacob Tonson in
1714.
108
Tunes for the vaudevilles were also included in these volumes.
Significantly, Fielding had all six of the Gherardi volumes in his library. He also
owned many other collections of French plays, including those by Corneille, Gabriel
Gilbert, and Montfleury.
As we shall see, the works of Fielding demonstrate an unmistakable
connection to these frequently forgotten French musical and dramatic pieces.
Indeed, Fielding’s ballad operas might hold the key to understanding the origins of
ballad opera and its relationship to the comédies en vaudevilles.
A Brief Comparison of Opéra-comique en vaudevilles and Ballad Opera
Heartz has stated that “in manner of construction there is no difference
between ballad opera and opéra-comique en vaudevilles.”
109
Indeed, many
similarities are immediately apparent, including the use of operatic parody and other
types of satire, and the analogous themes, exotic settings, characters, and musical
107
See Ribble, 193-94.
108
Gagey, 29 and Ribble, 121. Fielding’s edition of the Gherardi volumes is dated 1717.
109
Heartz, “The Beggar’s Opera,” 50-1. For more on opéra-comique, see M. Barthélemy, “L’opéra-
comique des origins à la Querelle des Bouffons,” L’opéra-comique en France au xviiie siècle, ed.
Philippe Vendrix (Liège: Mardaga, 1992), 8-78 and Andrea Grewe, Monde renversé—Théâtre
renversé: Lesage und das Théâtre de la Foire (Bonn: Romantischer Verlag, 1989).
120
and textual features. Of course, it must be noted that many of these elements are
characteristic of comic theatrical genres in general.
Operatic parody is a primary feature of both the vaudevillians and the ballad
opera writers. In the same way that ballad opera authors frequently parodied the
Italian opera companies in London, the Théâtre de la Foire burlesqued the royal
French and Italian troupes. There are excellent examples of opera parody in the
comédies en vaudevilles, including Télémaque (which burlesques an opera by the
same name), Les Amours de Protée (a “Parodie de l’opera”) and La Grand-mère
Amoureuse, parodie d’Atys.
Foreign locales were favorite settings for many types of eighteenth-century
theater pieces (for example, Gay’s Polly takes place in the West Indies); the French
fair writers particularly loved this trend.
110
In the French farces in Le Sage and
D’Orneval’s collection, we find such exotic locales as island nations, Turkey, the
Amazon, China, Bohemia, Sicily—even Canada.
Ballad operas and comédies en vaudevilles, like other types of theatrical
comedy, were similar in several other ways. For instance, there are often characters
in the French pieces who poke fun at the bourgeois characters of the period, such as
lawyers, judges, soldiers, money-changers, but “most of all the coquettes.”
111
An
Old Man Taught Wisdom and its sequel Miss Lucy in Town—with the silly Lucy and
her suitors—are certainly commenting on country girls who wish to be sophisticated
coquettes. Further, Fielding’s Don Quixote satirizes many bourgeois types, including
110
“Exotic settings such as Ceylon were much favoured in opéra-comique.” (Heartz, “The Beggar’s
Opera,” 45)
111
Gagey, 32.
121
a politician, an innkeeper, a lawyer, and a physician. Roberts has discussed
Fielding’s inclination to expose “shyster lawyers” and “quack doctors” in the ballad
operas, as well as English “‘People of Quality,’ who manifest their disease in cruelty,
corruption, treachery, hypocrisy, and lechery.”
112
The French comédies en
vaudevilles clearly satirize politicians and members of the nobility; for instance in Le
Pharaon, characters include a Comtesse de Sept-et-le-va and Monsieur Maussadinet,
Elu de Limoges (the elected representative of Limoges). During the farce, their
conspiring servants are able to deceive the upper-class characters in their quest to
unite a pair of young lovers. Whether intrigue, farce, or burlesque, the plots of the
ballad operas are always about some aspect of love, usually a young couple
determined to marry despite the opposition (usually financial) of parents or
guardians.
113
Pastoral themes are recurrent in the comédies en vaudevilles, as in ballad
operas, and country life and love are often idealized. A common plot in ballad
operas is the battle between country innocence and London “corruption.”
114
In the
French comedies, there is often a paysan character, a rural or country person, whose
naïveté facilitates the satire. Fielding’s best-loved country girl was Clive’s
inimitable Lucy, a character who appeared in two of his ballad operas. Other
common ballad opera themes appeared in French drama first. Lockwood says that
precedents for a dramatized underworld setting (like the one Fielding used in his
112
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 82.
113
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 79. He states that this common plot is probably derived from
Molière’s farces.
122
Eurydice) had been used for years in French productions such as Regnard’s La
Descente de Mazzetin aux enfers (1689).
115
The French vaudevilles, like the popular tunes used in ballad operas, usually
contain folk-like melodies in major keys and have written-out ornaments (see Ex.
3.1).
116
Many ballad opera airs have sections that are startlingly like the recurring
timbres used in the vaudevilles (see Ex. 3.2). In addition to acting as commentary or
elucidating an emotion—as was the typical function of an opera aria—both
vaudevilles and ballad tunes were also sometimes substituted for dialogue.
117
It must
be stressed, however, that both vaudevilles and ballad airs were quite varied
musically and structurally.
118
The vaudeville final was the common ending for comédies en vaudevilles and
often appeared at the end of acts. Vaudeville finales were sung by the main
characters, each of whom sang a verse or two; usually a chorus repeated a refrain.
119
The final scene of Le Tombeau de Nostradamus, one of the farces in the repertory of
the fair theaters, ends with a vaudeville final (these are the first two couplets; there
are six in total):
114
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 81.
115
Lockwood, Plays, I, 189, 258n.
116
Barnes, 341-2.
117
As we shall see in Chapters Four and Five, ballad opera airs were used in the same way.
118
See Herbert Schneider’s introduction to his edition of La Clef des Chansonniers (1717): Erweiterte
kritische Neuausgabe, by Jean Baptiste Christophe Ballard (Hildesheim and New York: G. Olms,
2005).
119
Barnes, 342.
123
Ils forment une danse qui est coupée par ce Vaudeville:
VAUDEVILLE.
Premier Couplet.
Un PROVENÇAL.
AIR 175. (De Monsieur Gillier)
Vous connoissez nos cara ĉtéres.
Nos esprits sont un peu Manseaux;
Faites que tous les Provençaux
A Paris passent pour sincéres.
NOSTRADAMUS.
Pour Picards ils seront reçus.
Le PROVENÇAL, lui faisant la révérence.
Vive Michel Nostradamus!
CHOEUR de Provençaux & de Provençales.
Vive Michel Nostradamus!
Second Couplet.
Une PROVENÇALE.
Je cherche à me mettre en ménage;
Mais je crains un mari jaloux.
Je voudrois trouber un Epoux
Qui d’un Ami n’eût point d’ombrage.
NOSTRADAMUS.
Vous en trouverez tant & plus.
La PROVENÇALE, faisant la révérence.
Vive Michel Nostradamus!
CHOEUR.
Vive Michel Nostradamus!
Bringing all of the main characters onstage to sing a couplet or verse was also a
common way of ending ballad operas. For instance, Fielding’s An Old Man Taught
Wisdom ends with an air similar in structure to a vaudeville final:
124
Tune, The Yorkshire Ballad…
BLISTER.
Had your Daughter been physick’d well, Sir, as she ought,
With Bleeding, and Blist’ring, and Vomit, and Draught,
This Footman had never been once in her Thought,
With his Down, down, [down, up and down, derry,
derry, derry, down, up and down, derry, derry, down] &c.
COUPEE.
Had pretty Miss been at a Dancing-School bred,
Had her Feet but been taught the right Manner to tread,
Gad’s Curse! ‘twould have put better things in her Head,
Than his Down, down, &c.
QUAVER.
Had she learnt, like fine Ladies, instead of her Prayers,
To languish and die at Italian soft Airs.
A Foot man had never thus tickled her Ears,
With his Down, down, &c.
LUCY
You may Physick, and Musick, and Dancing enhance,
In One I have got them all three by good Chance,
My Doctor he’ll be, and he’ll teach me to dance,
With his Down, down, &c…
Let not a poor Farce then nice Criticks pursue,
But like honest-hearted good-natur’d Men do,
And clap to please us, who have sweat to please you,
With our Down, down, &c.
CHORUS.
Let not a poor Farce then, &c.
Ballad operas resemble the comédies en vaudevilles in terms of the
audience’s reaction to the tunes chosen and new texts written by the authors. “The
effect of the new lyrics stemmed in part from a comparison of the original song with
the new. Certain tunes always brought stock responses, and the ballad-operatist was
125
judged partially on how well he manipulated these responses.”
120
Certainly, audience
reactions would be alike in either country when bawdy lyrics were applied to a
serious operatic air, or vice versa. Additionally, both genres made use of double
entendre.
Though the comédies en vaudevilles included much political satire, they were
also often patriotic in character. Many of the French farces made fun of the citizens
of different nations; the Swiss and the Italians frequently bore the brunt of the joke,
and occasionally an English character would appear. Foreign characters often
emerged on stage as dancers. For instance, one comédie en vaudevilles, Le Sage and
D’Orneval’s L’Indifférence (1730), has a troupe d’amans de différentes Nations.
Ballad opera included “exotic” dances such as Moorish dances (as in Tumble-Down
Dick) and was also quite patriotic; Fielding in particular put forward such English
virtues as good nature and honor (these themes were his favorites, and he would later
expand on them in his novels Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews). Promoting English
patriotism and mocking the French and Italians were known objectives for the ballad
opera authors. As Sybil Goulding describes, “English customs are always innocently
beguiled…by the corrupting influence of the French and Italians.”
121
French dancing
masters appear for satiric purposes in the ballad operas, as do Italian castrati (further
discussion on the frequent use of these characters in Fielding’s operas appears
below). Favorite airs such as Fielding’s “When Mighty Roast Beef Was the
Englishman’s Food” and “Britons Strike Home” (a Purcell air from Bonduca
120
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 78.
121
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 82.
126
appropriated by the ballad opera authors) quickly became patriotic anthems for the
English public.
Interestingly, the 1749 performance of The Beggar’s Opera was banned in
Paris and French translations of this ballad opera were not successful. The French
seemed to find the English genre immodest, as it presented prostitutes on stage; for
instance, César de Saussure, a Frenchman who saw a performance of The Beggar’s
Opera during its first season, writes:
C’est une espèce de farce, les décorations représentent une prison et des maisons de
débauche; les acteurs sont des voleurs de grand chemin et des libertins fieffés, les actrices
sont des catins. Je vous laisse à penser ce qui peut sortir du c œur et de l’esprit de gens de cet
ordre. La pièce est remplie de vaudevilles très jolis mais trop libres pour être chantés devant
des dames qui ont de la poudeur et de la modestie.
122
De Saussure’s comment is significant, as he uses the word “vaudevilles” to describe
the songs which were sung in the ballad opera; the format was obviously familiar to
him. Despite the genre’s inauspicious beginning, a ballad opera source would finally
find acceptance in France and in Europe; Charles Coffey’s The Devil to Pay (1732)
was translated into French and later partially set by Gluck (1759) to great success on
the Continent.
122
Sybil Goulding, “Eighteenth-Century French Taste and ‘The Beggar’s Opera’,” Modern Language
Review XXIV (1929), 278.
127
Fig. 3.1. Charles Macklin as Shylock. Oil painting by J. Zoffany. By permission of
the Victoria and Albert Theatre Museum.
128
Fig. 3.2. The close relationship between the performer and audience. Anonymous,
undated eighteenth-century engraving. From The Georgian Playhouse exhibition,
figure 16.
129
Fig. 3.3. French spectators on the stage. Scene, La Noce de village, Hôtel de
Bourgogne, 1666. Engraving by J. le Pautre. Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris.
130
Fig. 3.4. The stage of Drury Lane in 1769. Mr. Garrick delivering his Ode…on
dedicating a Building and erecting a Statue, to Shakespeare. Engraving by J. Lodge,
1769. By permission of the British Library.
131
Fig. 3.5. The stage of Covent Garden during a riot on 24 February, 1763 during a
performance of Arne’s Artaxerxes. Anonymous. By permission of the British
Library.
132
Fig. 3.6. Le Sage and d’Orneval, title page, Le Theatre de la Foire, ou l’opera
comique (1721-37)
133
Ex. 3.1. Le Sage and d’Orneval, “Meunet [sic] d’Héfione,” Le Theatre de la Foire,
ou l’opera comique (1721-37)
Ex. 3.2. Fielding, “That the World is a Lottery” (to the tune of “Ye Madcaps of
England” or “Sing Tantara Rara”), The Lottery, 1st ed. (1732)
134
CHAPTER IV:
THE PRODUCTION OF THE MUSIC
IN FIELDING’S THEATRICAL WORKS
Singing in the Ballad Operas
Little is known about vocal production in the playhouses during this period,
though much can be pieced together from various accounts and from the music itself.
Fiske tells us that before 1750 it was rare that sopranos sang notes higher than A, and
the relatively small ranges of the ballad-opera airs attest to this. In addition, it was
common for tenors as well as baritones to sing their high notes in falsetto, a practice
that was looked down upon later in the century.
1
Theater composer Charles Dibdin
wrote of “Leveridge and Beard having given way to the use of effeminacy and
fal[s]etto,” but obviously Dibdin would not have been old enough to hear the famous
ballad-opera singers.
2
That ballad-opera actor-singers commonly used falsetto makes
sense when we remember that they were frequently imitating the castrati with their
singing (see also Chapter V below).
As for vocal quality, William Chetwood, the Drury Lane prompter, ballad-
opera author, and theater chronicler, likens the sound of theatrical actor-singers to
the street ballad-singers:
1
See Will Crutchfield, “Voices: The Classical Era,” in The New Grove Performance Practice: Music
After 1600, ed. Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1989),
294-95.
2
Charles Dibdin, The Musical Tour of Mr. Dibdin (Sheffield: Printed for the Author by J. Gales,
1788), 189. He viewed the quality of English singing as quite low: “It should seem as if music had
expired with the singers who uttered it, and that LEVERIDGE and BEARD having given way to the
use of effeminacy and falcetto [sic], the style should sink in proportion…”
135
I have known many Actors with excellent Voices; so I have often known common Ballad-
singers in the Streets with strong Lungs and Voices; but, for want of a Manner with
Judgment, murder an excellent Song, and yet extort Praise from their Auditors.
3
Roger North describes the sound he would like to hear from English theatrical
singers, which he wishes was more like that of street singers:
They say the English have no good voices, because few sing well…The English have
generally good voices good enough, tho’ not up to the pitch of warmer countrys; wittness the
crys and ballad singers—some weomen singing in the streets with a loudness that downs all
other noise, and yet firme and steddy. Now what a sound would that be in a theater,
cultivated and practiced to harmony!...But come into the theater or musick-meeting, and you
shall have a woman sing like a mouse in a cheese, scarce to be heard, and for the most part
her teeth shutt.
4
This complaint about women singing between their teeth appears more than once in
North’s writings, and he blames it on the English dialect:
This vice of holding the teeth together is an enimy to the Muses, whose guift is open
pronunciation; but it is what the English, especially towards the Est Angles, are much given
to in comon speaking; and then it is no wonder if it spoyles their singing, when it is not
taught better…[Masters] begin to teach with tunes, whereas they should begin with
pronunciation, and scollars should be made sing as lowd as they could baul…
5
Most likely women kept their mouths shut because they hated distorting their faces
into unattractive grimaces, something with which North and other writers on music
seemed to be concerned in the early eighteenth century:
Weomen are fearfull of the distortion of the face, which is their sanctum sanctorum, [and]
therefore check the sound. I would have a sort of mask in [the] nature of the Roman
capistrum to cover their faces (or great part, perhaps the eyes and cheeks), which are used in
the Italian masquerades and leave the breath free, but disguise strangely. Thus they would
strain, and hold up the head, without which it is not possible to draw out a good and clear
sound.
6
John Evelyn also discussed the distortion of women’s faces while singing when
remembering his daughter Mary, known for “the sweeteness of her voice, and
manegement of it…[and] adding such an agreablenesse to her Countenance, without
3
Chetwood, A General History, 33.
4
John Wilson, ed. Roger North on Music (London: Novello, 1959), 215. This quote is from his essay
“Of English Singing” (from the early notebook, written c. 1695-1700).
5
Wilson, 216.
6
Wilson, 217.
136
any constraint and concerne, that when she sung, it was as charming to the Eye, as to
the Eare.”
7
As if faces and sound quality were not bad enough, it seems that English
singers were also frequently out of tune, and needed basso continuo support and
perhaps even a flute to double the melody:
They doe not understand the art of music that sing in publick,…and consequently cannot
well distinguish when they doe well and when ill. For this reason they will be horribly out of
tune; and all this by a little understanding would correct in others as also in
themselves…What a fulsome thing it is to see a performer upon a stage not know when to
begin, but the basso continuo must stay or skip for them, which by the way they are not very
good at; and then a flute must be at the lasses ear to give her the tone, and that often thro’ the
whole air, or else she would fall a semitone and sing on as assuredly as if she were in no
fault. All this a knowledge of musick would prevent.
8
English theatrical singers were not the only ones whose singing dismayed their
listeners. Burney was extremely disparaging about the singers at the Théâtre Italien
while on his tour of France. A close equivalent to the London theaters where ballad
operas were performed, the Théâtre Italien performed operas-comiques, a
comparable genre to the ballad opera:
In the evening I heard two pieces performed at the Theatre Italien, in which the singing was
the worst part. Though the modern French composers hazard every thing that has been
attempted by the Italians, yet it is ill executed, and so ill understood by the audience, that it
makes no impression. Bravura songs, or songs of execution, are now attempted; but they are
so ill performed, that no one used to true Italian singing can like any thing but the words and
action. One of these pieces was new, and meant as a comic opera, in all its modern French
forms of Italian music, (that is, music composed in the Italian style) to French words. No
recitative, all the dialogue and narrative part being spoken. And the piece was as thoroughly
d---d as ever a piece was here…Several of the songs would have been admirable too, if they
had been sung with the true Italian expression. But the French voice never comes further than
from the throat; there is no voce di petto, no true portamento or direction of the voice, on any
of the stages.
9
7
De Beer, E. S., ed. Diary of John Evelyn; now printed in full from the manuscripts belonging to
John Evelyn and edited by E. S. de Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), iv, 421-22.
8
Wilson, 216-17.
9
Charles Burney, Memoirs of Dr. Charles Burney, edited from autograph fragments by Slava Klima,
Garry Bowers, and Kerry S. Grant, fragment 27 (Lincoln and London: Univ. of Nebraska Press,
1988), 16-18.
137
Despite its faults, Burney obviously thought that England was surely a better place
for theatrical singing than France, where “at least [a music student’s] taste, if already
formed upon that of Italy, is less likely to be vitiated and depraved in a country
where good singing may frequently be heard, than in one where it is hardly too much
to say, it is never to be heard at the theatres.”
10
Embellishments and cadenzas (“cadences”) were also commonly used when
singing ballad-opera airs, usually when Italian-style da capo arias were used or
satirized. Pier Francisco Tosi’s Observations on the Florid Song (1743) was
translated into English by playhouse composer Galliard, and is an authoritative guide
to early eighteenth-century embellishments. Tosi laments that singers cannot “avoid
that torrent of passages and divisions so much in the mode,” especially the da capo
“cadences” that are so fashionable:
Generally speaking, the study of the singers of the present times consists in terminating the
cadence of the first part with an overflowing of passages and divisions at pleasure, and the
orchestra waits; in that of the second the dose is increased, and the orchestra grows tired; but
on the last cadence, the throat is set a-going like a weather-cock in a whirlwind, and the
orchestra yawns. Why must the world be thus continually deafened with so many
divisions?
11
In the second part of the eighteenth century excessive ornamentation was still a
concern. Domenico Corri maligned vocal embellishments in his The Singers
Preceptor, which was printed in London:
10
Burney, Memoirs, 50.
11
Pier Francesco Tosi, Observations on the Florid Song, transl. Mr Galliard, ed. Michael Pilkington
(London: Stainer & Bell, 1987), 52-53.
138
Master. …[A] singer, like an orator, will form to himself a peculiar distinguishing manner,
but the command of a good style can only result from taste, aided by judgment and
experience, which will teach you to introduce embellishments with propriety.
Scholar. What are the embellishments of singing[?]
Master. I see that you, like all other beginners, are impatient for the ornaments and graces,
and are more inclined to direct your attention to the superficial then the solid, but the
substance should be well formed before you think of adorning it...
12
In his treatise Corri seems to be preoccupied with tonal purity and good intonation.
One scholar sums up Corri’s views on vocal production by declaring that “any
extraneous element in the vocal sound, be it simply vibrato or perhaps other
acoustical complexes which the modern ear might describe simply as vocal timbre or
‘grain,’ would have been regarded as undesirable.”
13
In the late eighteenth century, Corri published a three-volume set entitled A
Select Collection of the Most Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. (1779-80) which contains,
along with Italian opera arias and French songs, music from English operas and
ballads.
14
Corri’s purpose for publishing the volumes was to give specific directions
regarding the correct performance of the pieces, and he includes written-out continuo
parts and vocal ornamentation—even multiple cadenzas for some pieces. The
12
Domenico Corri, The Singers Preceptor, or Corri’s Treatise on Vocal Music (London: Silvester,
1810), 7.
13
Richard Wistreich, “Reconstructing pre-Romantic singing technique,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Singing, ed. John Potter (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000), 185.
14
Corri, A Select Collection of the Most Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. From Operas in the highest
esteem…, 3 vol. (Edinburgh: printed for John Corri and sold by him and C. Elliot, 1779). In the
preface to the first volume, Corri explains: “A very superficial knowledge of music is sufficient to
enable any one to observe the difference between the notes of an air as properly sung, and the simple
notes by which the same air is usually expressed in writing; for there is as great a difference between
these common written notes, and the improvement produced on them by a performer of judgment and
taste, who observes the character and expression that are proper to them, as there is between an
oration repeated by a school-boy, and the same pronounced by a graceful and feeling orator.”
However, Charles Burney warns us against using these later treatises as a guide for earlier singing:
“But either from the ambition of the singer, or expectations of the audience, Music is not suffered to
remain simple long upon the stage; and the more plain and ancient the melodies, the more they are to
be embellished by every new performer of them. The tunes in the Beggar’s Opera will never appear
in their original simple garb again.” (Burney, A General History of Music, iv, 653).
139
volumes are essential for a study of singing in mid-eighteenth-century England. The
ballad tunes contained in Corri’s collection, including a few from The Beggar’s
Opera, contain numerous suggested ornaments, mainly appoggiaturas, grace notes,
and a few trills (see Exx. 4.1 - 4.3). Sir John Hawkins describes the female
playhouse singers popular in the early eighteenth century as follows (1776):
[I]t is easy to discover that their perfections were confined to perhaps a beautiful person,
graceful and easy action, and a fine voice, the gift of nature, and that owed little of its
fascinating power to the improvements of art; if this fact should be doubted, let any one look
into the songs of that day, particularly those of Purcell, where he will find the graces written
at length, a manifest proof that in the performance of them little was meant to be trusted to
the singer.
15
Despite this statement, it can be safely assumed that on the English stage most
singers added occasional appoggiaturas at cadences or when there was a long rest or
fermata.
16
Many ballad opera tunes have repeat signs in the original sources; no
doubt singers embellished repeated phrases as was customary during this period.
There were also choruses in the ballad operas, mainly to conclude acts in a
way similar to the vaudeville final. The word “Chorus” was used differently during
this period, and “often meant no more than that the soloists all sang together.
Occasionally the playhouses would engage extras for elaborate choruses, but for
reasons of economy they preferred to press into service all those members of the
company who were not otherwise employed.”
17
Burney said that orchestral players
were often dressed up and put on stage if needed, and related his own experiences (as
well as those of his teacher Arne) in 1744:
[On his return to London Arne was] immediately engaged at Drury Lane Theatre as
composer of Songs, Dances and Act tunes, at a salary of £3 a week; & Mrs Arne as principal
15
Sir John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music (London: Novello,
1853), ii, 816.
16
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 279.
17
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 273.
140
Singer, at the same salary. And there being at this time no vacancy in the Band, I was
employed as a supernumerary Violin or Tenor [i.e., viola], occasionally, in pantomimes or
musical pieces, when some of the performers in the orchestra were wanted on the stage, as
Chorus singers; or behind the scenes in serenades, processions and other musical purposes,
for stage effect.
18
Some further information about choruses can be found in the surviving manuscript
orchestra parts of The Lottery in the British Library, where indications such as
“Chorus forte” show us that all of the characters in a scene were expected to sing
together (loudly) in certain places in the ballad opera—something that was not
notated in the printed edition. The parts also show only a single line for these chorus
numbers.
The Ballad Opera “Orchestra”
Little information exists concerning ballad opera orchestras, and what we do
know has to be pieced together from various sources. Roberts has stated that he
believes that Fielding had a large theater orchestra, but he does not put forward any
evidence to support this.
19
It would therefore be useful to take a look at the
orchestras used at other playhouses, and at the tradition of theater orchestras in
England and in equivalent theaters in early eighteenth-century France for more
information.
18
Burney, Memoirs, 45. The original can be found British Library (Add. 48345, f.7). Burney adds
“And for this I was not in Salary, but pd by the night; only s5 each time: to wch I had no claim, nor did
I consider myself degraded by the meanness of the pay, as there were others, much my seniors, who
performed on similar occasions on the same terms.” Burney also speaks of orchestra players on stage
in fragment 28, when in the mid-1740s he knew “Bennet, an eleve of Dr Pepusch, [who] played the
Tenor, & occasionally, was a Chorus singer & figurante in processions…” (46)
19
Roberts, “The Songs and Tunes in Henry Fielding’s Ballad Operas,” in Essays on the Eighteenth-
Century English Stage: The Proceedings of a Symposium sponsored by the Manchester University
Dept. of Drama (London: Methuen & Co, 1972), 34-37.
141
Curtis Price says that for Restoration theater productions the size of the
orchestra varied from “a handful of fiddlers” to a group with up to thirty players.
20
Even if the plays did not contain music, the performers still played the overture and
music in between the acts. According to a visiting French theater-goer in 1667, the
number of players in London playhouses averaged about twelve—information from
quite a bit earlier than our period, but still perhaps indicative of later practices.
21
Pepys tells us that Thomas Killigrew (who built Drury Lane) was to hire nine or ten
“fiddlers” for his orchestra. Additionally, the Lord Chamberlain described larger
orchestras for the more elaborate productions; Shadwell and Locke’s The Tempest
(1674) had a “Band of 24 Violins.”
22
It seems that French theaters of this same period also had small orchestras.
Samuel Chappuzeau reports that “Les Violons sont ordinairement au nombre de six,
20
Curtis A. Price, Curtis A. Music in the Restoration Theatre; With a Catalogue of Instrumental
Music in the Plays 1665-1713 (Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1979), 81. Roger North
differentiates between two kinds of “Theatrical musick” in his second Musicall Grammarian (1728)
(Note that North recommends putting several instruments on the melody line in order to “drowne” the
bass and harmony):
I come now to a sort of musick I ventured to terme Theatricall, which may be parted in two:
first Comick, and the other, Opera. By the former I mean the comon entertainment and
interludes of plays, which in former times were dispersed abroad by the name of playhouse
tunes; and of this sort is all our comon musick at feasts and celebrated rejoycings. There is
not much to be observed of these, but onely that they are chiefly compounded of melody, and
pulsation or time: the consort is not much heeded, and if the melody is ayery, or what they
call pretty, the ground may be of a comon style, and the more vulgar, the better. And all the
force of these consorts lyes in the upper part, to which all the rest and even the base
sometimes is subservient…[therefore] care is taken , by doubling the superior, to drowne
them; and the best accomplishment is by number and noise. (271)
21
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 81. See the account of the music at the Theatre Royal in
L’Evrope vivante, ov relation novvelle (Paris: Du Bray, 1667): “Il faut ájoûter…Que la Musique y est
excellente & les Ballets magnifiques; Qu’elles n’ont pas moins de douze violons chacune pour les
Preludes & pour les Entr’actes.”
22
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 81-82. There is direct evidence that members of the King’s
Twenty-four Violins also played in the public theatres. See also Peter Holman’s Four and Twenty
Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540-1690 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). In addition, in
his Preface (ix) Holman explains that though this royal band was forced to become a part-time
142
& on les choisit des plus capables.”
23
In the early eighteenth century, the orchestras
for the Comédie Française and the Comédie Italienne were restricted to six players
each by the Opéra. However, when the Opéra suspected that the theaters were
violating their restrictions, they sent the police to make reports. In 1717 and in 1735,
police uncovered four violins, two basses, two oboes, and a bassoon at the Comédie
Française.
24
Most of Lesage’s plays at the fair theaters also commonly used six
performers, usually three violins, bass, oboe, and bassoon.
25
In Dublin, theater
orchestras were no larger than about twelve musicians, and it was “unlikely that the
number of instrumentalists exceeded a dozen, except on extraordinary occasions.”
26
According to The Dublin Stage, Smock Alley had around eight players in their
orchestra in 1742.
27
Establishing the size of the orchestra that Fielding would have had while
manager of his own company at the Little Haymarket is problematic, because
accounts for the theater during this period survive only for the 1732-33 season,
directed by Lampe and Arne. We know from their paylists that during these years
(when Fielding was at Drury Lane) they used an orchestra that ranged from six to ten
players for ballad operas. Lampe and Arne’s paylists show that they sometimes
contracted a surprisingly large number of instrumentalists for the performances of
institution by William III in 1690, it still played an important role in the theaters and concert halls of
London even into the twentieth century.
23
Samuel Chappazeau, Le Théâtre François (Paris: J. Bonnassies, 1674), 240. See also John S.
Powell, “Musical Practices in the Theater of Molière,” Revue de musicology T.82/1 (1996), 5-37.
24
Emile Campardon, Les Comédiens du roi de la troupe français pendant les deux derniers siècles, 2
vols. (Paris: H. Champion, 1879), 282-88.
25
See Clifford Rasmussen Barnes, The Théâtre de la Foire (Paris, 1697-1762), Its Music and
Composers, Ph.D. diss. (Univ. of Southern California, 1965).
26
John C. Greene and Gladys L. H. Clark, The Dublin Stage, 1720-1745; A Calendar of Plays,
Entertainments, and Afterpieces (Bethlehem: Lehigh Univ. Press, 1993), 66.
143
ballad operas in 1732-33. For a performance of Fielding’s The Mock Doctor and an
afterpiece, twelve musicians were paid a total of £3.5s. For the performances of The
Beggar’s Opera (and an afterpiece) on the same days, they paid £2.15s. for eight
players. From their roster, Milhous and Hume have identified six of the players,
including two French horn players, Cook and Christopher Winch; a kettledrummer
and trumpeter named Frederick Smith; a violinist, Vezein; and Anthony Neale
(instrument unknown).
28
The largest amount spent on the orchestra, though, seems
to be for performances of the English comic opera The Opera of Operas, or Tom
Thumb the Great (a three-act musical version of Fielding’s Tragedy of Tragedies),
with music by Lampe. The size of the orchestra was not recorded, but we do know
that Lampe and Arne “Paid Mr Rogers to pay the Musick being only part of what
was due to them for the first six nights £44.19s.” Since earlier Mr. Rogers had been
paid £5.12s.6d., Milhous and Hume estimate that the orchestra in total cost Lampe
and Arne around £8 for each performance of the fully sung English opera. Some of
the performers were named in the roster, including Rogers (a known orchestra leader
and agent, probably the same person as a certain Claudio Rogier, the first violin at
the King’s Theatre), Jones, Sheppard, Anthony Neale, Christopher Winch, and
Mason (the last two were identified as French horn players and paid 7s.6d. each
night).
29
A music porter was paid separately, and a Mr. Hancock received 7s.6d. for
27
Green and Clark, 66.
28
Milhous and Hume, “J. F. Lampe,” 519-20. “Cook” may be the same person as the Mr. Cook who
played the French horn on 21 February 1735 at Hickford’s Room. See Biographical Dictionary, iii,
444.
29
Milhous and Hume, “J. F. Lampe,” 526. “Jones” could be John Jones, the trumpeter, or Mr. Jones, a
violinist (see The Biographical Dictionary, viii, 221 and viii, 238); “Sheppard” is possibly John
Sheppard, a former trumpeter in the King’s Musick (Biographical Dictionary, xiii, 304); “Mason”
144
the rental of the harpsichord. Interestingly, the largest expenditures for Lampe and
Arne during this season were music and costumes—around 45% of the budget was
for these two items.
30
The numerous accounts of payments for harpsichord rentals for various
ballad operas demonstrate that a harpsichord was commonly used in the playhouse.
During this period, orchestras were led by composers at the harpsichord, the first
violinist, or the two in combination. It can be assumed that the keyboardist was
playing continuo for the airs of Fielding’s ballad operas, though figures were not
printed in the music that survives. Standard performance practice of the period
would dictate that the bass lines serve as a guide for extemporizing continuo.
31
Additionally, we can be certain that continuo was used from the existence of a few
surviving manuscript orchestra parts for ballad operas. A playhouse music
manuscript in the collection at the Royal College of Music in London contains a bass
line with figures for certain airs of The Devil to Pay.
32
The ballad airs in Robert
Drury’s Devil of a Duke (1732) also are figured. In addition, continuo would have
been needed for the recitatives in Eurydice.
could be George Mason, who would later play in the King’s Musick (Biographical Dictionary, x,
124).
30
See Milhous and Hume, “J. F. Lampe,” 513-15. It must be noted that although some payment lists
show how many performers were used during one performance or during one season, they do not
indicate whether they played every night, or even in every piece.
31
It may be noted that in French theatrical practice the basso continuo only played during the singing
and was omitted during the overture and dances (See Graham Sadler’s “The Role of the Keyboard
Continuo in French Opera 1673-1776,” EMc 8/2 (Apr. 1980), 158-57); in addition, Judith Milhous
and Curtis Price have shown that this was also the case in early eighteenth-century English opera as
well (see their “Harpsichords in the London Theatres,” 38-46). Milhous and Price uncovered a
lawsuit between Christopher Rich’s sons and a harpsichord maker named Stephen Heming in 1708,
demonstrating that Drury Lane retained a string band for act-tunes and overtures, and harpsichords
(one for Italian opera, and two for English entertainments) used exclusively for accompanying the
voices.
32
See Royal College of Music, MS 2232.
145
If continuo is implied, then, which instrument or instruments should realize
the bass? A plucked instrument was undoubtedly used to help realize the continuo; a
baroque-era guitar could have been used on stage, and it would also have the added
advantage of strumming capabilities for the numerous dance airs appropriated for use
in the ballad operas.
33
Certain airs, such as the “Black Joke” or “A Woman’s Ware,
like China,” for instance, retain their upbeat dance-like origins with a strummed
accompaniment.
Other stringed instruments might have been in the orchestra as well. For
instance, in the tavern scene in Act II of The Beggar’s Opera, Macheath hears “the
harper at the door” and he asks him to play “The French Tune that Mrs. Slammekin
was so fond of.” The actors proceed to perform the “Dance à la ronde in the French
Manner” and sing Air XXII, set to “Cotillon.”
The published vocal scores of airs in ballad operas sometimes show details
such as instrumental cues, which give us more information as to which instruments
would have played the music. In the last air of The Beggar’s Opera, for instance,
there are interludes between the stanzas of the voice part with the indications of
“violins.” In its sequel, Polly, Air X has similar interludes marked “Sym:,” which
33
For a time after the reign of Charles II the Baroque guitar was a significant part of musical life in
England. The King even brought Francesco Corbetta, considered the greatest guitar virtuoso of his
day, to Britain in order to teach him how to play. The guitar was regularly used in plays and masques
in the late seventeenth century, and often appeared on stage in the hands of “foreign” characters such
as gypsies, Africans, or Spaniards. See James Tyler and Paul Sparks, The Guitar and Its Music: From
the Renaissance to the Classical Era (Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), 121-22, 125.
Restoration plays and masques in which the guitar was played by one of the characters include: John
Dryden’s The Indian Emperor (1667); Thomas Shadwell’s The Royal Shepherdess (1669); Dryden’s
an Evening’s Love (1671); Shadwell’s The Humorists (1671); Dryden’s The Assignation (1673); John
Crowne’s Calisto (1675); Thomas D’Urfey’s The Banditti (1686); Nahum Tate’s Dido and Aeneas
(1689 version, with music by Henry Purcell); D’Urfey’s Love for Money (1691); Peter Motteux’s The
Novelty (1697); and John Lacey’s The Old Troop (1698). It is entirely possible that when musicians
146
demonstrate that although only the bass lines were included in the printed edition, a
full orchestra was certainly intended to perform the piece. A “Symph.” is also
indicated in Air V of the 1732 Watts edition of Coffey’s The Devil to Pay, and
violins are designated in the second part of Air VI.
Benjamin Victor relates a story of a riot that broke out at Drury Lane in 1736,
and his description tells what happened to some instruments used in that playhouse:
A new Pantomime was brought on at Drury-Lane Theatre, a Thing called an Entertainment,
which ended as usual with a grand Dance, generally the best Part of it. Madam Chateauneuf
(the best French Dancer here at that Time) being taken ill, the Dance could not take Place,
and yet the Manager published her Name three Nights running, without the least Apology.
The first Night they were pretty quiet, the second Night they only hissed; but the third, they
ushered out the Ladies, and then went to work with the House. The first Motion, and made
by a most noble Marquis, was to fire it! but that being carried in the Negative, they began
with the Orchestra, broke the Harpsichord and Base-viols…
34
Theater instrumentalists usually doubled on two or more instruments, most
commonly flute and oboe. Janet K. Page tells us that “the oboe reigned as the
primary treble woodwind in the theatre orchestra until the 1760s.” Additionally, it
was usually compulsory for oboe players to also play recorder and transverse flute
during the 1730s, and at least be able to double on the flute in the 1740s and 1750s.
35
Theatre orchestras also commonly included a bassoon; when Burney was at Drury
Lane in the mid-1740s, he knew “Hebden, a Yorkshire man [who] was first Bassoon
& second Violoncello.”
36
Clarinets were not common in English orchestras before
1760, although they do occasionally appear in the theaters as solo or duet
were called for on stage, they would have used a Baroque guitar. For more details, see Price, Music in
the Restoration Theatre, 61, 79-80, 194, 256, 266-7, and Holman, Four and Twenty, 366-71.
34
Victor, I, 38-39.
35
Janet K. Page, “The Hautboy in London’s Musical Life, 1730-1770,” EMc 16/1 (Aug. 1988), 360.
36
Burney, Memoirs, fragment 28, 46. John Hebden (fl. 1741-49) played on both instruments at Drury
Lane and at Vauxhall.
147
entertainments between the acts during this period.
37
The presence of French horns
in the playhouses is apparent from information in the pay lists and in the printed
ballad operas.
38
Trumpets and drums were considered “extras” and were usually engaged
only for special performances. Throughout the eighteenth century there were two
timpani, usually tuned to D and A.
39
As D was the key for trumpet-players, the two
usually played together, and the timpanist often improvised from the lowest trumpet
part.
40
In Gay’s ballad opera Achilles, Air XLVII is preceded by the stage direction
“Agyrtes takes a Trumpet which lay amongst the Armour, and sounds.” Air XX in
The Beggar’s Opera, the “March in Rinaldo,” indicates “drums and trumpets,” and
Luckless calls for “Kettle-drums and trumpets” in The Author’s Farce.
41
There are
37
See Albert Rice, “The Baroque Clarinet in Public Concerts, 1726-1762,” in EMc 16/3 (Aug. 1988),
388-95. For example, the clarinettist “Mons. Charle” or “Mr Charles” was mentioned as playing the
“Third Musick” between the acts of Sir John Vanbrugh’s play The Relapse in 1733 at the Haymarket
Theatre. (389) See also Rice’s The Baroque Clarinet (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003).
38
Air VI in the anonymous ballad opera Robin Hood (1730) has the indication of “French Horns.” In
addition, James Ralph, in The Taste of the Town; or, a Guide to all Publick Diversions (London:
Printed and Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1731), playfully suggests a Tom
Thumb opera (using French horns): “SHOULD this Project of mine succeed, Chevy-Chace will be
demanded by every South and North B[rito]n. I confess the Beginning is very Theatrical, and will
admit of a good Number of French Horns, which have been lately received at the H[a]y – M[arke]t
with tolerable success.” (26)
39
Edmund A. Bowles, “The Double, Double, Double Beat of the Thundering Drum: The Timpani in
Early Music,” EMc 19/3 (Aug. 1991), 419. Of course, pitch during this era was usually lower than
today’s 440 pitch, affecting the resonance and eventually the size of the timpani. Burney
differentiated between “cavalry,” “double,” and “double-base”-sized instruments in his An Account of
the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey (London: Printed for the benefit of the Musical
Fund, and sold by T. Payne and Son, [etc.], 1785), 7f.
40
Bowles, 419. It is possible that the trumpeters were also able to play in C, as this was common on
the Continent.
41
Drums and trumpets (four of the latter) are cleverly employed in Handel’s march. They appear
suddenly for the first time in the march, and as they have not been used up to this point are
undoubtedly introduced to great effect. See Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel’s Operas,
1704-1726 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 179-80. Fiske says that Gay’s “March in Rinaldo”
“made no attempt at correct harmonies, let alone a correct orchestration, and he even got the tune
wrong…The tune as printed in The Beggar’s Opera is in B flat, a key trumpets and drums could not
then manage. Perhaps Pepusch’s dislike of Handel made him scornful of accuracy.” He opines that
Fielding did a much better job at setting Handel’s music. (English Theatre Music, 118-19)
148
also designations for “Drum beats” in scene VIII of The Author’s Farce, in which a
puppet show is announced with the assistance of a “Drummer.”
42
“Thunder and
Lightning” designations in ballad operas and plays of the period demonstrate that
some kind of a thunder-making apparatus was necessary to make the noises. These
thunder machines were needed for The Devil to Pay, as “Thunder” is indicated in the
stage notes of the printed edition during the scene where the Doctor and his two
spirits conjure their spell.
43
In addition, Air XXIV of The Welsh Opera has stage
directions which specify “[Thunder ready]” and then “[A Noise of Halloo, Halloo—
Thunder and Lightning].”
“Rough Musick” is a term that historically has included both percussion
instruments and noisemakers such as “[s]aucepans, fraying-paps [sic], poker and
tongs, marrow-bones and cleavers, bulls horns, &c.,”
44
and this noisy racket was
commonly used in the theaters to burlesque music-making.
45
For example, in Henry
Carey’s ballad opera Chrononhotonthologos, the eponymous king is woken up by “A
Concert of Rough Musick, viz. Salt-Boxes and Rolling-Pins, Gridirons and Tongs;
Sow-Gelders Horns, Marrowbones and Cleavers, &c &c.” and exclaims in wonder:
What heav’nly Sounds are these that charm my Ears!
Sure ‘tis the Musick of the tuneful Spheres.
42
Lockwood points out that it was common to use a Jack-Pudding and a drummer to announce a
puppet show. See also Speaight, History of the English Puppet Theatre, 2nd ed. (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1990), 152-53.
43
There were various sorts of thunder machines in use during this period; one type had a large sheet
of metal that was shaken in order to make the thunderous sound, and another was a long wooden
contraption that was tipped on an axis in order to roll a large round stone noisily down a track.
Lockwood also has discovered that “Lightening” could be created by blowing small amounts of
gunpowder over the tops of lighted candles to create sparks.
44
See Francis Grose’s 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue; A Dictionary of Buckish Slang,
University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, ed. Hewson Clarke (Northfield, IL: Digest Books, 1971).
45
See the third chapter of Jeremy Barlow’s The Enraged Musician; Hogarth’s Musical Imagery
(Aldershot, U.K. and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005) for an excellent discussion of the use of rough
music during this period.
149
Other burlesquing instruments might include a bladder-and-string, a live animal
(such as a cat), a cow horn, a fiddle (presumably played badly!), fire irons, a jew’s
harp, bagpipe, drums, dulcimers, or a shawm. An anonymous print from 1728, The
Beggar’s Opera Burlesqu’d, shows a five-piece band of rough music in the pit
accompanying the actors on stage; the instruments played by the musicians include a
bladder-and-string, a dulcimer, a jew’s harp, a saltbox, and a bagpipe (see Fig. 4.1).
46
“Rough Musick” had long been part of farces, whether pantomimes or plays, and
might have been used in Fielding’s ballad operas for comic effect. Carey’s
Chrononhotonthologos was performed at the Little Haymarket during the run of
Tumble-Down Dick, so the instruments were already in the possession of the
playhouse.
The best evidence for the size of the ensemble used to perform Fielding’s
ballad operas are theater-music manuscripts in the British Library containing parts
for The Lottery. The set of parts also includes music for Cibber’s Damon and
Phillida and The Devil to Pay, as well as other contemporary theatrical pieces with
music.
47
There are Violino Primo, Violino Secondo, Violoncello, Viola, Timpani,
and voice parts, though only the violins and the cello play in the ballad operas.
48
46
See Barlow, Chapter 3, 88, for the drawing.
47
BL RM.21.c.43. Some music for Damon and Phillida, Macbeth, Henry the Eighth, Theodosius,
and The Devil to Pay is also bound with The Lottery in the manuscript.
48
The two violins have different parts for Macbeth, Henry VIII, and Theodosius, but not for the ballad
operas. Would a double bass have played also, even if not specified on the parts? A painting set in
eighteenth-century Norfolk by J. T. Heins, Sr. called A Musical Party at Melton Constable Hall
(1734, in a private collection) shows an orchestra of two flutes, four violins, a viola, cello,
harpsichord, and a double bass. If a double bass was used in rural Norfolk, it is likely that it was also
used in London. In addition, Richard Maunder says that in concertos “A double bass, reinforcing the
ripieno bass line, was taken for granted from the early 1730s.” See his The Scoring of Baroque
Concertos (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2004), 262. Fiske also thinks that there might
have been violas doubling the bass line. (English Theatre Music, 117)
150
All of the pieces in the manuscripts (dated ca. 1740) are staples of the Drury
Lane Theatre, so one can suppose that the music reflects the playhouse orchestra
there.
49
It seems that the orchestra was generally quite small; according to the
evidence supplied by these surviving parts, it had at least two violinists (one of
whom doubled on viola), a cello, and a percussionist (possibly also someone who
doubled on one of the other instruments).
50
In addition, there would have been a
harpsichord (or possibly two), for a total of around five to seven musicians.
51
This orchestration is not surprising when we recall that trio sonatas and
concertos with five to seven-part scoring were often performed in the playhouses
between the acts during this period.
52
Concertos in the early eighteenth century
usually had a scoring very similar to that of The Lottery parts in the British Library;
the concertos of Giuseppe Sammartini and J. C. Bach, for example, use only two
violins and (unfigured) cello accompaniment.
53
Concertos during the second quarter
of the century—in England as well as on the Continent—were most likely played
49
Fiske thinks that the manuscripts were prepared for a theater orchestra in Dublin, because he
cannot find any evidence that Arne’s Theodosius was performed in London before 1768. He also
could not find any record of performance for Henry VIII in any of the London theatres’ repertoire.
(116) Fiske is mistaken, as according to The London Stage, Henry VIII was performed numerous
times at Drury Lane and Covent Garden during the 1730s and 40s.
50
The viola and timpani parts for Theodosius are written and bound into the same part as one of the
violins, showing that most likely the same person switched between these instruments.
51
Of course, one must consider the possibility that more than one player could have read off of each
part; in addition, one or more parts of this set also could have been lost or discarded. Duplicate parts
are rare in both manuscript and printed sources, and possibly only one of each part was kept as an
archival copy long after the piece was regularly played.
52
Burney, A General History of Music, iii, 620. See also Charles Jennens to James Harris, 15
January 1740, quoted in Donald Burrows and Rosemary Dunhill, eds., Music and Theatre in Handel’s
World: The Family Papers of James Harris, 1732-1780 (Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press,
2002), 88, where “instead of an overture he intends to perform one of his 12 new concertos.”
53
Maunder, 256-57.
151
one to a part.
54
Surviving manuscripts and printed copies demonstrate some
evidence that this was the case, and it is very likely that this practice was the same
for theater music. It is important to emphasize that eighteenth-century players did
not share copies of music.
55
There were very few exceptions to this custom of
reading music one to a part; the practice lasted until the 1730s, when Handel used
larger forces for his oratorios and parts were published by Walsh which were
intended to be used by more than one player at once.
56
There are no markings on the British Library copies that may indicate “solo”
or “tutti” sections in the music. The absence of markings in parts was actually
standard practice: “In rehearsal, without bar numbers and before the pencil as we
know it was invented, it would have been impossible to mark up parts in the way that
is nowadays taken for granted. Consequently all the performance indications
thought to be necessary had to be included from the first by the copyist or
engraver.”
57
Theater music directors—like directors in theater productions up until
the middle of the twentieth century—would have undoubtedly arranged the parts as
needed, making decisions about the texture, indicating to each violinist when to play
solo and when to play all together.
Printed overtures from the ballad operas also give us information about the
orchestral forces used to perform the tunes. The overture to The Beggar’s Opera (see
54
“One-on-a-part performances of ‘orchestral’ music—arias, concertos and symphonies—was not
uncommon in the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century, judging by iconographical evidence.” See
Neil Zaslaw, “When is an Orchestra not an Orchestra?” in EMc 16/4 (Nov. 1988), 490n7.
55
Maunder, 8: “Various pieces of evidence suggest that eighteenth-century string players did not
normally sit in pairs as in a modern orchestra, sharing a music stand…Moreover players did not share
parts, but each had his own copy…the extra copies were identical…” (263)
56
Maunder, 224-45. Maunder also points out that Walsh may have arranged the music himself for
publication purposes. (255)
152
Ex. 4.4) was published in four parts, but the orchestration is not indicated aside from
a few markings of “violins” or “vio.” above the score. Jeremy Barlow discusses the
various possibilities in the introduction to his edition.
58
The overture for Lacy
Ryan’s The Cobler’s Opera (1728), however, also performed that same year at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, is printed in full score at the end of the opera. It gives
its four-part orchestration as “Violino I and Oboe,” “Violino 2,” “Tenor” (viola), and
“Basso” (unfigured). Essex Hawker’s The Wedding (1729), also performed at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, has a printed overture with exactly the same scoring: “Violino
Primo & Oboe,” “Violino Secondo” (an indication for a second oboe, “Haut. 2d,” is
found later in the movement on this line), “Tenor,” and an unfigured “Basso.”
59
Ornamentation by orchestra players seems to have been a nuisance. Burney
relates an anecdote about the famous violinist Felice Giardini, which probably took
place during the 1740s before he settled in London:
[In] Naples, where, having obtained a place among Ripienos in the opera orchestra, he used
to flourish and change passages much more frequently than he ought to have done.
‘However’, says Giardini, of whom I had this account, ‘I acquired great reputation among the
ignorant for my impertinence; yet one night, during the opera, Jomelli, who had composed it,
came into the orchestra, and seating himself close by me, I determined to give the Maestro di
Capella a touch of my taste and execution; and in the symphony of the next song, which was
in a pathetic style, I gave loose to my fingers and fancy; for which I was rewarded by the
composer with a violent slap in the face; which,’ adds Giardini, ‘was the best lesson I ever
received from a great master in my life.’
60
57
Maunder, 7.
58
See Barlow’s The Music of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990).
He decided to use two violins, two oboes, a viola, and basso continuo in his scoring; these decisions
were made after reviewing several different eighteenth-century publications of this and other ballad
operas. This scoring is certainly in line with the orchestration found in other ballad operas.
59
One other printed ballad opera score survives; this is John Mottley and Thomas Cooke’s Penelope
(1728), which is also scored for 2 oboes and strings. Fiske has noticed that The Beggar’s Opera, The
Cobler’s Opera, and Penelope were the first three ballad operas in existence, and that afterwards
publishers must have decided that printing the overtures for this new genre was too costly. (English
Theatre Music, 115)
60
Burney, A General History of Music, iv, 522.
153
We already know that it was common for singers to add flourishes and appoggiaturas
to the vocal line. Since in ballad opera overtures we can see that the violin or flute
parts were often doubled, and frequently doubled the vocal line, it is probable that
one or both of the instruments added extra appoggiaturas and flourishes in the same
manner as the singer.
61
Often the playhouse orchestra was integrated into plots of a ballad opera.
The violinists, in particular, appeared on stage to strike up the band for the dance
numbers (see also the following section).
62
For instance, Fielding’s cast for Tumble-
Down Dick specifically calls for “Fidlers,” and Carey’s Chrononhotonthologos
indicates “Enter King of the Fidlers at the Head of his Band.”
Incidental Music in Fielding’s Theatrical Works
As did other authors of dramas performed in eighteenth-century playhouses,
Fielding employed incidental music in his plays and operas. It is known that music
was performed between the acts of the full-length works in the theaters. There are
additional indications found in the printed editions that indicate the presence of other
types of music in the ballad operas, including signals for overtures, requests for
dances, and allusions to fiddles or other instruments on stage. Occasionally one of
Fielding’s characters will specifically call for the music to change a scene.
Though it was not called such by early eighteenth-century composers,
incidental music had a long history in English theaters and operas. Price says that
61
See John Spitzer and Neil Zaslaw, “Improvised Ornamentation in Eighteenth-Century Orchestras,”
JAMS xxxix/3 (Fall 1986), 524-77.
62
See Price’s “Restoration Stage Fiddlers and Their Music,” EMc VII/3 (July 1979), 315-22.
154
“[w]hether a dramatic opera, whose acts consisted almost entirely of music, or the
rare tragedy shorn of internal musical entertainments by reform or (more likely)
financial exigencies, the play was invariably preceded and relieved by music, almost
always short instrumental pieces…”
63
Incidental music is particularly difficult for us
to examine, primarily because it is not part of the drama itself and consequently
rarely mentioned in the printed ballad operas.
According to Price, there was an incidental-music tradition utilized in
Restoration English drama according to which there were nine pieces of music for
each play: two pairs of two pieces were played before the play began, an overture or
curtain tune was played after the prologue, and four act tunes were played between
each of the acts. There was not usually a concluding piece after the last act.
64
There is some evidence that these conventions were still in place during the 1720s
and 1730s, and probably would have been applied during performances of some of
Fielding’s ballad operas and plays. (Only three of Fielding’s ballad operas are full-
length; the others are one-act afterpieces that would not have had music between the
scenes.) Often during this era playhouse music directors provided dances or songs
during the entr’actes of plays. A ballet called “Le Chasseur Royal” by Desnoyer was
inserted between the acts during a performance of Fielding’s The Modern Husband
and The Lottery in 1732.
65
Various concertos and other types of “high art” music
were frequently heard. On 20 October, 1733, the seceding Drury Lane actors at the
Little Haymarket announced that they would play “For the 2
nd
Musick, the first
63
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 51.
64
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 53.
65
See London Stage, III/i.
155
Concerto of the 1
st
opera of Geminiani. For the 3
rd
Musick, an Overture composed
by Mr Handel, for the Opera of Alexander,” as well as two more instrumental pieces
and two airs during the entr’actes.
66
Burney told of songs between the acts in 1741:
[Worsdale sang some airs with] all the dignity and florid style (as [I suppose) was ever heard
in a] serious Italian Opera Singer, and a part in Lampes serious opera of Amelia. And sung
many humorous songs between the Acts, particularly, “Young Roger came tapping at
Dolley’s window,” &c, with great humour & comic effect.
67
One cannot identify from the printed operas the specific music performed between
the acts of Fielding’s operas. Fortunately, The London Stage contains much of this
information, culled from contemporary newspaper advertisements and other sources.
For instance, the “Dutch Skipper” is advertised to have been danced after The
Author’s Farce at Little Haymarket by Mr. Davenport and Miss Price on 11 May
1732.
68
On 16 and 17 January 1734, a “Scotch Dance” was danced by Mr. and Mrs.
Davenport between The Author’s Farce and The Intriguing Chambermaid.
On 25 September 1735 Mullart sang the “Roast Beef Song,” and Mrs. Charke and
Miss Brett danced the “Black Joke” at Lincoln’s Inn Fields during at play called
Bartholomew Fair. Mullart—who sang Fielding’s versions of the “Black Joke” in
The Welsh Opera and The Lottery—sang the air several more times at Lincoln’s Inn
Fields as an entr’acte tune. On 10 May 1731, instrumental music was played
between The Author’s Farce and the afterpiece (The Tragedy of Tragedies),
including a “Concerto on Trumpet by Burk Thumoth,” and a “Concerto Grosso by
Kytch on the Flute.” A “Song of the Trumpet” was advertised as being played in the
66
London Stage, clvii.
67
Burney, Memoirs, fragment 11, 25-26.
68
London Stage, 218.
156
afterpiece as well, forcing one to wonder how often such music was added to plays
and was not notated in the printed editions.
69
One type of incidental music that does receive frequent references in
Fielding’s printed operas is the overture. There is a distinction between overtures
and curtain tunes, although the two terms are often used interchangeably.
70
An
overture is technically the French-style two-part piece with (usually) a slow dotted-
rhythm first section, sometimes repeated, and a lively imitative second section. The
two-part overture of The Beggar’s Opera is in this French style, for example, as is
the overture for Ryan’s The Cobler’s Opera and Hawker’s The Wedding. Price
defines “curtain tune,” as “a piece serving a definite function: music played at the
drawing up of the curtain. This may be almost any musical type, including a French
overture.”
71
We can be certain of the existence of the overtures because of indications in
the spoken dialogues in several of Fielding’s operas. At the end of the prologue in
Don Quixote, the Manager exclaims: “Order then to play away the Overture
immediately.” At the start of Tumble-Down Dick, Machine calls out “Come, let
down the Curtain, and play away the Overture.” In Eurydice, the opera begins thus:
(The Musick-Bell rings) Enter the Author in a Hurry. A Critick following.
Auth. Hold, hold, Mr. Chetwood; don’t ring for the Ouverture yet, the Devil is not
dressed…
72
69
London Stage, 138.
70
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 55-56.
71
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 56.
72
A “Musick-Bell” was rung to signal scene changes, much like the use of the whistle in French
theaters.
157
As is typical in a rehearsal play, at the beginning of the entertainment contained
within The Author’s Farce there is also an indication that an overture was played:
Mast. …I think we will have an Overture, tho’ ours be not a regular Opera.
Play. By all means an Overture.
Mast. If you please, Sir, you shall sit down by me. Play away.
There is also some evidence in the text to support my statement above that
incidental music was used between the acts and scenes, at least as curtain tunes. In
Act III of The Author’s Farce, the Master of the Show (Luckless) bids the curtain
open with a tune:
Mast. Now, Gentlemen, I shall present you with the most glorious Scene that has ever
appear’d on the Stage; it is The Court of Nonsense. Play away, soft Musick, and draw up the
Curtain.
The Curtain drawn up to Soft Musick, discovers the Goddess of Nonsense on a Throne; the
Orator, in a Tub; Tragedio, &c. attending.
These indications serve as proof, then, that the traditional overtures, curtain tunes,
and other types of long-established incidental theater music were still in use at the
playhouses and played a significant part in each performance of Fielding’s ballad
operas.
“Blank” Songs and Dances
Fielding frequently followed the Restoration practice of using “blank” songs
(i.e., “a Dance here” or “here follows an Entertainment of Musick”).
73
These
indications appear throughout the ballad operas. For example, only “A Song” is
indicated in the first act of The Author’s Farce (we find from one of the later printed
editions that—at least in the later versions of the opera—it is to be sung to the tune
158
of “Butter’d Pease”). These blank songs are frequently found in Fielding’s plays,
several of which include an unnamed song or two as part of the drama.
The majority of the blank songs seem to be dances, not surprisingly, since
dancing played a considerable role on the English stage during this period. Many
times these dances were used to conclude a ballad opera. Price tells us that the
practice of using dances to end a play was a common feature of Restoration
comedies, and had been part of the English theater-going consciousness for quite a
long time:
Most [Restoration] comedies written between 1660 and about 1695 have as a standard
feature of their denouements a dance, usually involving the entire dramatis personae…The
dance is nearly always occasioned by a an anticipated wedding. Any last minute difficulties
between prospective bride and bridegroom are quickly settled or pushed aside, the parson is
sent for, and someone orders the fiddlers, who have managed to work their way into the
scene on some pretext, to strike up. Importantly, final dances were cast dances (especially in
the 1670s and 80s), even though other danced scenes may have included professionally
executed masques and entertainments. Four couples usually performed a country dance, the
so-called “Scot’s tune” or “Scotch measure” having enjoyed enormous popularity…
74
Price goes on to remark that “country dances are not described in detail in the stage
directions, as they were common to nearly all comedies (and familiar to audiences as
social dances) and seldom involved elaborate choreography or antic costumes.”
75
A
contemporary French traveler’s account of a performance of The Beggar’s Opera
includes a brief mention of this familiar English practice:
They also performed a kind of comic opera, called the Beggar’s Opera, because it is about a
band of highwaymen with their Captain; there were only two good actors, and a girl called
Fenton who was quite pretty. The orchestra is as bad as the other [at Drury Lane]. It is all
ballads with worthless music. People were insisting that the librettist had made references to
the present government. They drink all the time, they smoke, and the Captain with eight
women who keep him company in prison kisses them a great deal. They were going to hang
73
“Blank” music is a term coined by Price in his Music in the Restoration Theatre.
74
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 37-38.
75
Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, 38. From a wide-ranging examination of the extant ballad
operas, it seems the concluding dances used most often in these pieces were “Butter’d Peas” and
“Lumps of Pudding.”
159
him in the fifth act, but with money he manages to save himself from the gallows. The opera
finishes with that. I would bore you if I told you about the country dances at the end.
76
These final country dances, long in the repertories of the English comedies,
are found in the ballad-opera tradition, and are frequently employed by Fielding. For
example, he ends Don Quixote with “Country Bumpkin,” a Scottish dance.
77
Additionally, at the end of The Grub-Street Opera, Master Owen calls for a dance to
celebrate his marriage. Conveniently, Owen has already prepared the fiddlers, and
even Puzzletext has brought his own fiddle along:
Owen. Look’ee! as I have married first I desire my Wedding may be celebrated first, at least
with one Dance, for which I have prepared the Fiddles.
Puz. And for which I have prepared my Fiddle too; for I am always in utrumque paratus. [in
readiness for anything at all]
The text tells us simply: “A dance here,” and then gives Fielding’s lyrics for Air
LVII (to the tune of “Little Jack Horner”). Puzzletext, Men, Women, and the Chorus
sing the lines; presumably the entire cast is to dance at the same time. This is
perhaps a couples dance as in the Restoration comedic tradition, for the Chorus sings
“Couples united, Ever delighted,” which refers to the plot of the opera but also can
serve as a dance indication. In the final scene of Fielding’s play The Covent-
Garden Tragedy, another “Fidler” appears on stage, ready to play the final dance:
To them LOVEGIRLO, STORMANDRA, and a FIDLER.
…
LOVEGIRLO.
Foreseeing all this sudden Turn of Joy.
I’ve brought a Fidler to play forth the same.
76
Translated from the fifth letter of “Voiage d’Angleterre” by Pierre-Jacques Fougeroux in Gerald
Coke’s Handel Collection (now housed in the Foundling Museum in London). Part of the letter is
included as an appendix to Donald Burrows, Handel (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994).
77
This same tune is danced today by Scottish dance societies, where it is known as “The Bumpkin, or
the Ninesome Reel.” It is a partner dance and is danced longways. There are nine dancers: six women
and three men.
160
Fielding’s plays Eurydice Hiss’d and The Miser also contain indications of final
blank dances. In Eurydice Hiss’d, Pluto says to his wife “My Dear, the Dancers are
come,” and the text calls for “A GRAND DANCE” and a “CHORUS.” In the final
scene of The Miser, the printed edition designates that there is to be a “Dance here.”
Regrettably, no music survives for these dances. After the denouement in the final
scene of The Author’s Farce, Luckless cries “Strike up, Kettle-Drums and
Trumpets—.”
78
Punch further declares “And now, if you please, we will celebrate
those happy Discoveries with a Dance.” This blank dance is also not indicated in the
stage directions.
Dances can be used in other ways in the drama; for instance, they often
accompany changes of scene. In his play Eurydice Hiss’d, Fielding indicates at the
start of the levee scene that all should “range themselves to a ridiculous Tune.” No
particular “ridiculous Tune” is supplied. In Tumble-Down Dick, there are indications
that a dance is used to change location:
[The Scene draws, and discovers several Men and Women drinking in King’s Coffee-House.
They rise and dance. The Dance ended, sing the following Song [to the tune of O London is a
fine Town].
Dances can also serve as entertainments within the drama, as in a rehearsal or
“play within a play.” In the rehearsal play in Act III of The Author’s Farce, there are
several suggestions for dances for the nonsense characters of Punch and Joan after
Air II, “Joan, Joan, Joan.” Between the stanzas and at the end of the next air, sung to
“Bobbing Joan,” Punch and Joan are instructed to dance again. Scene two of
78
This is also evidence of the presence of these instruments in the theater orchestra.
161
Fielding’s play The Letter-Writers opens with the characters of Commons and
Risque, “with Whores and Musick,” and with fiddlers:
79
Com. [Sings] Tol, lol, de rol lol—Now am I Alexander the Great, and you my Statira and
Roxana, you Sons of Whores, play me Alexander the Great’s March.
1 Fid. We don’t know it an’t please your Worship.
Com. Don’t you? Why then—play me the Black Joke.
2 Wh. Play the White Joke, that’s my Favourite.
Com. Ay, ay, Black or White, they are all alike to me. [Musick plays.
Although Fielding usually did not specifically indicate the types of dances, he calls
for a sarabande in The Author’s Farce:
Mast. The next, Gentlemen, is a Blackamore Lady, who comes to present you with a
Saraband and Castanets. [A Dance.
Lockwood explains that Moors, sarabandes, and castanets were linked in the stage
shows of the period.
80
Not surprisingly, several dances are interspersed throughout the drama in
Tumble-Down Dick, Fielding’s parody of Rich’s popular pantomimes.
81
After Air II
in the ballad opera, Ph œbus introduces a dance to his son Phaeton, performed by the
Watchmen as Sneerwell the critic, Machine the composer, and Fustian the author
discuss the set-up of the scene and the purpose of the dance:
Ph œb. …Now you shall see a Dance, and that will show,
We lead as merry Lives as Folks below.
[A Dance of Watchmen.
Phae. Father, the Dance has very well been done,
But yet that does not prove I am your Son.
Fust. Upon my Word, I think Mr. Phaeton is very much in the right on’t; and I wou’d be glad
to know, Sir, why this Dance was introduc’d.
Mach. Why, Sir? why as all Dances are introduc’d, for the sake of the Dance. Besides, Sir,
wou’d it not look very unnatural in Ph œbus to give his Son no Entertainment after so long an
Absence? Go on, go on.
79
More on the bawdy implications of “Black Joke” and “White Joke” are found below in Chapter V.
80
Lockwood, 264n1: “…a pamphlet of 1756 listing supposed properties from a Dublin puppet theatre
includes ‘a pair of castanets for the dancing Blackamoor Lady’…” Richard Hudson and Meredith
Ellis Little also tell us that early Spanish sarabandes were frequently accompanied by guitars and
castanets. See Richard Hudson and Meredith Ellis Little, “Sarabande,” in The New Grove Dictionary
of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxii, 273-77.
81
See Chapter III above for a definition and a discussion of pantomime.
162
Later in the opera, after Phaeton falls out of the sky and sets the earth afire,
Sneerwell, Fustian, and Machine call for more dances, making fun of the excessive
(and dramatically confusing) dancing in pantomimes:
Mach. Come, Enter the Goddess of the Earth, and a Dancing-Master, and dance the White
Joke.
They Enter, and Dance.
Nept. What, can the Earth with Frolicks thus inspire
To Dance, when all her Kingdom is on fire?
Terra. Tho’ all the Earth was one continual Smoke,
‘Twou’d not prevent my Dancing the White Joke.
Sneer. Upon my Word, the Goddess is a great Lover of Dancing…
Mach. Come now Neptune and Terra, dance a Minuet, by way of Thanksgiving.
The “White Joke” and the “Red Joke,” along with the more popular “Black Joke,”
were well-known dances of the period, as were many of the other tunes found in the
ballad operas. No doubt Fielding introduced this bawdy dance in Tumble-Down
Dick in order to mock the high style of dancing used in the original pantomime.
Many times the ballad tunes seem to have been danced by the characters
while they sang. During a change of scene in Act III of The Author’s Farce, the silly
Somebody and Nobody are introduced by the Master of the Show (Luckless):
82
Mast. Gentlemen, the next Figures are Some-body and No-body, who come to present you
with a Dance.
Enter Some-body, and No-body.
They Dance.
AIR VII. Black Joke.
Some. Of all the Men in London Town,
Or Knaves, or Fools, in Coat, or Gown
The Representative am I:
82
Lockwood describes the grotesque characters of Somebody and Nobody in English theatrical and
graphic tradition: “In prints and signs Nobody was all legs and arms; Somebody was all body, with
tiny arms and legs. The characters had appeared onstage in the earlier 18th century, frequently in
puppet dances, and at least once in the live theatre, on a benefit performance of The Alchymist (4 Apr.
1709).” He goes on to state that one of the bills for Fielding’s own later Panton Street puppet theatre
advertised the two characters in a dance. (268)
163
No. Go thro’ the World, and you will find,
In all the Classes of Human-kind,
Many a jolly No-body.
For him, a No-body, sure we may call,
Who during his Life does nothing at all,
But Eat, and Snore,
And Drink, and Roar,
From Whore to the Tavern, from Tavern to Whore,
With a lac’d Coat, and that is all.
Mast. Gentlemen, this is the End of the first Interlude.
Most likely, the authors of ballad operas (including Fielding) would not have
had much to do with the selection of the music used in these “blank” pieces. The
theater composer would probably have received the prompt book with the same
indications we see today (such as “A Dance here”) and would have filled in the space
with appropriate music. However, the majority of the music appearing in the ballad
operas was not incidental. Fielding’s choices in regard to this music did make a
large contribution to the success of his works, as we will see below in Chapter V.
164
Ex. 4.1. Pepusch, “Why, How Now, Madame Flirt” in Corri, A Select Collection of
the Most Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. (1779-80)
Ex. 4.2. Pepusch, “Oh Ponder Well,” in Corri, A Select Collection of the Most
Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. (1779-80)
165
Ex. 4.3. Traditional, “Bush o’Boon Traquair,” in Corri, A Select Collection of the
Most Admired Songs, Duetts, &c. (1779-80)
166
Fig. 4.1. The Beggar’s Opera Burlesqu’d (1728). Anonymous print.
167
Ex. 4.4. Pepusch, Overture, first page, The Beggar’s Opera, 4th ed. (1734)
168
CHAPTER V:
MUSIC FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT
Fielding’s Ballad Airs
In all eleven operas, Fielding utilizes 233 airs and specifically designates the
performance of other types of music throughout the dramas. This music is used for
dramatic effect—as in an operatic “number” aria, the dialogue ends and the music
begins, serving to demonstrate the intensity of a character’s feelings or to heighten a
particular dramatic event. Many times the music is extremely important to the
drama, extending the moment and commenting on the action. Other times the music
does not have great dramatic importance, but it still enhances the effect of the
moment, often with extra-dramatic cultural references. For the most part, Fielding’s
ballad airs fall into this division; they hold a similar function to an aria in an opera
seria.
1
One of the ways that Fielding uses music in his ballad operas is by
integrating it as part of the drama. Often he makes notes for specific instruments to
1
The prologue to George Lillo’s Silvia (1730) explains the function of ballad airs:
But sure the present Age, and past, he wrongs,
Who grants not English Sense, in English Songs;
In Times remote, when blooming, gay and young,
With gentlest Manners, and harmonious Tongue,
Some reigning Toast grac’d our great Grandsire’s Song,
Whether with jocund Strains, or graver Airs,
She Mirth excites, or sooths her Lovers Cares;
Whether with decent Pride she does relate
Her Country’s Glory, or some Virgin’s Fate;
The various Passions, at her Call arise,
Glow in the Breast, or trickle from the Eyes.
With sweet, but simple Notes, good sense convey’d,
Loses no Force, but is stronger made.
Dugaw calls these songs “Critical Instants.” See her “‘Critical Instants’: Theatre Songs in the Age of
Dryden and Purcell,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 23/2 (Winter 1989-90), 157-181.
169
play special effects.
2
This music does not survive in the published operas.
Additionally, sometimes Fielding writes a performance within one of the ballad
operas. All of Fielding’s eleven ballad operas, and at least six of his plays, contain
indications for airs to be sung as part of the drama.
3
Many times the ballad airs, like
the blank songs and dances, work as part of the drama. A character will sing a tune
at the request of another character, for example. In Act II, Scene 3 of Fielding’s play,
The Tragedy of Tragedies, the Princess Huncamunca asks her maid, Cleora to
provide some music to help her to stop thinking of her love, Tom Thumb:
Hunc. Give me some Musick—see that it be sad.
Cleora sings.
Cupid, ease a Love-sick Maid,
Bring thy Quiver to her Aid;
With equal Ardor wound the Swain:
Beauty should never sigh in vain.
II.
Let him feel the pleasing Smart,
Drive thy Arrow thro’ his Heart;
When One you wound, you then destroy;
When Both you kill, you kill with Joy.
Fielding also wrote a song into the first act of his play, The Fathers; it was set by
Michael Arne (see Ex. 5.1).
2
Price calls this type of music in Restoration drama “para-dramatic.” (Music in the Restoration
Theatre, xvi) Dugaw calls these songs “Critical Instants.” See her “‘Critical Instants’: Theatre Songs
in the Age of Dryden and Purcell,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 23/2 (Winter 1989-90), 157-181.
3
During the last scene of Love in Several Masques, Lady Matchless (played by Mrs. Oldfield) sings
her air to entertain company before a dinner. The two songs in The Temple Beau (one of them sung
by a Miss Thorowets) were most likely performed in between the acts. Cleora (played by Mrs. Smith)
sings Huncamunca’s favorite song to her in Tom Thumb. Sotmore and Squeezum (Mr. Hulett and Mr.
Hippisley) sing a drinking song together in The Coffee-House Politician (and Rape upon Rape). In
The Letter-Writers, Rakel sings a few lines of a Pepusch song, “How blest is a Soldier.” There is also
a song near the beginning of The Fathers.
170
Despite the insertion of these ballad airs or popular songs as part of the drama
in Fielding’s plays, most of the music which he used in his operas was for
elucidating emotions or driving the plot of the drama forward.
From the ‘Black Joke’ to Rinaldo: Sources and Types of Ballad Opera Tunes
Most of the tunes in Fielding’s operas are taken from previously-circulating
airs printed on a single sheet. These printed sheets gradually replaced at the end of
the seventeenth century the “broadside” ballads that had been popular for over two
centuries in England. A broadside was a single folio-size sheet of paper upon which
proclamations, news, poems, or ballad airs were composed and distributed. Both the
broadside ballads and the newer single-sheet songs were “written usually by a hack
versifier to a common tune [and]…sold in bookstalls or fair booths or hawked about
cities and towns by street singers…”
4
Both broadsides and single printed sheets
were a crucial means of disseminating popular music to the general population; some
of Fielding’s ballad texts were later circulated in this way.
A second source of Fielding’s ballad tunes is found in the many editions of
John Playford’s The Dancing Master, which was published in eighteen editions
between ca. 1651 and ca. 1728. Many of Playford’s other collections of songs,
including Choice Ayres, Songs, & Dialogues, were also appropriated for use in
ballad operas and on the engraved single sheets. There are also numerous poetical
4
Claude M. Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music (New Brunswick, New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press, 1966), ix. See also Barlow, “Folk and Popular Balladry: Broadside
Ballads,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London:
Macmillan, 2001), ii, 545-46. The tunes themselves rarely appeared on the broadside ballads, but the
airs (and their bass lines) could be found on the newer single printed sheets, along with a version in a
different key for flute.
171
miscellanies that include music, of which D’Urfey’s Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge
Melancholy was particularly invaluable. Its final six-volume edition (1719-20) was a
primary source for tunes for John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera—which was in turn a
source of tunes for later ballad opera writers.
The most significant collection of tunes for Fielding, however, seems to be
John Watts’s six-volume The Musical Miscellany, published in six volumes from
1729 to 1731 (see Fig. 5.1). Watts was the publisher for seven of Fielding’s ballad
operas as well as for the majority of his plays, and it is possible that Fielding chose
tunes from these volumes in order to ensure that his own works would be printed by
Watts. Indeed, it has been shown that it is possible that the very same plates were
used for both the Miscellany and for most of the airs in Fielding’s operas.
5
Altogether, Fielding’s eleven ballad operas contain the astonishing number of
233 tunes in total (see Appendix III).
6
The number of tunes used in each opera
varies in number from sixty-five airs in The Grub-Street Opera to only five in
Tumble-Down Dick. Because of the widely fluctuating number of tunes used by
Fielding, the works range musically in style from full-size ballad operas to afterpiece
burlettas. It is therefore very difficult to define Fielding’s “typical” ballad opera.
7
The 233 airs are interspersed throughout the action on the stage, exploring the
mood of a character or a particular sentiment. Some of the airs move the action
forward, which is a feature of ballad opera that sets the genre apart from previous
5
See Roberts, “Songs and Tunes,” 29-49.
6
The total count is 233, but he repeated many of the same airs over and over. Roberts counts 206 airs
(see Roberts, “Songs and Tunes,” 29). For comparison: Gay used 194 tunes over three ballad operas,
and rarely reused the airs (this number seems to be around 188 tunes without variants).
7
See Chapter III above for a discussion on the definition of “ballad opera” and Fielding. See also
Price and Hume, 342.
172
musical theatrical works. This tally includes the tunes that are fundamentally the
same except for variations (there are 152 tunes without this distinction).
Unfortunately, the scope of this study is not large enough to discuss a full history of
each of the tunes. However, the airs fall easily into two categories. The first of these
is recent music, primarily Italian arias and English theatrical airs, and the second
category contains the more traditional music—including French, Scotch and English
tunes and dances.
A considerable number of Fielding’s airs are taken from recent English stage
works and Italian operas. They were popular with ballad opera writers because of
their musical value, and are additionally of interest to musicologists because of the
allusions they create by referencing the original sources. Arias taken from Italian
opera seria, all the rage in London during this era, were particularly good candidates
for this burlesquing treatment by the ballad opera writers. One example of this is
Fielding’s use of Handel’s popular aria “Sì, caro, sì” which he set twice.
8
“Si caro” (as the tune was designated by ballad opera authors) was a well-
known aria that Handel used first in Admeto (1726) and then again in his second and
third versions of Rinaldo (1731), written specifically for London opera-goers (see
Ex. 5.2). Fielding first used “Si caro” in the suppressed The Grub-Street Opera in
1731 and again in the first edition of The Lottery in 1732 (it was cut from subsequent
editions).
9
(This is not the last of “Si caro”: in Fielding’s final play, The Wedding
8
JoAnn Taricani was the first to point out the prevalence of “Si caro” in early eighteenth-century
writings in her paper “Henry Fielding: Provocateur of Music as Metaphor and Contrivance,” read at
the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society in Los Angeles, 3 November 2006.
9
Since The Grub-Street Opera was never publicly performed, it makes sense that Fielding stripped
the piece of tunes for the first edition of The Lottery, his next ballad opera. The ballad airs used in
173
Day (1743), the character of Brazen reminisces about the excellence of Handel’s
opera and then sings the aria.) In The Grub-Street Opera, the main female character,
Sweetissa, is comforted by her lover Owen; in The Lottery, the lovers Chloe and
Lovemore are in the same position at the end of the ballad opera. The text is nearly
the same in each version, demonstrating a minimal amount of creative effort from
Fielding (he probably recycled the air from the unperformed Grub-Street Opera in
his later work). Owen’s air is interrupted at the end by Sweetissa’s tears (Act III,
Scene ix):
AIR XLIV. (Si Cari.)
Smile, smile, Sweetissa, smile,
Repining banish,
Let Sorrow vanish,
Grief does the Complexion spoil.
See how your Rival Sun,
His Glory’s shrowded,
Whence he is clouded,
No more is gaz’d upon
with Rapture.
Smile, smile, Sweetissa, smile,
Lift up your charming, cha--a-arming,
Lift up your charming Eyes,
Charming—
Lovemore’s version from the end of The Lottery perhaps fits the music better with its
repeating lines:
AIR XVIII. Si Caro.
Lovem. Smile, smile, my Chloe, smile,
Repining banish,
Let Sorrow, let Sorrow vanish.
Grief does the fairest Complexion spoil.
Smile, smile, my Chloe, smile;
Lift up your charming,
Charming,
Charming,
Char----ming Eyes;
both pieces include: “Free-Mason’s Tune,” “Black Joke,” “Chloe is false,” “Dame of Honour,” “Hunt
the Squirrel,” and “Si caro.”
174
Charming,
Charming,
As Phoebus’ brightest Rays in Summer Skies.
The printed tune, included in the published edition of The Lottery, shows that
Fielding’s version of “Si caro” is a full step lower than Handel’s version. Fielding
omits the B section of the aria, and the ending of the A section is abbreviated,
probably to better fit the text. Both of the roles of Owen and Lovemore were
originally sung by rising tenor Stoppelaer, and this aria would have undoubtedly
been a show-stopper in each performance.
Fielding preferred the arias of Handel over those of any other composer; in
fact, he set more of Handel’s music than any other ballad opera author. In his operas
we find “Dimmi Caro” (adapted from “Dimmi cara” from Publio Cornelio Scipione,
1726), “Son confuso” or “In Porus” (“Son confusa pastorella” from Poro, Re
dell’Indie, 1730), “Caro vieni” (“Caro, vieni al mio seno,” a duetto also from Poro),
“Let the Drawer bring clean glasses” (a version of “Il Tricerbero umiliata” from
Rinaldo), “Turn, oh turn thee, dearest Creature” (adapted from “Vieni, torna, idolo
mio” from Handel’s Teseo), “ ‘Twas when the seas were roaring” (HWV 228/19),
and his “March in Scipio” (Scipione). Additionally, “Chloe is false” (also called
“Chloe proves false”) was taken from “Nò, non piangete, pupille belle” in
Floridante, 1721).
10
Fielding used tunes from other Italian opera composers as well. “Silvia, my
dearest” (also called “Fly me not, Silvia” and “Celia, my dearest”) is adapted from
10
See Joncus, “Handel at Drury Lane: Ballad Opera and the Production of Kitty Clive,” in Journal of
the Royal Musical Association 131/2 (2006), 179-226, for a table of Handel melodies in ballad operas,
1728-1750. It should be noted that Lockwood believes that “‘Twas when the Seas were Roaring”
should only doubtfully be attributed to Handel.
175
“Con forza ascosa” in Vespasiano (1724) by Attilio Ariosti. Fielding also used “Fair
Dorinda,” from Owen Swiny’s English translation of Giovanni Bononcini’s Camilla
(1706).
Fielding also used airs from English stage works by poet Thomas D’Urfey
(some of his airs include “Dame of Honour,” “Of a Noble Race was Shinkin,” and
“Ye Nymphs and Sylvan Gods”), Richard Leveridge (“The Yorksire Ballad” and
“All in the Downs”), Henry Purcell (“Britons Strike Home” is from Bonducca, and
“We’ve cheated the Parson” is from King Arthur), Jeremiah Clarke (“Hark, hark, the
Cock Crows”), John Eccles, John Weldon (“Let Ambition Fire thy Mind”), Lewis
Theobald and John Ernest Galliard (“In Perseus and Andromeda” is from their
Perseus and Andromeda, 1730) and Henry Carey (“I’ll Range Around” and
“Gilliflower Gentle Rosemary,” from his ballad opera Chrononhotonthologos).
Additionally, other English songwriters like John Grano, Lewis Ramonden, George
Vanbrugh, and Henry Aldrich each have airs appear in his operas. Allan Ramsey’s
poems were frequently set to music for use in the ballad operas; his most famous
poems were “The Lass of Patty’s Mill” and a version of “Bessy Bell and Mary
Gray.” From its designation and meter, one may surmise that “Pierrot’s Tune” (also
called “Pierrot’s Dance”) is most likely a French dance air.
In most of Fielding’s ballad operas the tunes are indicated (and are therefore
recoverable from other sources if not published in the text), some of the tunes are not
designated or are newly-composed tunes “by Mr. Seedo” that do not survive.
11
11
See Chapter II above for more on Mr. Seedo and Fielding.
176
Fielding’s Favorite Tunes and Most Popular Airs
Fielding used many of the same tunes over and over again. Counting The
Grub-Street Opera as simply an expansion of The Welsh Opera, twenty-six tunes
were used twice, and thirteen tunes were used three times or more. The tunes that
Fielding used most often were “As Down in a Meadow,” “Bessy Bell and Mary
Gray,” “Black Joke,” “Buff-Coat,” “Dame of Honour,” “Hunt the Squirrel,” “Lass of
Patty’s Mill,” “Now Ponder Well,” “Pierrot’s Tune (or Dance),” “Thomas I cannot,”
“Tweed Side,” “We’ve cheated the Parson,” and “Ye Nymphs and Sylvan Gods”
(see Table 5.1).
Fielding’s most famous air was “When mighty Roast Beef was the
Englishman’s Food,” which was first sung in Don Quixote and went on to become a
patriotic English pub song. First called “The King’s Old Courtier” or “The Queen’s
Old Courtier,” the air was known by many other titles before Fielding wrote his own
text. The music is relatively easy to sing, as “the music calls for the intoning of
verses upon a single note, with the commonly found two-line burden set to a musical
phrase suggesting a psalm chant.”
12
An early printed version can be found in
manuscript books dating from 1659. According to Simpson, Richard Leveridge
wrote the music and most of the text for an air by the name of “When mighty Roast
Beef was the Englishman’s Food,” which was published during the 1730s.
13
Fielding also used “When mighty Roast Beef” in The Grub-Street Opera (printed in
1731) (see Fig. 5.2). In this version, the text is nearly the same as Leveridge’s.
14
12
Simpson, 591
13
Simpson, 605.
14
See Simpson, 605.
177
Simpson posits that Fielding wrote most of the famous verses with “The Queen’s
Old Courtier” in mind, and that Leveridge wrote additional verses and composed a
new air. Both versions were popular throughout the century, and many parodies
survive.
15
The air is aligned so closely with Fielding that there is even a version of
the tune in Joseph Reed’s comic opera Tom Jones (1769), which is based on
Fielding’s novel of the same name (see Fig. 5.3).
16
Another enduring air written by Fielding was “The Dusky Night Rides Down
the Sky.” Known also as “A-begging we will go” and “There was a jovial beggar”
because of its use in Richard Brome’s The Jovial Crew (1641), it appears in The
Beggar’s Opera and in eighteen other ballad operas.
17
The first stanza of The Jovial
Crew’s text describes the ignominious life of begging:
18
There was a Jovial Begger,
He had a wooden Leg;
Lame from his Cradle,
And forced for to beg;
And a begging we will go,
We’ll go, will go,
And a begging we will go.
Fielding made the tune famous as a hunting song with his new text in the
opera Don Quixote, and it was later set by Thomas Augustine Arne, arguably the
most famous English opera composer of the century (see Exx. 5.3 and 5.4):
15
See Simpson, 605.
16
More on the longevity of Fielding’s ballad operas and music can be found in Chapter 6.
17
Lockwood, Plays, 688. See also John A. Parkinson’s “A-Hunting We Will Go,” in The Musical
Times 118/1607 (Jan. 1977), 33-34.
18
Stanza quoted in Lockwood, Plays, 688. Text found in Playford’s Choice Ayres and Songs…
(London: Printed by J. Playford Junior, 1684), 26.
178
AIR VIII. There was a Jovial Beggar, &c.
The dusky Night rides down the Sky,
And ushers in the Morn;
The Hounds all join in glorious Cry,
The Huntsman winds his Horn:
And a Hunting we will go.
The Wife around her Husband throws
Her Arms, and begs his Stay;
My Dear, it rains, and hails, and snows,
You will not hunt to-day.
But a Hunting we will go.
A brushing Fox in yonder Wood,
Secure to find we seek;
For why, I carry’d sound and good,
A Cartload there last Week.
And a Hunting we will go.
Away he goes, he flies the Rout,
Their Steeds all spur and switch;
Some are thrown in, and some thrown out,
And some thrown in the Ditch:
But a Hunting we will go.
At length his Strength to Faintness worn,
Poor Reynard ceases Flight;
Then hungry, homeward we return,
To feast away the Night:
Then a Drinking we will go.
Fielding also skillfully used the tune in both editions of The Author’s Farce,
exchanging the themes of wild living and hunting for the more sordid one of
cheating (the first four stanzas appear below):
AIR XIII. There was a jovial Beggar.
The Stone that all things turns at will
To Gold, the Chymist craves;
But Gold, without the Chymist’s Skill,
Turns all Men into Knaves.
For a Cheating they will go, &c.
The Merchant wou’d the Courtier cheat,
When on his Goods he lays
Too high a Price—but faith he’s bit,
For a Courtier never pays.
For a Cheating they will go, &c.
179
The Lawyer, with a Face demure,
Hangs him who steals your Pelf;
Because the good Man can endure
No Robber but himself.
For a Cheating, &c.
Betwixt the Quack and Highwayman
What Difference can there be?
Tho’ this with Pistol, that with Pen,
Both kill you for a Fee.
For a Cheating, &c.
Lockwood relates that other ballad writers have versions with other ill-mannered
themes: swearing, drinking, and “Torying.”
19
The Musical Structure of the Ballad Airs
The majority of the tunes found in Fielding’s ballad operas have a basic A/B
structure, and many times each section is repeated (AA/BB). Occasionally, there are
tunes with an AAB or ABB structure, or a variation of one of the above formats. In
many of the Italian airs, and even in many of the tunes newly-composed by Mr.
Seedo, the music has a da capo structure (ABA) (see Appendix I). For the most part,
though, the airs are strophic, with several verses sung to the same tune.
Probably because Fielding’s ballad operas were light in subject and farcical
in nature, most of the tunes are in major keys with three or fewer flats or sharps (C
major, G major, D major, A major, F major, and Bb major). Very few airs are in
minor keys, but occasionally the tunes switch to their related minor keys in the B
sections, as is usual in opera arias of the era.
Unusually, many of Fielding’s tunes contain unique cadences that do not end
on the tonic or dominant. An example is “Over the Hills and Far Away,” a Scots air
19
Lockwood, Plays, 688.
180
that appears in The Author’s Farce and ends on a second. Additionally, unlike more
developed opera genres of the early eighteenth-century, the consecutive tunes used in
any one of Fielding’s ballad operas are not all in closely related keys to ease
performance. There is also no evidence that the musicians frequently transposed the
tunes from the keys of the airs printed in the ballad operas to suit the ranges of the
singers. Consecutive airs are in the same key or related keys only when they are
linked without break; in The Lottery, Airs XII and XIII are sung one after the other
without stopping. The first, called “Son Confuso,” is in G major, as is the original
tune “Set by Mr. SEEDO” which follows it (see Appendix I).
Some of the tunes contain possible ritornello sections, or at least indications
of some kind of alternation in the line between the voice and an instrument.
Fielding’s versions of Italian opera arias indicate that an instrument—probably a
flute or a violin—carried the melody for a few bars in alternation with the voice.
Some evidence of this doubling can be seen in the British Library manuscript parts,
where the violins double each other and the voice (see Appendix I). In addition,
most of the airs of the ballad opera in the manuscript (including The Lottery) have
opening and closing bars which are purely instrumental.
20
20
Some of the airs do not have closing ritornellos in the manuscript, including Air XI (“Some
confounded Planet reigning”), Air XVIII (“Number Six Thousand Eighty Two”), and Air XXI (“That
the World is a Lottery”). Of course, they could have been improvised (for instance, by repeating the
final phrase of the piece without the voice).
181
Fielding as Musical Patriot
21
Because so many of the tunes Fielding used were popular opera arias, one
must not overlook the idea that the ballad opera writers were attempting to parody
the fashionable opera seria. Indeed, using well-known airs from these operas—as
was done in contemporary opéras-comiques—was essential to the audience’s
enjoyment of the imitation. “Jean-Baptiste Nougaret, a theorist of opéra-comique
during an especially rapid period of evolution in the genre, held vaudevilles to be
preferable to newly composed music for the purpose of conveying the satire and wit
of a parody’s text.”
22
We can surmise that the music in Fielding’s lost Deborah,
appearing as it did only a few weeks after Handel’s oratorio of the same name,
would have satisfactorily parodied at least an aria or two from the original.
23
Although it was an oratorio in English, Deborah would still have been considered
“foreign” and therefore ripe for parody—the piece was “high” entertainment by a
non-native composer, and the singers were mainly foreign as well.
Fielding’s ballad operas explore issues of English patriotism by poking fun at
the musical conventions of Italian opera seria, including the use of “simile” arias
and the heroic high-style poetry. He also sketched uproarious caricatures of the most
popular Italian singers, particularly the castrati, as well as the nobility who chose to
support Italian instead of English opera. Fielding attacked other foreign intrusions
into high society, including French dancers and dancing-masters.
21
Much of the content of the sections below was previously explored in my paper, “‘The Folly,
Injustice, and Barbarity of the Town:’ The Satire of Henry Fielding and Ballad Opera on the London
Stage,” at the meeting of the American Musicological Society, Pacific Southwest Chapter, February
28, 2004.
22
Brown, “Les Rêveries renouvelées des Grecs,” 307.
23
See Roberts, “Deborah,” 576-88.
182
The first Italian-style opera produced in London, Arsinoe, was staged in
1705. At first, operas such as Arsinoe were sung in English or a mixture of English
and Italian. However, with the production of Mancini’s Idaspe in 1710, in which
only Italian was used, a new trend began that soon became the standard for the
future.
24
The Italian style and forms had long been models for opera throughout
Europe. Aspiring English opera composers and writers, however, felt that the Italian
plots were too serious and unrealistic, especially the stock situations and heroic and
mythological characters. In addition, the dramatic action was frequently punctuated
by very long recitatives, which the English audiences often found exceedingly
boring. The highlights of opera seria were the arias, the number and moods of
which were strictly regulated by a long-standing etiquette, and which had little
regard for the drama.
25
The merits of Italian opera were often the focus of discussion and debate
between English intellectuals and writers of the day. John Gay wrote to Jonathan
Swift in February 1723:
As for the reigning Amusement of the town, tis entirely Musick…Theres nobody allow’d to
say I sing but an Eunuch or an Italian Woman. Every body is grown now as great a judge of
Musick as they were in your time of Poetry, and folks that could not distinguish one tune
from another now daily dispute about the different Styles of Hendel, Bononcini, and Attilio.
People have now forgot Homer, and Virgil & Caesar, or at least they have lost their ranks,
for in London and Westminster in all polite conversation’s Senesino is daily voted to be the
greatest man that ever liv’d.
Fiske writes that Italian opera was popular chiefly among the nobility and
intellectuals; that the English playhouses were the preference of the middle and
lower class theatergoers because they could understand the words. Fiske also
24
Peter Elfred Lewis, Fielding’s Burlesque Drama: Its Place in the Tradiation (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh Univ. Press for Univ. of Durham, 1987), 32-33.
25
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 63.
183
mentions that “snob appeal” was the primary reason for the nobility’s high regard for
Italian opera. There was understandably much disgust at this pretension. Fielding,
especially, often condemned those nobles who attended Italian operas solely because
it was the fashion. In April 1731 he wrote in an epilogue to Lewis Theobald’s
Orestes, urging the ladies of the town “to show for once that they were capable of
tasting finer things:”
26
Once in an Age, at least, your Smiles dispense
To English Sounds, and Tragedy that’s Sense.
These are Variety to you, who come
From the Italian Opera, and Tom Thumb.
In this verse, Fielding is certainly linking Italian opera with the lowest of all
entertainments—the puppet shows enjoyed by the working classes.
Fiske has another explanation for the popularity of Italian opera among the
English nobles: the allure of the castrati, and explains since they were foreign, they
were widely believed to be by their very nature better at music than Britons.
27
This
goes right to the heart of Fielding’s primary motivation for his attacks on Italian
opera: patriotism. Suzanne Aspden explains that ballad opera was conceived within
the context of a new emerging British identity and nationalism, and suggests its
evolution and popularity of was “generated by a broad-based ideology of
nationhood.”
28
Ballad opera established the beginning of a theatrical and operatic
form with which the country could finally identify—and this mix of traditional
balladry, popular music, and English theatrical customs struck a deep chord with
audiences. In a way, setting up ballad opera as the antithesis of the pretensions of
26
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 90.
27
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 66.
28
Suzanne Aspden, “Ballads and Britons: Imagined Community and the Continuity of ‘English’
Opera,” JAMS 122/1 (June 1997), 24.
184
Italian opera, also made it the perfect vehicle for satirizing other types of posturing in
government and society. With this in mind, it is little wonder that the satirical focus
of those supporters of a native, English opera was their rivals upon the English
stage—the Italians.
Just how frequently did the writers of ballad opera lampoon Italian opera? As
an example, on the same day that Fielding’s most successful ballad opera The
Author’s Farce premiered, so did Gabriel Odingsells’s Bays’s Opera (at Drury
Lane), and three days later James Ralph’s The Fashionable Lady, or Harlequin’s
Opera opened at Goodman’s Fields. All three of these pieces satirized, among
numerous other issues, Italian opera.
29
And as we shall soon see, the easiest targets
of the ballad opera satirists were those most prominent Italian figures, the castrati.
Through the greater part of the eighteenth century, the Italian castrati reigned
supreme upon the opera stages of London. They were the highest paid singers in all
of Europe; few females and no other men could match their salaries.
30
However, as
adored as the castrati were, they were frequently ridiculed in works upon the British
stage, and particularly in ballad operas. Mid-eighteenth century satirists found the
castrati’s gender ambiguous; their high singing voices, especially, were deemed
effeminate. Additionally, castrati were seen as ladies’ men and a threat to
“masculine” British men, as numerous women were enamored of their charms.
Lastly, the British considered ridicule of castrati, those very conspicuous symbols of
Italy, a patriotic act.
29
Hume, Henry Fielding, 67.
30
Angus Heriot, The Castrati in Opera (New York: Da Capo Press, 1974), 14, 17-18.
185
The Author’s Farce was Fielding’s first huge theatrical success, partly due to
the large cast of silly characters and the send ups of a number of London personages
and entertainments, among which the character of Signior Opera can be identified as
the castrato Senesino. The character of Signior Opera was played by Stoppelaer, and
the most popular air in the ballad opera was his Air XVIII, “Barbarous cruel man,”
for which no tune is specified and no music ever recovered. The air comes after Don
Tragedio is about to kill Signior Opera, while love interest Mrs. Novel pleads for his
life. Tragedio agrees to hear the castrato sing one song, and Opera launches into his
air, using all of his tricks, showing off his fine voice, and trying to stimulate some
pity in Tragedio. Indeed, this air seems to provide many opportunities for parodying
a castrato, a job that a noteworthy tenor like Stoppelaer could have performed quite
well. Although the music is missing, the melismas were indicated by dashes in the
printed ballad opera. Note where Fielding places these melismas (even more
ridiculous-sounding placed on a “bad” vowel) and the references to the highwayman
Macheath and Polly Peachum of The Beggar’s Opera:
Op. Barbarous cruel Man,
I’ll Sing thus while I’m dying, I’m dying like a Swan,
I’m dying like a Swan,
A Swan,
A Swan,
With my Face all pale and wan.
More fierce art thou than Pyrates,
Than Pyrates,
Whom the Syrens Musick charms,
Alarms,
Disarms;
More fierce than Men on the high Roads,
On the high - - - - - Roads,
On the high - - - - - Roads.
More fierce than Men on the high Roads,
Whom Polly Peachum warms.
The Devil
Was made civil
By Orpheus tuneful Charms;
186
And ca - - - - -
- - - - - - - n,
He gentler prove than Man?
Humorously, Signior Opera is sure that he is “more fierce” than the rough characters
of the ballad operas. This is a particularly good parody of the “simile” aria, since a
swan was thought to have sung before dying, and Signior Opera is quite sure that he
is about to die by Don Tragedio’s hand. I will return to Fielding’s recurring practice
of using “simile” arias to parody Italian opera arias in a moment.
One reason the castrati were often mocked was their ambiguous gender.
Fielding satirizes this aspect, among others, in his ballad opera Eurydice. Humor
about the castrati’s seemingly indeterminate gender is found in the scene where
Orpheus is convincing Charon, the ferryman of Hades, to help him cross the River
Styx to reach his beloved Eurydice. A discussion ensues:
CHARON. I wish you would be so good…Master, to give us one of your Italian Catches.
ORPH. Why, dost thou love Musick then, Friend Charon?
CHARON. …Master, I do. It went to my heart t’other day, that I did not dare ferry over
Signior Quaverino…Judge Rhadamanthus said it was against the Law: for no body was to
come into this Country but Men and Women; and that the Signior was neither the one nor the
other.
The castrati were also seen as rampant ladies’ men who cuckold British men. In
1738, Thomas Gilbert wrote: “without the benefit of propagation,/ Gay Farinelli
cuckolds half the nation.”
31
That a castrato, Signior Opera, in The Author’s Farce
can so captivate women (both the silly Goddess of Nonsense and Mrs. Novel
proclaim their love for him) is demonstrated throughout the ballad opera. Of course,
that the Goddess of Nonsense, possibly the daftest creature in the play, is so
enamored of Signior Opera is a comment on all of the silly ladies who swooned
31
Thomas Gilbert, “The World Unmask’d,” in Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for
Charles Bathurst, 1747), 126.
187
whenever a castrato took the stage in London. In Eurydice, Capt. Weazel and Mr.
Spindle talk with the title character about the magic of her husband’s voice:
Eur. Indeed, Sir, you are mistaken. I do not think the Merit of a Man, like that of a
Nightengale, lies in his Throat. It is true, he has a fine Pipe, and if you will carry your Friend
to Court this Morning, he may hear him; but though it possible my Heart may have its weak
Sides, I solemnly protest no one will ever reach it through my Ears.
Mr. Spin. That’s strange: for it is the only Way to all the Ladies Hearts in the other World.
Fielding also puts plenty of sexual virility in the airs that Opera sings to his love
interest, Mrs. Novel, telling her “Oh, how I will kiss thee,/ How I’ll embliss thee,/
When thou art a-bed with me.”
32
Fielding, along with other satirists, primarily ridicules the Italian castrati in
the struggle for British national identity and independence from its reliance on Italian
entertainments. He often uses derogatory adjectives to describe the singers and make
comments about the effeminizing effects of their music. In his play, The Historical
Register of the Year 1736 (which was premiered together with Eurydice), two
gentlemen (Sourwit and Medley) have just observed a frankly sexual discussion
among several ladies about Farinelli. Medley, in disgust, pronounces “Faith, sir, let
me tell you, I take it to be ominous, for if we go on to improve in luxury, effeminacy,
and debauchery, as we have done lately, the next age, for ought I know, may be more
like the children of squeaking Italians than hardy Britons.” Here Fielding reiterates
the idea that the castrati (the “squeaking Italians”) stand for “luxury, effeminacy, and
debauchery”—everything that is opposite to the proper, masculine “hardy Britons.”
The use of castrato characters was not the only customary feature of Italian
operas that was satirized by Fielding. “Simile” or “metaphor” arias, where the singer
32
This is Air XIX (“Under the Greenwood Tree”).
188
refers to the natural world to describe his or her frame of mind or situation, were
very popular during this period, and were therefore often parodied in ballad operas.
33
Gay used these parodied arias to great effect throughout his The Beggar’s Opera; in
the Introduction the Beggar announces to the audience: “I have introduced the
Similes that are in all your celebrated Operas; The Swallow, the Moth, the Bee, the
Ship, the Flower, &c.” We have already seen Fielding use the “dying Swan” as a
simile, and I have found that this is a technique that he utilized frequently. For
instance, the love scene between Robin and Sweetissa in The Welsh Opera jokes
about the use of similes in operas as follows:
Sweetissa: Oh! Robin, it is impossible to tell you how much I love as it is—to tell—how
much Water there is in the Sea.
Robin: My dear Sweetissa, had I the Learning of the Author of that Opera Book in the
Parlour Window, I could not make a Simile to my Love.
Some of the most entertaining examples of parodied simile arias are found in
Fielding’s successful The Grub-Street Opera. Near the beginning of the opera, the
young Master Owen is discussing the sport of love with the womanizing chaplain,
Puzzletext. Puzzletext sings a tune that viciously mocks the innocent similes found
in Italian opera:
AIR. 6. (One Evening having lost my way.)
I’ve heard a Non-con Parson preach
‘Gainst Whoring with a just disdain,
Whilst he himself to be naught did teach,
Of Females as large a Train
As Stars in Sky, or Lamps in Street,
Or Beauties in the Mall we meet.
Or as—or as—or as
Or as Whores in Drury-Lane.
33
Jack Westrup, “Simile [Metaphor] Aria,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxvii, 330-31.
189
Owen complains: “Thy similes are all Froth, like bottled Ale—and it is as difficult to
get thee out of a Simile as out of an Ale-house.” The two characters then break into
another air together, mocking the pastoral and hunting similes in Italian opera arias:
AIR 7. (Dutch Skipper.)
Puz. The gaudy Sun adorning
With brightest Rays the Morning,
the Morning,
Shines o’er the Eastern Hill,
And I will go a Sporting,
Ow. And I will go a courting,
A Courting,
There lies my Pleasure still
Puz. In Gaffer Woodford’s ground,
A brushing Hare is found;
A Course which Kings themselves might see.
Ow. And in another Place,
There lies a brushing Lass,
Which will give ten times more Sport than she.
(Second Part.)
Puz. What Pleasure to see, while the Greyhounds are running,
Poor Pussy’s cunning, and shifting, and shunning;
To see with what Art she plays still her Part,
And leaves her Pursuers afar.
First this Way, then that,
First a Stretch, and then Squat,
‘Till quite out of Breath,
She yields to her Death,
What Joys with the Sportsman’s compare?
Fielding deftly portrays a woman as a hare and the men as hunters. Such bawdy
parodies of metaphor arias are a distinctive feature of ballad operas in general and
can be found in every one of Fielding’s extant ballad operas.
Another way in which Fielding parodies opera seria arias is by mocking their
conventions. In these scenes, Fielding often makes use of contemporary burlesque
poetry (a “low” style) in combination with elevated subject matter. At other times,
Fielding deftly utilizes mock-heroic poetry or an exaggerated high style to make fun
190
of subject matter which is decidedly parodic or low.
34
Eurydice, one of Fielding’s
last ballad operas, was a farce which lampooned the popular mythological story of
Orpheus’s journey into Hades to retrieve his wife; the title also alludes to an Italian
opera by Rolli, Orfeo, which was highly successful during the previous season. In
Eurydice, Fielding parodies the parting scenes between lovers in Italian operas in the
scene where Pluto will not allow Eurydice to leave Hades with Orpheus. The
exchange (in recitative) is even more satirical because the audience already has
learned that in Fielding’s opera the last thing that Eurydice wants to do is to leave the
underworld to return to the hell of married life with Orpheus:
Orpheus, (Recitativo)
Oh, my Eurydice! the cruel King,
Still obdurate, refuses to my Arms
The Repossession of my Love.
Eurydice, (Recitativo)
Unkind Fate,
So soon to put an end to all our Joys!
And barbarous law of Erebus
That will not reinstate us in our Bliss.
Orph. And must you stay?
Eur. And must you go?
Orph. Oh no!
Eur. ‘Tis so.
Orph. Oh no!
Eur. ‘Tis so.
Fielding also frequently uses recitative to parody Italian opera conventions.
35
The
role of Orpheus is a fine example, as he is intended as a mock-heroic character.
Occasionally Eurydice breaks into recitative when speaking to him; perhaps on some
34
Lewis, 6.
35
See Fielding’s discussion of recitative in his Miscellanies, ii, 137, 144, 148, xxxviii-xxxix.
191
level this serves to ridicule him. The Critick and Author have a discussion during one
of Orpheus and Eurydice’s many fights:
Crit. But pray, Sir, why does Orpheus talk sometimes in Recitativo, and sometimes out of it?
Auth. Why, Sir, I do not care to tire the Audience with too much Recitativo; I observe they
go to sleep at it at an Opera. Besides, you may give yourself a good reason, why he leaves
off Singing: for I think his Wife may very well be supposed to put him out of tune.—Are you
satisfied?
After Eurydice deliberately tricks Orpheus into looking back, we learn that he has
abandoned singing for recitative because he is not in his right mind. Several specific
digs at Italian opera follow:
Crit. I see Mr. Orpheus is come to his Recitativo again.
Auth. Yes, Sir, just as he lost his Senses. I wish our Opera Composers could give a good a
Reason for their Recitativo.
Crit. What would you have them bring nothing but mad People together into their Operas?
Auth. Sir, if they did not bring abundance of mad People together into their Operas, they
would not be able to subsist long at the extravagant Prices they do, nor their Singers to keep
useless Mistresses; which, by the by, is a very ingenious Burlesque on our Taste.
Crit. Ay, how so?
Auth. Why, Sir, for an English People to support an extravagant Italian opera, of which they
understand nor relish neither the Sense nor the Sound, is heartily as ridiculous and much of a
piece with a Eunuch’s keeping a Mistress: nor do I know whether his Ability is more
despised by his Mistress or our Taste by our Singers.
The use of recitative also seems to be indicated at the Court of Nonsense (surely the
only place for it outside of Italian opera!) in Act III of The Author’s Farce:
Nons. Let all my Votaries prepare
To celebrate this joyful Day.
Mast. Gentlemen, observe what a Lover of Recitativo, Nonsense is.
In his later ballad operas and writings, Fielding directed the majority of his
ire at those nobles who supported Italian opera. By 1742, Farinelli had left London,
and Amorevoli had taken his place. Fielding parodied the new favorite in his last
ballad opera, Miss Lucy in Town, with the tenor John Beard in the role of Signior
Cantileno (another castrati character), and used Kitty Clive to play Lucy. The
192
character of the skirt-chasing Lord Bawble proves in the end to be Lord Middlesex,
the director of a later incarnation of the Opera of the Nobility.
When Middlesex and the other directors of the second Opera of the Nobility
objected to the Lord Chamberlain and tried to sue the subscribers to recover their
losses, Fielding—now a lawyer—was retained in their defense.
36
With this new
level of involvement, his journalistic attacks on the Middlesex company increased.
In 1745, Fielding became the author of The True Patriot, and used the journal to
continue to denounce Italian opera as “Catholic, foreign, effeminate..[and]
unpatriotic.”
37
Despite his unrelenting attacks on Italian opera, there is much evidence to
show that Fielding was a great admirer of Handel. After the Opera of the Nobility
set itself up against Handel’s oratorios, Fielding defended him with both of his
music-loving heroines in his famous novels Tom Jones (1749, IV, v) and Amelia
(1751, IV, ix). For example, in Tom Jones, Fielding describes Sophia as “a perfect
Mistress of Music” who “would never willingly have played any but Handel’s.”
38
Fielding wrote in his journal The Champion in 1740 of “the enchanting harmony” of
Handel’s music, and called him “that great man.” In The True Patriot (5 November
1745), Fielding compliments him by saying that Handel was to music as Shakespeare
was to drama.
It seems then that Fielding was in opposition only to particular features of
Italian opera, such as the stock situations, silly conventions, arias, and the use of
36
Battestin, Henry Fielding Companion, 243.
37
Battestin, Henry Fielding Companion, 243.
38
Battestin, Henry Fielding Companion, 71.
193
castrati. Most significantly, his reasons for these biting satires were primarily
patriotic ones. However, Fielding was no fool when it came to good music, and
remained an avid supporter of Handel’s works (especially the English oratorios) even
as he parodied particular aspects of them. We have already seen that he appropriated
Handel’s music in his ballad operas more than any other composer. The members of
the Opera of the Nobility and the Middlesex company, whom Fielding saw as
unpatriotic, greedy supporters of Italian opera for fashionable and financial reasons
were particularly subject to his satirical talents.
Public opinion, though usually divided about the merits of Italian opera,
seemed to unite frequently against their favorite historical rivals, the French.
Although English audiences seemed to enjoy French dancing and pantomimes, as the
imported dancers were an essential part of every playhouse and were often
announced by name in advertisements, the theater-going public did unite behind their
countrymen when there was a choice between the two. Benjamin Victor relates this
anecdote from a riot which occurred at Drury Lane after the Licensing Act in 1736
(note the song they sing to rouse patriotic fervor):
By this unpopular Act of Parliament the new Theatre in Goodman’s-Field was effectually
destroyed; the little Theatre in the Haymarket was also shut up. But be it observed, that by
shutting up these two Theatres, many of our itinerant Heroes were deprived of Bread. And—
will it be believed…that, during the Murmuring at these recited Acts of Power, a Company
of FRENCH STROLLERS should be licensed to act, in that Theatre, in the Haymarket. The
French advertisement appeared with these Words at the Top, By AUTHORITY! But they
soon found, by the Public Clamours, that something more than the Sound of Authority would
be necessary to support them…People went early to the Theatre, as a crowded House was
certain. I was there in the Centre of the Pit…The Leaders, that had the Conduct of the
Opposition, were known to be there; one of whom called aloud for the Song in Praise of
English Roast Beef, which was accordingly sung in the Gallery by a Person prepared for that
Purpose; and the whole House besides joining in the Chorus, saluted the Close with three
Huzzas!...[Soldiers appeared, the Riot Act was read, and the dancers began to dance]…but
even that was prepared for, and they were directly saluted with a Bushel or two of Peas,
which made their Capering very unsafe…[Before long the crowd convinced the Justices to
194
take the French dancers off the stage.]…I will venture to say, that at no Battle gained over
the French by the immortal MARLBOROUGH, the Shouting could be more joyous then on
this Occasion.
39
Fielding dealt with the incursion of French dancers by lampooning them in
his ballad operas. The Author’s Farce contains a laughable character called
Monsieur Pantomime—obviously a thinly veiled John Rich, who often hired French
dancers at his theater to dance in his popular pantomimes. Monsieur Pantomime has
no lines in The Author’s Farce, but he does have several silly gestures and actions
indicated in the stage directions, such as (“runs several times around the stage”),
which certainly help to portray him as an idiot. The word “Monsieur” added to his
name is certainly a slur on his French connections at the rival theater.
As with the Italian castrati, it seems that dancing masters (who taught, of
course French dances) were the easiest targets for the ballad opera satirists. Fielding
parodies to great effect a dancing master in Old Man Taught Wisdom. The character
was played by an actor of French ancestry, Mr. Laguerre. Coupee, cousin to Lucy
and a Dancing-Master, arrives to propose to Lucy at her father’s suggestion.
Throwing himself at her feet, Coupee attempts to seduce her with pretty poetic
speeches:
Coup. Might I hope to obtain the least spark of your Love, the least spark, Madam, wou’d
blow up a Flame in me, that nothing ever cou’d quench. O hide those lovely Eyes, nor dart
their fiery Rays upon me, lest I am consumed…
Lucy likes these words of his, but affects her own airs in order to pretend to refuse
him (“It is a pure thing to give ones self Airs.”) Coupee responds to her replies by
39
Victor, I, 46-52.
195
threatening to kill himself—unfortunately, he has no sword in his pocket, only a
“kit” violin to practice dances on. He tells Lucy that he shall hang himself on the
apple tree in the orchard, and so she consents to marry him. As he kisses her
goodbye and leaves (“One kiss before I go, my dearest Angel, and now one, two,
three and away”), Lucy ruminates:
Lucy. Oh dear, sweet Man! as handsome as an Angel, and as fine as a Lord…I see now why
my Father wou’d never let me learn to Dance. For, by Goles! if all Dancing-Masters be such
fine Men as this, I wonder ev’ry Woman does not Dance away with one.
Later, Bookish, the student, tells Lucy that Coupee is a coxcomb and a beau. She
replies that a beau is “the very thing I always wish’d and long’d for,” and sings Air
XII to “Still he’s the Man”:
I never yet long’d for thing in my Life,
Not even a Show,
So much as these two Years I’ve long’d to be Wife
To a dainty fine Beau.
The Ladies of London are sure in the right,
Who are all Day a dressing to get one at Nights;
What Woman can ever say, No,
To a dainty fine Beau?
The lure of Italy and France in the guise of “effeminate” dancing masters and
singers created a contest for supremacy with the authors of ballad opera and other
English musical and theatrical works. Encountering and challenging these foreign
invaders stirred deep feelings of national identity with English audiences, and no
doubt contributed to the success of many of these works. Mita Choudhury asserts
that the “nationalist debates that these encounters triggered in Britain were based
196
upon the fundamental premise that foreign cultural incursions would compromise if
not destroy indigenous configurations of value and progress.”
40
Indeed, Fielding’s ballad operas are full of sentiments of “good humor,”
ideals of masculinity, and other important “English” values. The folk element of
many of the airs also brought a great deal of “Englishness” to the opera, and the
simple melodies made the airs perfect for everyday dialogue and speech patterns.
Traditional songs were especially good for this very reason, as the original lyrics
already were in the vernacular.
41
Popular song was ideal for expressing the views of
the contemporary English ballad opera characters, and this appealed to the public
who believed that their stages had been taken over by foreigners. Ballad opera in
general pursued its aims of national identity with vigor, and Fielding was certainly
one of its most skilled proponents.
Musical-Textual Analysis and Reception
Reception theory and history must be taken into consideration in any analysis
of music; in the case of ballad opera, there is the reception of the literary, printed
work, as well as the reception of the performed art, the opera. The importance of the
“implied reader” or even the “implied audience” is paramount in establishing the
meaning of the ballad tune, because of a “co-creative process of reception” between
40
Mita Choudhury, Interculturalism and Resistance in the London Theatre, 1660-1800: Identity,
Performance, Empire (Bucknell and London: Bucknell Univ. Press and Assoc. Univ. Presses, 2000),
35.
41
See Timothy Edward Scheurer, Aspects of the Eighteenth-Century British Ballad Opera: A Study in
Popular Theatre, Ph.D. diss., (Bowling Green State University, 1976), 176.
197
the author and the listener.
42
David Atkinson discusses the significance of something
called “traditional referentiality” in order to describe the broad contexts of each
performance or text:
Traditional referentiality describes a condition of texts of oral and oral-derived poetry
whereby, by virtue of their particular way of telling, they embody reference to all pre-
existent moments within the same body of tradition. The most characteristic features of any
such text are exactly those that most often recur in other texts belonging to the same body of
tradition.
43
For each ballad tune, then, each which references sometimes centuries of myriad
meanings and texts, there is a considerable range of extra-textual and extra-
performance data—unified by the context of tradition—upon which the audience or
listener can draw during its hearing.
44
The tunes Fielding chose serve as proof of the existence of these extra-textual
meanings. One example of Fielding’s application of “traditional referentiality” is
found in the old Scottish ballad tune, “Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,” which he used in
no fewer than four of his operas. The tune was also used in Gay’s The Beggar’s
Opera, which adds to the tradition of using the air in a dramatic context. The original
words to the first verse of the air, first published with a tune in Orpheus Caledonius
in 1725 (but known since at least from the late seventeenth century), are as follows:
O, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray
They were twa bonny lasses,
They bigg'd a bower on yon Burn-brae
And theek'd it o'er wi' rashes.
Fair Bessy Bell I lov'd yestreen
And thought I ne'er cou'd alter
But Mary Gray's twa pawky een
They gar my fancy falter.
42
David Atkinson, The English Traditional Ballad: Theory, Method, and Practice (Aldershot,
England: Ashgate, 2002), 9.
43
Atkinson, 10.
44
Atkinson, 11.
198
The ballad tells the story of two Scottish girls, who in order to escape the plague of
1645, set up a house outside of town. In the end of the tale they die when the
dedicated visits of their lover infects them with the plague.
Gay used “Bessy Bell and Mary Gray” in The Beggar’s Opera at the end of a
fight between the main female characters Lucy and Polly, who are vying for the
affections of roguish Macheath. They both alternate singing the tune, lamenting the
fickle nature of men:
POLLY. Sure, Madam, you cannot think me so happy as to be the object of your Jealousy.---
-A Man is always afraid of a Woman who loves him too well----so that I must expect to be
neglected and avoided.
LUCY. Then our Cases, my dear Polly, are exactly alike. Both of us indeed have been too
fond.
Air XLIX. O Bessy Bell.
POLLY.
A Curse attend that Woman's Love,
Who always would be pleasing.
LUCY.
The Pertness of the billing Dove,
Like Tickling, is but teasing.
POLLY.
What then in Love can Woman do;
LUCY.
If we grow fond they shun us.
POLLY.
And when we fly them, they pursue:
LUCY.
But leave us when they've won us.
In his version, Gay uses the “billing Dove” as a metaphor for the deceitful partner of
both of the women, Macheath. In one of Fielding’s settings of the tune (in The
Grub-Street Opera), he also references a bird, the jackdaw, which is known for its
thievery:
AIR 8: (Bessy Bell)
In long Pig-tails, and shining Lace,
Our Beaux set out a Wooing;
Ye Widows never shew them grace,
199
But laugh at their pursuing.
But let the Daw that shines so bright,
Of borrow’d Plumes bereft be;
Alas! poor Dame—how naked’s the sight,
You’ll find there’s nothing left ye.
In another Fielding ballad opera, An Old Man Taught Wisdom, the main character
Lucy sings this same tune. This time, however, the deceitful intentions are not those
of a man, but her own—she is intending to deceive her future husband by bedding
Mr. Thomas, whom she loves:
AIR VIII. Bessy Bell.
Lo, what swinging Lyes some People will tell!
I thought when another I’d wedded,
I must have bid poor Mr. Thomas farewell,
And none but my Husband have bedded.
But I find I’m deceiv’d, for as Michaelmas Day
Is still the fore-runner of Lammas,
So Wedding another is but the right way
To come at my dear Mr. Thomas.
Another example of a tune which Fielding used to reference both traditional
and contemporary sources for added meaning is the vulgar “Black Joke,” found in
Don Quixote, The Lottery, The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera, and The
Author’s Farce. “Black Joke” was well-known as a popular dance; Fiske calls it
“that lowbrow little tune that has been used as an interval tune for years.”
45
Instructions for how to dance the “Black Joke” appear in Wright’s Compleat
Collection of Celebrated Country Dances, vol. I (London, [ca. 1742]) and
Thompson’s Compleat Collection of 200 Favorite Country Dances, vol. II (London,
45
Fiske, English Theatre Music, 12. “Interval tune” refers to its wide use as a dance between the acts
of plays. For more on the disreputable nature of the tune, see Roberts, “An Unrecorded Meaning of
‘Joke’ (Or ‘Joak’) in England,” American Speech 37/2 (May 1962), 137-40.
200
[1765]).
46
From an early printed single sheet folio, the first verse reads as follows
(see Ex. 5.5):
No mortal sure can blame ye Man,
who prompted by Nature will act as he can,
with a Coal black joke, & belly so white:
For he ye Platonist must gain say,
that will not Human Nature obey,
in working a joke, as will lather like soap,
& ye hair of her joke, will draw more than a rope,
with a black joke, & belly so white.
Charles Coffey’s more decorous version is found in his 1729 ballad opera, The
Beggar’s Wedding:
Of all the Girls in our Town,
Or black, or yellow, or fair, or brown,
With their soft Eyes and Faces so bright;
Give me a Girl that’s blithe and gay,
As warm as June and as sweet as May,
With her Heart free and faithful as Light:
What lovely Couple then cou’d be
So happy and so blest as we,
On whom eternal Joys wou’d smile,
And all the Care of Life beguile,
Entranc’d in Bliss each rapt’rous Night.
Fielding utilized the “Black Joke” to set his words in several ballad operas, including
The Lottery (Air III), The Welsh Opera (Air VIII, in The Grub-Street Opera as Air
XV), and in Don Quixote (Air X). Fielding’s choice of text when using the tune in
The Author’s Farce (Air VII; it is Air VI in the 1750 edition) demonstrates his
knowledge of Coffey’s well-known lyrics:
Of all the Men in London Town,
Or Knaves or Fools, in Coat, or Gown
The Representative am I:
Go thro’ the World, and you will find,
In all the Classes of Human-kind,
Many a jolly Nobody.
For him, a Nobody, sure we may call,
Who during his Life does nothing at all,
46
Music in Colonial Massachusetts 1630-1820, I: Music in Public Places, A conference held by the
Colonial Society of Massachusetts, May 17-18, 1973 (Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts,
distr. Univ. Press of Virginia, 1980), 27.
201
But Eat, and Snore, and Drink, and Roar,
From Whore to the Tavern, from Tavern to Whore,
With a lac’d Coat, and that is all.
However, the version Fielding used in The Grub-Street Opera would have made
clear to the audience the underlying smuttiness in Robin and Sweetissa’s situation.
Frustrated with what he thinks is her sexual infidelity—but not able to refer to the
sexual act directly—Robin sings slyly to the audience, who would have understood
from the tune chosen exactly what “honest” Sweetissa had done:
The more we known of human kind,
The more deceits and tricks you’ll find
In every land as well as Wales;
For would you see no roguery thrive,
Upon the mountains you must live,
For rogues abound in all the vales.
The master and the man will nick,
The mistress and the maid will trick;
For rich and poor
Are rogue and whore,
There’s not one honest man in a score,
Nor woman true in twenty-four.
No opera was immune to the satirical burlesquing of the ballad opera
writers—even if it was Gay’s astoundingly successful The Beggar’s Opera.
Fielding’s use of the air “Over the Hills and Far Away” effectively parodies a similar
scene in the venerable first ballad opera. The tune, also known as “Jockey’s
Lamentation,” is first found in D’Urfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy and in the
second edition of The Dancing Master (1714). Fielding utilizes this popular air in
The Author’s Farce during the love scene between Mrs. Novel and Signior Opera.
This is an obvious bawdy parody of Polly and Macheath’s duet in The Beggar’s
Opera:
47
47
Lockwood, Plays, 274, 1n.
202
AIR XVI. Over the Hills and far away.
Were I laid on Greenland's Coast,
And in my Arms embrac'd my Lass;
Warm amidst eternal Frost,
Too soon the Half Year's Night would pass.
POLLY. Were I sold on Indian Soil,
Soon as the burning Day was clos'd,
I could mock the sultry Toil
When on my Charmer's Breast repos'd.
MACHEATH. And I would love you all the Day,
POLLY. Every Night would kiss and play,
MACHEATH. If with me you'd fondly stray
POLLY. Over the Hills and far away.
In The Author’s Farce, Fielding lampoons Polly and Macheath’s mock-romantic air
by having Opera and Novel refer to scrubado (“the itch”), which adds a bawdy twist
to the song:
48
AIR XII. Over the Hills and far away.
Oper. Were I laid on Scotland’s Coast,
And in my Arms embrac’d my Dear,
Let Scrubado do its most,
I would know no Grief or Fear.
Novel. Were we cast on Ireland’s Soil,
There confin’d in Bogs to dwell,
For thee Potatoes I would boil,
No Irish Spouse shou’d feast so well.
Oper. And tho’ we scrubb’d it all the Day,
Novel. We’d kiss and hug the Night away;
Oper. Scotch and Irish both shou’d say,
Both. Oh, how blest! how blest are they!
Nearly every love song introduced in Fielding’s ballad operas mock the love
relationship and pastoral conventions found in traditional plays and Italian operas.
One of the silliest parodies of a love scene appears in the puppet show of The
Author’s Farce, where the ghost of Signior Opera has easily seduced the Goddess of
Nonsense with his fine castrato voice. Unfortunately, we discover that the ghost of
48
See Lockwood, Plays, 274.
203
Mrs. Novel loves him also, as she was his wife when they were alive. She sings, to
the tune of “Whilst I gaze on Cloe trembling”:
May all maids from me take warning
How a lover’s arms they fly;
Lest the first kind offer scorning,
They, without a second, die.
How unhappy is my passion!
How tormenting is my pain!
If you thwart my inclination,
Let me die for love again.
From these words, we find out that Mrs. Novel died for love of her husband (“Yes,
he knows I died for love, for I died in childbed.”). Orator is surprised to hear this:
Orator. Why, madam, did you not tell me all the road hither that you was a virgin?
Signior Opera tells the Goddess of Nonsense (to the tune of “Highland Laddy”), that
he is no longer married, singing:
I was told in my life
Death forever
Did dissever
Men from every mortal strife,
And that greatest plague, a wife,
She is having none of it. Opera turns in defeat to Novel:
Opera. Well, since I can’t have a goddess, I’ll e’en prove a man of honor. I was always in
love with thee, my angel.
Novel. Now I am happy, verily.
Opera. My long-lost dear!
Novel. My new-found bud!
Air XI, Dusty Miller
[Opera.] Will my charming creature
Once again receive me?
…
Sure no human hearts
Were ever so delighted.
Death, which others parts,
Hath our souls united.
204
Certainly, the Signior has no real love for his wife, whom he would easily exchange
for the Goddess of Nonsense, but the audience would get the joke—the contrived
romantic plots of their more “serious” entertainments are similarly silly.
Pantomimes were also not safe from Fielding’s satiric pen. As we have
already seen, competitor John Rich’s The Fall of Phaeton (with music by Arne)
seems to be the main subject of Fielding’s parody Tumble-Down Dick. The ballad
opera mocks the seriousness of the classical tragedy with bawdy humor. For
example, in Fielding’s version, Clymene’s son Phaeton is having a little trouble
believing that he is the son of a god. In the first air of the opera, set to “Gilliflower
gentle Rosemary,” he sings derisively:
Phae. O Mother, this Story will never go down,
‘Twill ne’er be believ’d by the Boys of the Town;
‘Tis true what you swore,
I’m the Son of a Whore,
They all believe That, but believe nothing more.
Fielding uses music to parody Rich’s pantomime in less vulgar ways as well. In The
Fall of Phaeton, Clymene finds her son dead from his unfortunate trip across the sky
and sings:
Thus when the Nightingale has found
Her Young, by some Disaster slain,
O’er the sad Spoil she hovers round,
And views it o’er, and o’er again:
Then to some Grove retires, alone,
Filling with plaintive Strains the Skies,
There warbles out her tuneful Moan,
‘Till o’er th’ unfinished Note she dies.
Fielding uses Arne’s air as a basis for his own version (Air IV) in Tumble-Down
Dick, when Clymene finds her son has fallen from the sky. (Of course, Fielding’s
Clymene is more worried about being past the child-bearing age!):
205
Thus when the wretched Owl has found
Her young Owls dead as Mice,
O’er the sad Spoil she hovers round,
And views ‘em once or twice:
Then to some hollow Tree she flies,
To hollow, hoot, and howl.
Till ev’ry Boy that passes, cries,
The Devil’s in the Owl!
Fielding’s proficiency at satire is clear in this air, which the audience would have
immediately recognized as mocking the original. Charlotte Charke, who played
Clymene, must have mimicked Kitty Clive’s performance in Rich’s production when
singing this air.
The many more instances of musical parody and irony are too numerous to
mention in a study of this size, but suffice it to say that Fielding turned his satiric eye
to nearly every one of his tunes. Whenever the music is not moving the action
forward, it explicates the opinions and emotions of the characters—and Fielding
most often uses these instances to parody similar scenes or even the precise music of
other works. The Grub-Street Opera and The Lottery, attended to next as Case
Studies, contain some of Fielding’s most adept send-ups of many of these dramatic
and musical moments.
206
Ex. 5.1. M. Arne, with words by Fielding, first page, “While the sweet blushing
Spring,” The Fathers (1778)
207
Fig. 5.1. Watts, title page, iii, Musical Miscellany (1729-31)
208
Ex. 5.2. Handel, libretto (in Italian and English), “Sì, caro, sì,” Admetus (1727)
209
210
Table 5.1. Fielding’s Favorite Tunes
Tunes used twice: Tunes used three times or more:
Bush of Boon
Chloe is false, but she is still charming
Country Bumpkin
Dimmi caro [Dimmi cara]
Do not ask me, charming Phyllis
Dutch Skipper
Free-mason’s Tune
Geminiani’s Minuet
Hark, hark, the Cock crows
Have you heard of a frolicksome Ditty?
King’s Old Courtier
Lillibolero
Mother, quoth Hodge
London is a fine Town
Polworth on the Green
Si caro [Sì, caro, sì]
Son confuso [Son confusa pastorella]
South-Sea Ballad
Sylvia, my Dearest
There was a jovial Beggar
Under the Greenwood Tree
When Love is lodg’d within the Heart
When Modesty sues for a Favour/Oh
hasten my Lover, dear Cupid
Why will Florella
A Woman’s Ware, like China
Ye Madcaps of England
As Down in a Meadow
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray
Black Joke
Buff-Coat
Dame of Honour
Hunt the Squirrel
Lass of Patty’s Mill
Now ponder well, ye Parents dear
Pierrot’s Tune
Thomas, I cannot
Tweed Side
We’ve cheated the Parson
Ye Nymphs and Sylvan Gods
Fig. 5.2. Fielding, “When mighty Roast Beef,” The Grub-Street Opera (1731)
211
Fig. 5.3. T. A. Arne, with words by Fielding, “When mighty Roast Beef,” Tom Jones
(1769)
212
213
Ex. 5.3. Fielding, “The dusky Night rides down the sky,” Don Quixote in England
(1734)
214
Ex. 5.4. T. A. Arne, with words by Fielding, “The Dusky Night Rides Down the
Sky” song sheet, British Library [1778?]
215
Ex. 5.5 Traditional, “The Original Coal-black Joak,” song sheet, British Library
[1730?]
216
CASE STUDY:
THE WELSH OPERA AND THE GRUB-STREET OPERA
The Welsh Opera: or, the Grey Mare the better Horse premiered at the Little
Haymarket Theatre on 22 April 1731, as an afterpiece to The Tragedy of Tragedies.
1
Soon after the work’s first appearance Fielding began expanding the two-act ballad
opera; the new version (in three acts) was called The Grub-Street Opera. The piece
was never staged in this form, most likely for political reasons, but it was released to
the public in a series of unauthorized printed editions. In June, an unofficial version
of The Welsh Opera was published by E. Rayner; in August, Rayner published
another edition entitled The Genuine Grub-Street Opera.
2
A final version by
Andrew Millar (with the false imprint “James Roberts” and dated 1731) was
supplied by Fielding at the end of his life. Not one of the versions of this ballad
opera includes the music with the text.
We do not know exactly which version of The Welsh Opera was performed,
as the only surviving printing of the work was clearly not authorized by Fielding.
3
1
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 113. See The Daily Post, 6 April 1731.
2
It should be noted that the airs in The Genuine Grub-Street Opera are slightly different than those of
both The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera, and in fact seem to be a hybrid of both. Since The
Genuine Grub-Street Opera was apparently a prompter’s copy leaked to the publisher, it makes sense
that the opera was only partially expanded at the point of printing. The musical differences between
The Genuine Grub-Street Opera and The Grub-Street Opera are as follows: in The Genuine Grub-
Street Opera, Air IX is identified by an alternate title “Why shou’d not I Love my Love” instead of
“Mad Moll” (although the words are the same in both versions and thus the tune is also probably the
same). Airs XXI-XXIII, XL-XLII, and LVII are not in The Genuine Grub-Street Opera. Air XLVII
(“Ah Doctor”) is identified as ‘Twas Down in a Meadow,” and “Go, and like a slubb’ring Bess howl”
is found to be the last four lines of the preceding tune (set to “Sleepy Body”).
3
See Hume, Henry Fielding, 93-104, for an excellent discussion of the different pirated editions of
The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera, as well as the possible reasons for its apparent
suppression.
217
On 28 June, a notice complaining about Rayner’s illegal printing—possibly by
Fielding—appeared in the Daily Post:
Whereas one Rayner hath publish’d a strange Medley of Nonsense, under the Title of the
Welch Opera, said to be written by the Author of the Tragedy of Tragedies; and also hath
impudently affirm’d that this was the great Part of the Grub-Street Opera, which he attempts
to insinuate was stopt by Authority: This is to assure the Town, that what he hath publish’d is
a very incorrect and spurious Edition of the Welch Opera, a very small Part of which was
originally written by the said Author; and that it contains scarce any thing of the Grub-street
Opera, excepting the Names of some of the Characters and a few of the Songs: This latter
Piece hath in it above fifty entire new Songs; and it so far from having been stopt by
Authority (for which there could be no manner of Reason) that it is only postponed to a
proper Time, when it is not doubted but the Town will be convinced how little of that
Performance agrees with the intolerable and scandalous Nonsense of this notorious Paper
Pyrate.
It is clear that the central characters of Sir Owen (King George II), Lady
Apshinken (Queen Caroline), young Owen (Frederick, Prince of Wales), Robin the
Butler (Walpole) and William the Groom (leader of the Opposition, William
Pulteney), were intended to be thinly veiled political personages. Many scholars
believe that The Grub-Street Opera portrays Fielding’s fierce political allegiances,
but as Hume points out the piece’s satire more likely demonstrates only a lightweight
political cynicism of a general nature.
4
As for the writer in the Daily Post’s
insistence that the work was only “postponed” and not “stopt by Authority,” it is
quite possible that Fielding accepted money to suppress the work and keep it off the
stage.
5
4
Hume, Henry Fielding, 102. Jack Richard Brown, in his “Henry Fielding’s Grub-Street Opera,”
Modern Language Quarterly 16 (1955), 32-41, also said that Fielding’s satire in the opera was “aimed
at corrupt practices in general and…at those who take this whole matter of politics too seriously.” (41)
For a more radical point of view regarding Fielding’s political feelings, see McCrea, 67, and Harold
Gene Moss, “Satire and Travesty in Fielding’s The Grub-Street Opera,” Theatre Survey 15 (May
1974), 38-50.
5
On 16 August, the Daily Journal printed a notice about the reasons for withdrawing The Grub-Street
Opera: “…And as to its being suppressed, the said Company knows no more than that the Author
desired it might not be performed.” Corroborating the idea that Fielding might have been bribed is
Fielding’s own statement in his Preface to Of True Greatness: an Epistle to the Right Honorable
George Dodington, Esq. (London: Printed for C. Corbet, 1741):
218
The plots of The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera are quite similar;
they both take place in the household of the Welsh Ap-Shinken family, where young
Owen forges love letters in order to break apart the relationships of the pilfering
servants. He also spends his time romancing Molly, a tenant on the estate, and tries
his hand at seducing the various female servants. In the end, Owen’s tricks are
discovered, and he and Molly elope. The servants pair up, each couple announces
their intention to wed, and all ends happily.
The most significant change to the reworked Grub-Street Opera is Fielding’s
addition of thirty-six new tunes to the existing airs in The Welsh Opera—creating a
musically ambitious full-length ballad opera with sixty-five different numbers in
total (see Table 5.2).
6
This new emphasis on music in the revised work should not
be underestimated. Gagey has said that ballad opera writers “employed the songs as
décor and not as the main concern. The music was always secondary; too much of it
would obscure and retard the action of the play.”
7
This is patently not the case. It is
clear that The Grub-Street Opera was expanded musically because it would be more
appealing to Fielding’s audience.
The Grub-Street Opera’s “typical” three-act structure and large amount of
music are very similar in construction to The Beggar’s Opera; this first ballad opera
was also in three acts and had sixty-nine airs. I have stated earlier that Fielding only
wrote three full-length ballad operas. The Author’s Farce only has twenty-eight airs,
I have been obliged with Money to silence my Productions, professedly and by Way of
Bargain given me for that Purpose.
6
Two airs were cut from the thirty-one used in The Welsh Opera, and thirty-six airs were added to
The Grub-Street Opera; this totals sixty-five airs in the final version.
7
Gagey, 100.
219
and Don Quixote in England only fifteen; neither can compare musically or
structurally to Gay’s first ballad opera. The Grub-Street Opera, although not a work
full of “low life” themes, nevertheless compares to The Beggar’s Opera in its satire
of the government (particularly Walpole), Italian opera (its prolific use of similes and
contrived happy ending), womanizing men, and its plethora of both popular and
traditional ballads. After The Grub-Street Opera, the fashion for ballad operas with
large amounts of music seemed to end. In fact, after The Grub-Street Opera, only
three other operas were written that had over fifty tunes, and only one of these
(Gay’s Achilles, tarnished by history as a failure) was printed by Watts.
8
Musically,
The Grub-Street Opera has a great deal in common with Gay’s Beggar’s Opera.
Fielding used nine airs from this first ballad opera, and no doubt took Gay’s affinity
for the music of Handel to a new level (as is discussed further below).
9
Additionally,
as was characteristic of early ballad opera, all of the airs in both The Welsh Opera
and The Grub-Street Opera are preexisting, and the majority of the music is
traditional in nature.
The Cast
A notable adjustment during the expansion of The Welsh Opera into The
Grub-Street Opera was the change in its casting. We can see from the printed
editions of The Grub-Street Opera that some alterations were made to the cast,
8
The other two operas were the anonymous The Footman (1732), with sixty-eight airs, and Henry
Potter’s The Decoy (1733), with fifty-two. Achilles had fifty-four airs.
9
Airs from The Beggar’s Opera that are found in The Welsh Opera or The Grub-Street Opera (or
both) include “A Soldier and a Sailor,” “All in the Downs,” “Britons strike Home,” “Bessy Bell,” “O
Jenny, O Jenny,” “Of a Noble Race was Shinken,” “One Evening having lost my way,” and “South
Sea Tune.” The Grub-Street Opera has more tunes from The Beggar’s Opera than any other Fielding
ballad opera.
220
though most of the original characters remained the same. Significantly, most of the
changes in the dramatis personae reflect Fielding’s increased focus on the music in
this expanded ballad opera, as many of the added actors were more experienced
singers. In addition, Fielding added songs for other actors who were strong singers
as well (see Table 5.3).
The outstanding tenor Stoppelaer replaced Mr. Davenport as Master Owen,
certainly reflecting the musical importance of young Owen’s expanded role. Mrs.
Furnival, who played a character named Betty in The Welsh Opera, was to perform
the role of Lady Apshinken opposite her real-life husband (playing the part of Squire
Apshinken) in The Grub-Street Opera; the character of Betty was then dropped from
the revision. A new character called Mr. Apshones, Molly’s father, was given to a
Mr. Wathan.
10
The Grub-Street Opera explores more of the relationship between
Owen and Molly, and Mr. Apshones was probably added as a moral authority for the
girl, who is contemplating the nature of virtue in most of her scenes; the addition of a
confidant for Molly facilitates the inclusion of several new love songs that explore
her feelings for the rakish Owen.
Though the main women’s roles were played by the same actresses in both
versions, the roles of the male servants changed hands: Mr. Dove (d. 1747), who
played Thomas the Gardener in The Welsh Opera, was to play John (replacing Mr.
10
Mr. Wathan or Wathen (fl. 1729-1731), first name unknown, first appeared at the Little Haymarket
during the 1728-29 season. There he acted in several plays and ballad operas, but never had singing
roles. Wathen acted in a booth at Bartholomew Fair in 1730, then was back at Haymarket for the
1730-31 season, where he played Faithful in Rape upon Rape, Scarecrow in The Author’s Farce (later
he acted the role of Somebody in the same ballad opera), and John in The Letter Writers. His name
disappeared from the stage after this season. (Biographical Dictionary, xv, 291-92)
221
Hallam) in The Grub-Street Opera.
11
Mr. Hicks (fl. 1729-1734) was added to the
cast to play the new Thomas.
12
In addition, Miss Patty Vaughan was to replace Miss
Price as Molly.
13
Miss Price (fl. 1729-1733; first name unknown) was known
primarily as a dancer, and the change probably reflected the fact that Molly was
assigned more songs in the revision.
14
Interestingly, the two casts included several married couples acting together,
even opposite one another. The Furnivals were to play the unhappily married heads
of the Apshinken household, Squire Owen Apshinken and his wife, Lady Apshinken,
in The Grub-Street Opera (Mrs. Jones had the Lady Apshinken role when the piece
was staged as The Welsh Opera). Thomas Furnival (d. 1773) and Mrs. “Fanny”
Elizabeth Furnival (fl. 1728?-1752) had played opposite each other as a married
couple before, most notably the characters of Townly and Lady Townly in The
Provok’d Husband (1728).
15
Before the production of The Welsh Opera, Thomas
11
See Biographical Dictionary, iv, 459-60.
12
Mr. Hicks first appeared in 1729 at the Little Haymarket, afterwards performing roles at several
fairs and playhouses. At the Haymarket he played a Welshman in The Mock Doctor (later also picking
up the role of Davy) and Mr. Sneak in Don Quixote in England. Strangely, Hicks disappeared from
the record books after 1734. (Biographical Dictionary, vii, 285-86)
13
Miss Martha “Patty” Vaughan, later Mrs. Nelson (d. 1755), first appeared at Goodman’s Fields in
1730. As she also had a sister named “Miss Vaughan,” cast listings differentiate between the two by
designating “Patty” Vaughan for her roles. When she joined the Drury Lane troupe, she acted in
several ballad operas. She married and was off the stage by the 1732-33 season, and played only
twice more before her death. (Biographical Dictionary, xv, 126)
14
In The Welsh Opera, the character of Molly appeared only in the last scene, where she sang one
solo (Air XXVIII to the tune of “The Lass of Patie’s Mill”) and two duets with Owen (Air XXVII to
the tune of “Fond Echo” and Air XXIX to the tune of “Caro Vien”). In The Grub-Street Opera, the
character of Molly was given six new solos: Airs XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXVII, XL, and XLII. Miss
Price began her career as a dancer on the Drury Lane stage and had roles in many ballad operas,
including Harriot in The Author’s Farce. She continued to dance at Bartholomew Fair and at Drury
Lane until she disappeared from the stage in 1733 (probably because of marriage). (Biographical
Dictionary, xii, 156-57)
15
Thomas Furnival’s first season at the Little Haymarket was 1730-31. Afterwards, he left with his
wife, Elizabeth (called “Fanny”), for an unknown location but by 1737 they had returned to London
and were peforming at Drury Lane. Both Thomas and Fanny left for a time to act on the Dublin stage
(both appeared together in 1740s productions of The Miser), returning to London in 1744. However,
222
had roles in other Fielding plays, including Constant in The Coffee-House Politician,
and Sparkish in The Author’s Farce. Fanny revived the character of Lappet in The
Miser several times during her stage career. It is possible that the acrimonious
relationship they popularly portrayed on stage reflected the true state of their
marriage; by the 1740s they were performing independently at different theaters, and
would soon separate permanently.
The Joneses were another couple that apparently acted often together.
Mr. Jones (fl. 1729-1741, first name unknown), was probably the same Jones who
appeared on the stage in 1729 at the Little Haymarket and played many Fielding
roles at that theater thereafter, including Dr. Orator and Bookweight in The Author’s
Farce, Lord Grizzle in Tom Thumb, and Squeezum in Rape upon Rape and The
Coffee House Politician. Jones played some of the main characters in a great many
ballad operas, and doubtless was at least an able singer.
16
In both The Welsh Opera
and The Grub-Street Opera he played the role of William the Groom. Mrs. Jones (fl.
1728-1741), however, may well have had even more musical talent than her
husband.
17
She started her career acting at the Haymarket Theatre in 1728 and
appeared there through 1736, though she occasionally performed roles at other
theatres. Mrs. Jones played Huncamunca in Tom Thumb and The Queen in The
their careers separated at this point, as Thomas went to Goodman’s Fields and Fanny was at Drury
Lane. Later in life, Fanny possibly married Roger Kemble; they later separated and Roger married
Sarah Ward. (Biographical Dictionary, v, 425-29) It is of note that Cibber’s The Provok’d Husband
was often paired with a Fielding ballad opera afterpiece for many of its Little Haymarket productions.
In addition, Fielding had a copy of this play in his library. (Ribble, 337)
16
After 1732 Jones played roles at Drury Lane, including a Welshman in The Mock Doctor and
Goodall in The Intriguing Chambermaid. It is important to note, however, that there was at least one
other “Mr. Jones” (possibly up to three Mr. Joneses!) performing in London during the years 1733-36.
(Biographical Dictionary, viii, 220-23)
17
See Biographical Dictionary, viii, 226.
223
Opera of Operas; she even had a pants role as Davy as well as an entr’acte song
during a production of The Mock Doctor.
18
In The Welsh Opera she performed as
Lady Apshinken, but did not appear in the cast list for The Grub-Street Opera.
William Mullart (d. 1742) and Elizabeth Mullart (d. 1745) also appeared
together in both The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera. William played
Robin the butler, and Elizabeth played the cook, Susan. The Mullarts were both
veteran ballad opera performers, and also had central roles in numerous Fielding
productions, both musical and non-musical.
19
They both must have been tolerable
singers, as they performed in various singing roles during their theatrical careers.
The list of the dramatis personae of both The Welsh Opera and The Grub-
Street Opera contains several other excellent actors (and at least adequate singers).
Richard Reynolds (fl. 1728-1774?), who played the entertaining character of Parson
18
Part 3 of The London Stage shows that Mrs. Jones’s entr’acte song was “Was ever Nymph like
Rosamond” from Arne’s opera Rosamond (1733), sung by Beard in the original production. Mrs.
Jones sung this air at the Little Haymarket on 5 June 1734, 7 June, 17 June, on 14 June and 26 June in
The Lottery, and in The Fair Penitent on 19 June. A “Miss Jones” sings the same song and “A Generi
Affeti” with Master Arne on both 28 June and 10 July at the same theater. “Miss Jones” is listed
through the rest of July and August of the same year at the Little Haymarket singing “Was ever
Nymph like Rosamond” along with other Rosamond airs “‘Tis Joy to wound a Lover,” (Queen
Elinor’s air in the second act, originally sung by Mrs. Arne), also “Rise Glory” with French horns
(King Henry’s air in the second act, sung by Beard), and other pieces. It is unknown if “Miss Jones”
and our Mrs. Jones are the same person.
19
William was initially a fair performer before his career the Little Haymarket company from 1729
onwards. He later joined the Drury Lane troupe during the middle of the 1731 season. William had
many main roles in ballad operas and Fielding plays, including Luckless in The Author’s Farce, King
Arthur in Tom Thumb, Ramble in Rape upon Rape, the Second Buyer in The Lottery, Arthur (again)
in The Tragedy of Tragedies, Captain Bilkum in The Covent Garden Tragedy, James (later Harry) in
Mock Doctor, the Lawyer in The Miser, and Sancho in Don Quixote in England at Lincoln’s Inn
Fields. He went to Covent Garden in the summer of 1733 and was exclusively at that theater from
1734 until his death. Elizabeth started at the Little Haymarket, and then played several roles with the
Drury Lane company and other theaters before finally ending up at Covent Garden with her husband.
Her roles included the Goddess of Nonsense in The Author’s Farce, Queen Dollalolla and Mrs
Moneywood in Tom Thumb (later she also added the role of Huncamunca to her repertoire), Hilaret in
Rape upon Rape, Stormandra in The Covent Garden Tragedy, Charlotte in The Mock Doctor (later she
also played Dorcas), Wheedle in The Miser, and Dorothea in Don Quixote in England. William and
Elizabeth had several children; their daughter Savanna also became an actress. (Biographical
Dictionary, x, 374-78)
224
Puzzletext, was a longtime associate of Fielding’s; the two operated a booth together
at Bartholomew Fair, where they staged several ballad operas.
20
Reynolds first
appeared on the London stage at the Little Haymarket in a 1728 ballad opera; he
went on to play several roles in Fielding’s productions, including the Jack Pudding,
Marplay, and Punch in The Author’s Farce, Noodle in Tom Thumb (and later in the
Tragedy of Tragedies), and Daddle in Rape upon Rape. Mr. Michael Dove (d. 1747)
also appeared in both versions of the ballad opera, first as Thomas the Gardener, and
then as John the Coachman.
21
Mr. Dove started his London career in 1729 at the
Little Haymarket, but commonly made appearances at other theaters. His other
Fielding roles included Dr. Fillgrave in Tom Thumb and Gregory in The Mock
Doctor (in a production at the Tottenham Court Theatre); he rarely was assigned
singing roles. The practical housemaid, Margery, was played by Mrs. Lacy (fl.
1727-1737) in both versions of the ballad opera.
22
She was the first wife of James
Lacy (1696-1774), a veteran actor who was later Garrick’s co-patentee at Drury
Lane. Mrs. Lacy performed roles in several Fielding stage pieces; in 1730 she acted
at the Little Haymarket, playing Mrs. Staff in Rape upon Rape, Harriet in The
Author’s Farce, and Huncamunca in Tom Thumb.
20
See Biographical Dictionary, xii, 315-16. Reynolds, who spent his London career mostly acting at
the Haymarket and at the Bartholomew and Southwark Fairs, went to Dublin for the 1731-32 season.
Since he disappeared from London records permanently after this time, it is possible that he stayed
there for the rest of his life. According to Greene and Clark in The Dublin Stage, a Mrs. Reynolds,
who is presumed to be his wife, was acting at Old Smock Alley in Dublin from 1729 to 1743. (49)
21
See Biographical Dictionary, iv, 459-60. His wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Dove (fl. 1731-1747), also an
actress, came with him to Goodman’s Fields during the 1732-33 season. Both later performed at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields before ending up at Goodman’s Fields Theatre.
22
Mrs. Lacy first appeared on the stage at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1727. After playing several Fielding
characters at the Little Haymarket, Covent Garden, and Bartholomew Fair, she disappeared from the
stage after appearing in The Historical Register in 1737. It is not certain whether she was still alive
when her husband began living with the actress Mrs. Willoughby (ca. 1749) and publicly calling her
his wife. (Biographical Dictionary, ix, 97-98)
225
The irreverent witch Goody Scratch, whose main role in The Welsh Opera
was to deliver the tidy deus ex machina ending, was cut from the new Grub-Street
Opera production. “Good Scratch” was played by a Mrs. Clark, who was probably
Mrs. Nathaniel Clarke (fl. 1727-1747), an actress who started at Lincoln’s Inn Fields
before appearing in several roles at the Little Haymarket and Goodman’s Fields
Theatre from 1728 onwards.
23
She acted frequently at the Fielding-Oates booth at
Bartholomew Fair, and played the title role in several ballad operas. Mr. Davenport
(fl. 1729-1758?) was also cut from The Grub-Street Opera, and his original role,
Master Owen, was given to Stoppelaer. This decision was obviously musical; as a
known dancing master, Davenport rarely played singing roles, although he appeared
in other musical stage works.
24
Davenport and his wife, who was also a dancer,
aligned with Fielding and the patentees during the actor’s rebellion led by
Theophilus Cibber.
Little is known about Mrs. Nokes (fl. 1725-31), who sang the role of
Sweetissa in both versions of the ballad opera. According to the Biographical
Dictionary, she sang “The Milk-Maid’s Song” by Seedo at the Little Haymarket
Theatre around 1725, but did not appear on any cast lists there until the 1728-29
season.
25
On stage, she often sang while dressed as a boy, and was known to have
played several pants roles. Mrs. Nokes acted and sung in numerous ballad operas
23
See Biographical Dictionary, iii, 310-11.
24
Davenport started his career on the stage in 1729 at Bartholomew Fair. He played Sir Farcical
Comick in The Author’s Farce at the Little Haymarket, but performed mostly at the fair booths until
1730-31 season at the Haymarket, where his acted the part of Sneaksby in The Letter Writers as well
as Master Owen in this production of The Welsh Opera. Both he and Mrs. Davenport performed at
many theatres, usually as dancers, but then are lost to the record books. They possibly relocated to
Dublin in the 1750s. (Biographical Dictionary, iv, 187-89) The music for Seedo’s “Milk-Maid Song”
is found in Watt’s Musical Miscellany, v, 91.
25
See Biographical Dictionary, xi, 40.
226
and had main roles in two other Fielding stage works: she played Mrs. Novel in The
Author’s Farce (later she appeared in the same piece as Signior Opera), as well as
Isabella in The Coffee-House Politician. In The Grub-Street Opera, Mrs. Nokes and
Stoppelaer were each assigned the largest number of solo airs (eleven), which attests
to her proficient singing ability.
The Music
In writing The Grub-Street Opera, Fielding more than doubled the number of
airs from his Welsh Opera. Two airs appearing in the illegal Welsh Opera printing,
“In vain the Parson Preaches” (to the tune of “A Soldier and a Sailor”) and “Come to
Church my Lads and Lasses” (to the tune of “Country Bumpkin”), were cut from the
final version of the opera. Thirty-six new airs were added, however, and these
included his most famous air, the “Roast Beef Song”; unfortunately, it was not heard
by audiences until he reused it in Don Quixote in England in 1734. A full discussion
and analysis of each of the sixty-five airs is outside the scope of this short case-
study. However, several important details emerge from a closer look at the music
Fielding selected for this ballad opera.
Significantly, many of the tunes Fielding wrote for the unheard Grub-Street
Opera were later recycled with great success in other ballad operas. Many of them
were even lifted word for word and inserted into the later stage works. The
subsequent season’s The Lottery, for example, contained no fewer than twelve of The
Grub-Street Opera’s airs; nine had new words fitted to them, but Fielding used
227
another three with the lyrics he had already written.
26
Three additional tunes and
their Grub-Street texts can also be found in Tumble-Down Dick and Don Quixote in
England, for a total of six fully recycled tunes (see Table 5.4). Two of the tunes
reused in the first performances of The Lottery were dropped from the second
edition.
27
Fielding also used many of The Grub-Street Opera airs in his later ballad
operas with brand new lyrics; indeed, many of the tunes chosen for this work were
among his favorites (see Table 5.1). Many times these frequently used airs had texts
or meanings that were very similar to those of their earlier incarnations in Fielding’s
operas; this may indicate the original content of the older airs, or even Fielding’s
own idea of what the tune meant. For example, Fielding’s second use of the tune
“Black Joke” in The Grub-Street Opera is quite similar to his first employment of
the air in The Author’s Farce. On both occasions Fielding’s texts describe an
assortment of rogues found throughout all of humanity; in The Grub-Street Opera,
Robin complains that both “rich and poor/ Are rogue and whore.” In The Author’s
Farce, it is London men in “lac’d coats” who do nothing productive with their lives;
in “all the Classes of Human-kind, [there are]/ Many a jolly Nobody.”
Two additional details of the musical choices and construction of The Grub-
Street Opera are quite conspicuous. First of all, this is the only one of Fielding’s
26
“Chloe is false,” “Si Caro,” “Son confuso (In Porus),” “Dutch Skipper,” “Black Joke,” “Dame of
Honour,” “Free-Mason’s Tune,” “Hunt the Squirrel,” “South-Sea Tune,” “Buff-Coat,” “Son Confuso
(In Porus)” and “Ye Madcaps of England.” “Hunt the Squirrel,” “Dame of Honour,” and “Si Caro”
were dropped in the second edition of The Lottery.
27
“Hunt the Squirrel,” “Dame of Honour,” and “Si Caro” were dropped in the second edition of The
Lottery. See below in the Case-Study: The Lottery for a fuller discussion of the differences between
the two editions of the ballad opera.
228
operas in which he uses the same tune twice in different scenes.
28
The song is
“Dame of Honour,” which is employed as both Air XXXI (“A wise Man Others
Faults conceals,” sung by Susan) and as Air L (“Nice Honour by a Private Man,”
sung by Robin). Both times the air appears, it is to explain different ideas of honor;
this use certainly makes sense, as the original lyrics concern the same subject (see
Ex. 5.6). Secondly, and perhaps most significantly, The Grub-Street Opera contains
more tunes by Handel than any other of Fielding’s works. In fact, the opera contains
more Handel airs than any other ballad opera written. In total, Fielding uses seven
airs by Handel. These include nearly all of the most popular bowdlerized tunes
favored by the ballad-opera writers: “Let the Drawer bring clean Glasses” (Air III,
originally “Il Tricerbero umiliato” from Rinaldo, 1711), the “March in Scipio” (Air
IV, from Scipione, 1726), “Dimmi cara” (Air XXV, occasionally identified as
“Dearest Charmer,” also from Scipione), “Chloe is false” (Air XXVIII, also found as
“Chloe proves false,” taken from “Nò, non piangete, pupille belle” in Floridante,
1721), “In Porus” (Air XLVIII, also identified as “Son confuso,” originally “Son
confusa pastorella” from Poro, 1731), “Sì, caro, sì” (Air LIV, from Admeto, 1727),
and “Caro, vieni al mio seno” (Air LXIV, from Poro, 1731).
29
Three of these seven
airs are the same tunes we find recycled in The Lottery, and two of them use exactly
the same text: “Chloe is false,” and “Si caro.” “Son confuso”—though not entirely
the same—also begins with the line “Some confounded Planet reigning” and has
many other similarities to its earlier use. Only Gay’s Polly (1729, unperformed until
28
This is common in opèras-comiques, according to Brown (personal communication, 14 April 2007).
29
See also Table I, Handel Melodies in Ballad Operas, 1728-1750, in Joncus, “Handel at Drury
Lane,” 181-91.
229
later in the century) and Essex Hawker’s early ballad opera The Wedding (1729),
come close to matching Fielding’s preferment of Handel airs; both works contain
several of the composer’s tunes, and were the first to do so for many of them.
30
It
was actually Fielding in 1731, and not Gay in 1728, who began a legitimate attempt
to arrange Handel’s music for his audience. Considering the proliferation of the use
of these tunes in ballad operas after 1730, Fielding had an immense influence on the
genre indeed.
31
Three Handel tunes were employed for the very first time by Fielding, and
they are all found in The Grub-Street Opera: “Son confuso,” “Let the Drawer bring
clean Glasses,” and “Caro vieni.” Although The Grub-Street Opera was not
performed, it was published straightaway in an unauthorized version very similar to
Fielding’s own edition, and would therefore have been in the hands of interested
members of the public. Additionally, Fielding first introduced his version of “Caro
vieni” to the audiences of The Welsh Opera, so we can be sure that this particular
piece was widely heard.
30
Hawker’s The Wedding. A Tragi-Comi-Pastoral-Farcical Opera ... with an Hudabrastick
Skimmington (1729), was the first ballad opera to contain the Handel airs “Cloe proves false” and “Si
caro.” The opera also uses the “March in Scipio,” although it was employed for the first time in
Thomas Walker’s The Quaker's Opera… (1728). Hawker used six Handel tunes in The Wedding, and
is therefore second to Fielding in his employment of Handel airs in one opera; his composer was
Pepusch, and this forces one to wonder if he had anything to do with Hawker’s musical choices as
well. Anthony Aston used an arrangement of “Dimmi caro” first in The Fool’s Opera; or, theTtaste of
the Age... ([1731?]). If Fielding had seen these any of these other ballad operas before the preparation
of The Grub-Street Opera, it is not apparent, as none of the Handel tunes he employs are used in a
similar context. It must be noted that Gay liked to use Handel airs in his ballad operas, too; The
Beggar’s Opera was the first to use “‘Twas when the Seas were roaring,” (also called “The Faithful
Maid” or “The Melancholy Nymph,” HWV 228/19) and “March in Rinaldo, with Drums and
Trumpets.” In Polly he included the “Minuet” (from his Minuet in G, and used first by Cibber in his
Love in a Riddle, 1729), “Trumpet Minuet,” (from Suite I in F Major from the Water Music), and the
“March in Scipio.”
31
See Joncus, “Handel at Drury Lane,” 192-93.
230
A relationship between The Grub-Street Opera and Watt’s Musical
Miscellany is also evident in Fielding’s musical choices for this ballad opera. At
least fifteen of the Grub-Street Opera’s airs can be found there; thirteen of these can
be located in the earliest three volumes.
32
Another possible connection is one
between The Grub-Street Opera and James Ralph’s Fashionable Lady. L. J.
Morrissey has stated that a third of the airs in The Grub-Street Opera were used the
year before in The Fashionable Lady, therefore demonstrating some link between
these two operas as well.
33
The relationship between the actor-singers, their characters, and the music
chosen by Fielding is a close one. We can make some assumptions about the quality
of the actor-singers’ voices from the changes that were made during the development
of The Grub-Street Opera. For example, John the Coachman (played by Mr.
Hallam, then Mr. Dove), Thomas the Gardener (Mr. Dove and then Mr. Hicks), and
Mrs. Clark’s Goody Scratch, never were given any songs in either The Welsh Opera
or The Grub-Street Opera, although one can assume that they would have joined in
on the chorus refrain of the final tune. In addition, the parts of Margery, Sir Owen
and Lady Apshinken each only gained a few musical lines in certain airs sung chiefly
by the other characters. We may surmise that these actors were either not
32
This number does not include tunes that are found under other titles and therefore are not yet
identified.
33
“It would appear that Fielding, hurrying his revision, relied heavily on his friend Ralph’s sure
musical sense and perhaps on more.” See Morrissey, “Henry Fielding and the Ballad Opera,” 399.
Morrissey exaggerates a bit: the number of tunes the two ballad operas share is only about one quarter
of the airs. Furthermore, Ralph rarely used tunes for the first time; most of the airs in The Fashionable
Lady were already employed in previous ballad operas. Although it is tempting to see a connection,
Fielding, though a friend of Ralph, could have chosen his airs from any of the early ballad operas as
well as from other sources.
231
comfortable singing on stage or simply did not have the musical ability to carry
songs entirely by themselves.
Because music began to play a larger role in Fielding’s conception of this
ballad opera, the casting was changed to reflect who would best be able to sing the
plethora of new songs (see Table 5.5). From these changes and the addition of new
tunes for certain characters, we can see that the strongest singers were Stoppelaer,
William Mullart, Mrs. Nokes, and Patty Vaughan; they were given the most airs (as
well as the most difficult airs).
It is noteworthy that many of these key singers were given the same tunes in
later Fielding ballad operas. Mullart, who sang the “Black Joke” in The Welsh
Opera (and was slated to sing it again in The Grub-Street Opera), repeated the song
later in The Lottery as the Second Buyer (the Hackney-Coachman) and again as
Sancho in Don Quixote in England, with the same text. He also sung the tune of
“Buff-Coat” in both The Grub-Street Opera and the second edition of The Lottery
(although in the first ballad opera it was as a duet with Reynolds as Puzzletext).
Stoppelaer was to sing “Chloe is False” (“Women in Vain”) and “Smile, smile,
Sweetissa, smile” (“Si caro”) as the character of Owen in The Grub-Street Opera;
later he performed both airs with the same text as Lovemore in The Lottery.
Fielding did an excellent job choosing both traditional and popular airs to fit
his ballad operas, and further analysis of some of the lyrics and tunes in The Grub-
Street Opera demonstrates this ability. The Grub-Street Opera opens with Sir Owen
Apshinken drinking with the parson and complaining about his shrewish wife, Lady
Apshinken, to the tune of “A Lusty young Smith” (see Ex. 5.7). The original text to
232
the song is quite vulgar: it describes an amorous encounter between the
aforementioned smithy and a “buxom young Damsel.” The original refrain, like
many vaudeville timbres, is repetitive (and bawdy): “With a rub, rub, rub, rub, rub,
rub, in and out, in and out, ho.” Apshinken is not lustful in this scene—instead, he
drolly lampoons henpecked husbands—but the up-tempo triple meter of “A Lusty
young Smith” would have gotten the ballad opera off to a lively start. The tune had
been used once before in a ballad opera; in Gabriel Odingsell’s Bays’s Opera (1730),
a chorus of four Cyclops makes jests about the scolding goddess Juno’s jealousy of
her husband’s exploits.
“Let the drawer bring clean glasses” (Air III in The Grub-Street Opera) is a
Handel aria from Act II, scene 3 of Rinaldo (1711 and 1731) originally titled “Il
tricerbero umiliato.” The air circulated in the early eighteenth century with English
words, and is found in Watt’s The Musical Miscellany as a drinking song (see Ex.
5.8). The original words of Handel’s aria as sung by the hero Rinaldo are as follows:
Il Tricerbero umiliato
Al mio brando renderò,
E d'Alcide l'alto fato
Colà giù rinnoverò.
Rinaldo’s announcement is one of war-like enthusiasm (“I will humiliate Cerberus
with my sword. And down there I will renew the glorious fate of Hercules [who
tamed Cerberus, the three-headed monster]”).
34
In The Grub-Street Opera, Fielding
employs the air in a scene where Owen proclaims a war of sorts, much as in the
original aria; the young squire is thinking of his female conquests and wishes to
break up Sweetissa and her fiancé so that he can have her virginity to himself. This
34
Italian transl. by Giulio Ongaro.
233
is a difficult piece to sing (Fielding’s words “Oh, how vast the blessing!” fit nicely to
the octave leaps in the original), and it was added to the final version of the opera for
Stoppelaer, who undoubtedly could pull it off splendidly.
The original music and lyrics for “Young Damon once the happiest Swain,”
which Fielding used for his air “When mutual Passion hath posses’d” (Air IX in The
Welsh Opera and Air XI in The Grub-Street Opera) can be found in Watt’s Musical
Miscellany under the title “The TIMOROUS LOVER” (see Ex. 5.9). The original music
is by John Baptist Grano (ca.1692-ca.1748), a little-known English composer,
trumpeter, and flautist who often played for Handel.
35
The lovers in Scene VI of The
Grub-Street Opera are not timorous, but Sweetissa does proclaim her affection for
Robin in the high pastoral style of the original love ballad:
With mutual passion hath posses’d,
With equal flame, each amorous breast,
How sweet’s the rapt’rous kiss!
While each with soft contention strive,
Which highest ecstasies shall give,
Or be more mad with bliss.
Fielding’s talent for text setting is evident here, as he sets his words “highest
ecstasies” to a rising sequence.
The Grub-Street Opera’s Air XII, to the tune of “All in the Downs,” was
sung by William Mullart as Robin the Butler. A conversation full of silly similes
precedes the music in Fielding’s version, hyperbolizing popular pastoral themes as
well as the prevalence of Italian simile arias:
Rob. …Oh Sweetissa! it is easier to fathom the depth of the bottomless sea, than my love.
Sweet. Or to fathom the depth of a woman’s bottomless conscience, than to tell thee mine.
Rob. Mine is as deep as the knowledge of physicians.
Sweet. Mine as the projects of statesmen.
35
John Ginger and Maurice Byrne, “Grano, John Baptist,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), x, 298-99.
234
Rob. Mine as the virtue of whores.
Sweet. Mine as the honesty of lawyers.
Rob. Mine as the piety of priests.
Sweet. Mine as—I know not what.
Rob. Mine as—as—as—I’gad I don’t know what.
Robin finally sings “Would you my love in words display’d,” and puts an end to the
endless conversation of similes by summing up with these final two lines:
Nothing, Oh! nothing’s like my love for you,
And so my dearest, and so my dearest, and my dear, adieu.
36
The lovely ballad air was undoubtedly a terrific showpiece for Mullart’s voice. The
original tune, by Richard Leveridge, is found in The Musical Miscellany and in
several other ballad operas before appearing in The Grub-Street Opera.
37
The
original air had a nautical theme, and the melodic line consequently rises and falls
throughout (see Ex. 5.10).
Fielding used “Tweedside” for “What Woman her Virtue would keep” (Air
XVIII in The Welsh Opera and Air XX in The Grub-Street Opera). An ornamented
version of this tune appears on a song-sheet in the British Library (dating ca. 1725);
we can see that the original text has also a pastoral love theme, mentioning a
beautiful shepherdess and several different kinds of flowers and singing birds along
the banks of the Tweed river (see Ex. 5.11).
38
Fielding’s own setting is concerned
with an entirely unrelated (yet typical) ballad-opera theme: the sexual morality of
young women. In Fielding’s version of “Tweedside,” Sweetissa laments that virtue
36
The beginning of the text reads:
Would you have my love in words display’d,
A language must be coin’d to tell;
No word for such a passion’s made,
For no one ever lov’d so well.
37
This popular Leveridge tune also appears in Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, Charles Johnson’s The
Village Opera (1729), and Edward Phillip’s The Chamber-Maid (1730).
38
BL G.313.(71.)
235
means little if a virtuous woman gains nothing from it. Though there are fewer
instances of word painting in this air, Fielding does set the word “bauble” to a
circular eighth-note gesture.
39
The text of Air XXIII in The Grub-Street Opera, “Sweet are the Charms,”
was apparently originally written by Barton Booth (of the Drury Lane triumvirate)
with music supplied by the prolific Leveridge. Like many other tunes found in The
Grub-Street Opera, it was printed in Watt’s Musical Miscellany (see Ex. 5.12).
Fielding used the tune for his “Beauties shall quit their darling town,” in which
Molly declares that being without Owen is an impossibility. She sings of other
“impossibilities” in life, such as coquettes leaving London or women quitting their
beloved quadrille, a fashionable card game. Indeed, with its endless comparisons,
Molly’s air is one giant simile. Leaving her dearly loved Owen is as out of the
question as “beauties” leaving “their darling town,” lovers leaving “the fragrant
shades,” doctors frowning at the idea of getting paid, and so on. Booth and
Leveridge’s version had also been full of similes, as it listed the lover’s charms one
by one; for example, she is more “fragrant than the Damask Rose,” and as “Gentle as
Wind when Zephyr blows.”
39
The text reads:
What woman her virtue will keep,
When naught by her virtue she gains?
While she lulls her soft passions asleep,
She’s thought but a fool for her pains:
Since valets who learn their lords wit.
Our virtue a bauble can call,
Why should we our ladies steps quit,
Or have any virtue at all?
236
Another Handel air, “Dimmi cara,” is employed as Air XXV in The Grub-
Street Opera. Handel’s original text, sung by the character Luceio in Act I, scene
VII of Scipione (1726), is found in the first act of the opera (see Ex. 5.13):
40
Dimmi, cara
Dimmi, tu dei morir
Ma, oh cara, non mi dir
“parti lontan da me.”
Pria di vederti si,
Forse potea partir,
Or che ti veggio no,
No, che non vuol non può
Partir il cor e il piè.
Dimmi, cara, &c.
Say to me, dear,
say to me "You must die"
But, oh dear one, do not say
"Go far away from me"
Before seeing you, yes,
perhaps I could have left
Now that I see you
No, my heart and my foot
do not want, and cannot leave.
Say to me, dear, &c.
The original aria, full of passionate and virtuous sentiments, is satirized by Fielding,
who uses the challenging air in Owen’s attempted seduction of Molly (note that
Fielding neatly replaces Handel’s Italian “Dimmi” for the English “bid me tell”):
Will you still bid me tell,
What you discern so well
By my expiring sighs;
My doating eyes
Look thro’ the instructive grove,
Each object prompts to love,
Hear how the turtles coo,
All nature tells you what to do.
With this text, Fielding shows that Owen’s love for Molly is of a lower kind. This
version of the aria was sung by Stoppelaer, who could have burlesqued the original
quite well.
One interesting musical choice of Fielding’s was “Of noble Race was
Shinken” (Air XXXIV, “Good Madam Cook, the greasy”). This aptly named air was
taken from D’Urfey’s play The Richmond Heiress (1693) and is found in all of the
40
Italian transl. by Giulio Ongaro.
237
editions of his Pills to Purge Melancholy (see Ex. 5.14).
41
The text refers to Owen
Tudor, a fifteenth-century Welsh courtier who seduced the widow of Henry V of
England; with her, Owen founded the Tudor dynasty. Some of Fielding’s choices,
including “Owen” as a character name as well as the Welsh setting, possibly came
from his knowledge of this tune. “Good Madam Cook” is another of Fielding’s anti-
woman songs; in fact, it refers to the second part of the title of The Welsh Opera in
addition to glancing at the relationship between Walpole and Queen Caroline:
Good madam cook, the greasy,
Pray leave your saucy bawling,
Let all your toil
Be to make the pot boil,
For that’s your proper calling.
With men as wise as Robin,
A female judge may pass, sir;
For where the grey mare
Is the better horse, there
The horse is but an ass, sir.
Fielding also made use of several well-known pastoral airs. His Air XLIV,
“Of all bad sorts of wives,” is set to the tune of “Tenant of my own.” A song-sheet
in the British Library shows that the title of this air is taken from the first line of a
song titled “The Condescending Lass” (see Ex. 5.15).
42
The text describes a love
episode between a man and his pretty tenant, a girl with a “Dimple in her Chin.” The
tune is dance-like, and contains a memorable fa-la refrain. Fielding’s selection of the
song is fitting, considering Owen’s seduction of Molly in The Grub-Street Opera;
however, he uses the air for yet another grievance from Squire Owen Apshinken
concerning his wife. The original fa-la refrain, now changed to “hurry scurry scum,”
is still catchy (and funny):
41
Simpson, 541-42. The air also can be found in the ninth edition of The Dancing Master (1695).
42
BL G.316.e.(48.)
238
Of all bad sorts of wives
The scolds are sure the worst,
With a hum, drum, scum, hurry scurry scum.
Would I’d a cuckold been,
Ere I had been accurst
With your hum, drum, &c.
Would he have curst mankind
(If Juno’s drawn to life)
When Jupiter Pandora sent,
He should have sent his wife,
With her hum, drum, &c.
Several difficult airs were selected by Fielding from The Musical Miscellany
for his proficient singers. In “Cupid, God of pleasing Anguish” (Air XLIX, “What
avail large sums of treasure”), Mullart (as Robin) would have needed a very light,
agile voice in order to sing all of the quickly moving notes at the end of the air.
What avail large sums of treasure,
But to purchase sums of pleasure,
But your wishes to obtain;
Poor the wretch whole worlds possessing,
While his dearest darling blessing
He must sigh for still in vain.
Fielding does an excellent job of setting text to this difficult song. Both of the words
“treasure” and “pleasure” are fitted to sixteenth-note embellishments, giving them
emphasis. With the last line of his text, two words seem to have a special
significance when set to the music; the word “vain” is fitted to a five-measure
melisma, and “sigh” is set to a repeated descending melodic gesture. “Why will
Florella” appears as Air LI (“When guilt within the bosom lies”); the tune is by a
virtually unknown Mr. Tenoe, who nevertheless seems to have been quite prolific at
writing pastoral ballad airs (see Ex. 5.16). This is another demanding air with many
leaps and some quickly moving sixteenth-note figures; intended to be sung by Mrs.
Nokes as Sweetissa, the music would have been in good hands. There is some word
painting in the air: the word “adorns” is fitted by Fielding to an elaborate ornament.
239
“The Play of Love,” Air LIII, also has a few embellishments of note. The tune, with
words by Leveridge and music by Pepusch, can also be found in The Musical
Miscellany. Fielding’s text is matched nicely to the original; his word “lies” lands on
the end of a long descending melodic line, and “fly” is fitted to a rising gesture.
Fielding set another Handel aria in the final scene of both The Welsh Opera
and The Grub-Street Opera. “Caro vieni” (from Poro, re dell’Indie, 1731) circulated
widely in song sheets during the eighteenth century. The celebrated love duet
between Cleofide and Poro was originally sung after a happy reunion in the final
scene of the opera:
43
Cleofide: Caro, vieni a’ mio seno
Dopo tanto soffrir!
Sento ch’io vengo meno
Per un sì gran gioir.
Poro: Cara, torno al tuo seno
Dopo tanto soffrir!
Scaccia sì bel sereno
L’ombra del mio martir.
Cleofide: Dear, come to my bosom,
after so much suffering!
I feel I am almost
fainting at such great joy.
Poro: Dear, I return to your bosom,
after so much suffering!
Such beautiful sunshine
dispels the shadow of my suffering.
Fielding employed this aria at the end of both The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street
Opera, after Owen and Molly have married and finally convinced the Apshinkens to
bless their union. These characters sing a duet to express their love and joy (note
that Fielding adeptly substitutes “jolly” for Handel’s “gioir”):
43
Italian transl. by Giulio Ongaro.
240
Molly. With joy my heart’s o’erflowing,
Owen. With joy my heart’s jolly;
Molly. Oh my dearest sweet Owen!
Owen. Oh my charming Molly!
Of course, there is irony in the fact that the audience knows that the only reason
Owen relented and married Molly is because he had no luck seducing any of the
other women in the opera.
***
The music of The Grub-Street Opera is a hodge-podge of popular and
traditional airs that would have contained myriad meanings for Fielding’s listeners.
It demonstrates a clear connection between Fielding and the publications of Watts,
particularly Fielding’s reliance on the tunes in The Musical Miscellany. We can see
that Fielding’s texts frequently highlight his knowledge of the previous uses of the
airs.
It is interesting to note the subtle differences between a “Gay” ballad opera
and a “Fielding” ballad opera, even so early in the latter’s career. There are fewer
French airs in Fielding’s pieces, but more of Handel’s music. In addition, Fielding
economically reused many of the airs that were not heard by audiences in this
unperformed version of the ballad opera; these tunes appeared in his later pieces, and
sometimes were even sung by the same singers. Gay did not do this; with the
exception of one tune, he did not reuse airs from the unperformed Polly in his last
ballad opera, Achilles.
44
Despite some differences, The Grub-Street Opera was
written in the style of The Beggar’s Opera; its length, satirical topics, and especially
44
The only exception to this statement is his reuse of the tune “We’ve cheated the Parson,” the only
air found in both Polly and Achilles. In addition, Gay also reused only two Beggar’s Opera tunes in
Polly.
241
its musical structure substantiate this. It especially stands in stark contrast to the
shorter, more musically original pieces Fielding wrote later in the decade. The
Lottery is one of these works, and in the second Case Study we will see some of the
notable shifts in the music that constitutes the center of some of Fielding’s most
enduring ballad operas.
242
Table 5.2. Table of Airs in The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera (both
1731)
The Welsh Opera: The Grub-Street Opera:
1. What a wretched Life (A lusty Young
Smith)
2. If Love gets into a Soldier’s Heart (Lads
of Dunce)
3. Think mighty Sir—think e’er you are
undone (March in Scipio)
4. The worn-out Rake at Pleasure Rails
(Tho’ I cannot)
5. I’ve heard a Noncon Parson preach (One
Evening having lost my way)
6. The gaudy Sun adorning (Dutch Skipper)
7. In long Pig-Tales, and shining Lace
(Bessy Bell)
8. Oh! my Sweetissa (Masquerade Minuet)
9. When mutual Passion hath posses’d
(Young Daemon once the happiest Swain)
10. Would you have my Love in Words
display’d (All in the Downs)
11. How old a thing is Love (Ye Nymphs
and Silvan Gods)
12. Ye Virgins who would marry (Red-
House)
13. The more we know of Human Kind
(Black-Joke)
14. The Dog his Bitt (Tipling John)
15. Indeed my Dear (Hedge Lane)
16. Sure naught so disast’rous can Woman
befal (Lord Biron’s Maggot)
17. A Woman’s Ware like China (Do not ask
me charming Phillis)
18. What Woman her Virtue will keep
(Twede Side)
1. What a wretched life (original tune not
specified) [A lusty Young Smith]
2. If love gets into a soldier’s heart (Lads of
Dunce)
3. How curst the puny lover! (Let the drawer
bring clean glasses)
4. Think, mighty sir, ere you are undone
(March in Scipio)
5. The worn-out rake at pleasure rails (Sir
Thomas I cannot)
6. I’ve heard a noncon parson preach (One
evening having lost my way)
7. The gaudy sun adorning (Dutch Skipper)
8. In long pig-tails and shining lace (Bessy
Bell and Mary Gray)
9. Why should not I love Robin? (Mad Moll)
10. Oh my Sweetissa! (Masquerade Minuet)
11. When mutual passion hath posses’d
(Young Damon once the happiest swain)
12. Would you my love in words display’d
(All in the Downs)
13. How odd a thing is love (Ye nymphs and
silvan gods)
14. Ye virgins who would marry (Red house)
15. The more we know of human kind
(Black joke)
16. The dog his bit (Tipling John)
17. Indeed, my dear (Hedge-lane)
18. Sure nought so disastrous can woman
befal (Lord Biron’s maggot)
19. A woman’s ware, like china (Do not ask
me)
20. What woman her virtue would keep
(Tweedside)
21. So deep within your Molly’s heart
(original tune not specified)
22. Happy with the man I love (Let ambition
fire the mind)
23. Beauties shall quit their darling town
(Sweet are the charms)
24. To wanton pleasures, roving charms
(Under the Greenwood tree)
243
Table 5.2. Continued
19. Come on, come on, come on (Britons
Strike Home)
20. Oh! Fie upon’t Robin (Mother quote
Hodge)
21. A wise Man others Faults Conceals
(Dame of Honour)
22. Here stands honest Bob, who ne’er in his
Life (We’ve cheated the Parson)
23. When Masters think fit (Hark, Hark, the
Cock Crows)
24. Virtue within a Woman’s Heart (Country
Garden)
25. What the Devil mean you thus (Dainty
Davy)
25. Will you still bid me tell (Dearest
charmer)
26. How can I trust your words precise
(Canny boatman)
27. Since you so base and faithless be (I’ll
range around)
28. Women in vain love’s powerful torrent
(Cloe is false)
29. Robin, come on, come on, come on
(Britons strike home)
30. Oh fie upon’t, Robin, Oh fie upon’t, Will
(Mother, quoth Hodge)
31. A wise man others faults conceals (Dame
of honour)
32. Here stands honest Bob, who never in his
life (We’ve cheated the parson)
33. When master thinks fit (Hark, hark, the
cock crows)
34. Good madam cook, the greasy (Of a
noble race was Shinken)
35. Great courtiers palaces contain (Pierot’s
tune)
36. Virtue within a woman’s heart (Country
garden)
37. What the devil mean you thus (Dainty
Davy)
38. A woman must her honour save
(Valentine’s day)
39. The whore of fame is jealous (My Cloe,
why do you slight me)
40. Cruelest creature, why have you woo’d
me (Sylvia my dearest)
41. How happy’s the swain (original tune not
specified)
42. When love is lodg’d within the heart
(Midsummer wish)
43. Let the learn’d talk of books (Free
mason’s tune)
44. Of all bad sorts of wives (Tenant of my
own)
45. When mighty roast beef was the
Englishman’s food (The king’s old
courtier)
46. Oh doctor, Oh doctor, where hast thou
been? (Oh Jenny, Oh Jenny)
244
Table 5.2. Continued
26. In vain the Parson Preaches (A Soldier
and a Sailor)
27. Come to Church my Lads and Lasses
(Country Bumpkin)
28. If I too high aspire (Patty’s Mill)
29. With Joy my Soul’s o’erflowing (Caro
Vien)
30. Thus Couples united (Little Jack Horner)
47. Ah doctor! I long much as misers for pelf
(original tune not specified) [‘Twas Down
in a Meadow]
48. Some confounded planet reigning (In
Porus)
49. What avail large sums of treasure
(Cupid, god of pleasing anguish)
50. Nice honour by a private man (Dame of
honour)
51. When guilt within the bosom lies (Why
will Florella)
52. Oh for goodness sake forbear! (Hunt the
squirrel)
53. What vast delights must virgins prove
(The play of love)
54. Smile, smile, Sweetissa, smile (Si cari)
55. Little master, Pretty master (Sleepy
body)
56. Go, and like a slub’ring Bess howl
(original tune not specified) [Sleepy body]
57. An Irishman loves potatoes (South-sea
tune)
58. The idle beau if pleasure (original tune
not specified)
59. In spiritual court, I’ll shew you such
sport (Buff-coat)
60. In this little family plainly we find (Ye
madcaps of England)
61. I once as your butler, did cheat you (My
name is old Hewson)
62. Oh think not the maid whom you scorn
(Fond echo)
63. If I too high aspire (Lass of Patie’s mill)
64. With joy my heart’s o’erflowing (Caro
vien)
65. Couples united, Ever delighted (Little
Jack Horner)
245
Table 5.3. Table of Actors in The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera (1731)
The Welsh Opera The Grub-Street Opera
Squire apShinken (Mr. Furnival)
Master Owen his Son (Mr. Davenport)*
Parson Puzzletext (Mr. Reynolds)
Robin, the Butler (Mr. Mullart)
John the Coachman (Mr. Hallam)*
William the Groom (Mr. Jones)
Thomas the Gardiner (Mr. Dove)*
Madam apShinken (Mrs. Jones)*
Molly (Miss Price)*
Goody Scratch, a Witch (Mrs. Clark)
[not in later version]*
Sweetissa (Mrs. Nokes)
Susan (Mrs. Mullart)
Margery (Mrs. Lacy)
Betty (Mrs. Furnival) [not in later
version]*
Sir Owen Apshinken (Mr. Furnival)
Master Owen Apshinken (Mr. Stopler)*
Mr. Apshones (Mr. Wathan)*[not in
earlier version]
Puzzletext (Mr. Reynholds)
Robin (Mr. Mullart)
John (Mr. Dove)*
William (Mr. Jones)
Thomas (Mr. Hicks)*
Lady Apshinken (Mrs. Furnival)*
Molly Apshones (Miss Patty Vaughan)*
Sweetissa (Mrs. Nokes)
Susan (Mrs. Mullart)
Margery (Mrs. Lacy)
* = designates a change to the cast between the performance of The Welsh Opera
and its expansion into The Grub-Street Opera
246
Table 5.4. Recycled Airs and Texts First Used in The Grub-Street Opera (1731)
The Grub-Street Opera
(1731)
The
Lottery
(1
st
edition)
(1732)
The
Lottery
(2
nd
edition)
(1732)
Don
Quixote
in
England
(1734)
Tumble-
Down
Dick
(1736)
15. The more we know of
Human Kind (Black Joke)
28. Women in vain Love’s
powerful Torrent (Chloe is
false)
35. Great Courtiers
Palaces contain (Pierrot’s
Tune)
45. When mighty Roast
Beef was the
Englishman’s Food (The
King’s Old Courtier)
50. Nice Honour by a
private Man (Dame of
Honour)
54. Smile, smile,
Sweetissa, smile (Si cari)
4.
11.
18.
4.
10.
2.
5.
247
Table 5.5. Table of Characters’ Airs in The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera
(both 1731)
Character: The Welsh
Opera:
The Grub-
Street Opera:
(solo air)
(duet, chorus, or
more than one
character singing)
(solo air)
(duet, chorus, or
more than one
character singing)
Puzzletext (Mr.
Reynolds)
5 3 4 5
Squire Owen (Mr.
Davenport/Mr.
Stoppelaer)
1 3 11 3
Sweetissa (Mrs.
Nokes)
7 2 11 6
Margery (Mrs.
Lacy)
0 0 0 1
Robin (Mr.
Mullart)
5 4 9 8
Molly (Miss
Price/Miss
Vaughan)
1 2 7 2
William (Mr.
Jones)
1 3 2 4
Susan (Mrs.
Mullart)
1 1 3 3
John (Mr.
Hallam/Mr. Dove)
0 0 0 0
Thomas (Mr.
Dove/Mr. Hicks)
0 0 0 0
Sir Owen
Apshinken (Mr.
Furnival)
0 0 2 0
Lady Apshinken
(Mrs. Jones/Mrs.
Furnival)
0 0 0 2
Goody Scratch
(Mrs. Clark)
0 0 N/A N/A
Betty (Mrs.
Furnival)
0 0 N/A N/A
Mr. Apshones
(Mr. Wathen)
N/A N/A 0 0
248
Ex. 5.6. D’Urfey, “The Dame of Honour or Hospitality, Sung by Mrs. Willis in the
OPERA call’d the Kingdom of the Birds,” Pills to Purge Melancholy, i (1719-20)
249
250
251
Ex. 5.7. D’Urfey, “A Lusty young Smith,” Pills to Purge Melancholy, ii (1719-20)
252
253
Ex. 5.8. Handel, “Sung by Signior Nicolini, in the Opera of Rinaldo,” The Merry
Musician; or a cure for the spleen, i (1716-[33?])
254
255
256
257
Ex. 5.9. Grano, “The TIMOROUS LOVER,” The Musical Miscellany, ii (1729-31)
258
259
Ex. 5.10. Leveridge, flute part, “All in the Downs,” The Musical Miscellany, iv
(1729-31)
260
Ex. 5.11. Anonymous, the words by R. Crawford, “Tweedside,” song sheet, British
Library [1725?]
261
Ex. 5.12. Leveridge, the words by Booth, “Sweet are the Charms,” The Musical
Miscellany, ii (1729-31)
262
263
264
Ex. 5.13. Handel, “Dimmi cara,” Scipione (1726)
265
Ex. 5.14. D’Urfey, “Of noble Race was Shinking,” Pills to Purge Melancholy, ii
(1719-20)
266
Ex. 5.15. Anonymous, “The Condescending Lass,” song sheet, British Library
[1735?]
267
Ex. 5.16. Tenoe, “Why will Florella,” The Musical Miscellany, i (1729-31)
268
269
CASE STUDY:
THE LOTTERY
The Lottery, Fielding’s third ballad opera and one of his most successful
works, had its premiere on 1 January 1732 during his first season at Drury Lane.
The ballad opera, which appeared as an afterpiece to Addison’s Cato, was printed by
Watts one week later. The Lottery proved to be an immediate success, and was
performed no fewer than fifteen times that month. Fielding quickly revised the
ballad opera for additional performances in February; this printed “second edition”
of the work was issued by Watts on 1 February. Hume tells us that although it was
not customary for eighteenth-century plays to be revised by the author, Fielding was
certainly an exception to this rule; indeed, we have already seen the extensive
changes made to The Welsh Opera in its development into The Grub-Street Opera.
1
The Lottery was a notable “first” in several ways. It was Fielding’s first
theatrical piece to be staged during his time working at the esteemed Drury Lane
Theatre, and it was the first of his ballad operas to be printed with the tunes of the
airs. It was his first ballad opera afterpiece, and his first confirmed collaboration
with theater composer Seedo. Roberts also has stated that The Lottery was also the
first of Fielding’s ballad operas to use newly composed music; in fact, this is not
strictly true, as several tunes in The Author’s Farce (such as “Barbarous cruel Man”)
do not have indications of titles and were most likely newly composed. Finally, The
Lottery was Fielding’s first Kitty Clive vehicle, and it was the beginning of a series
of works written especially for the popular actress and singer.
1
Hume, Henry Fielding, 119.
270
The subject of the ballad opera is the state lottery of 1731. This lottery was a
scheme for raising £800,000 of a large government loan; the 80,000 tickets were sold
at £10 each, and could be paid for in two payments.
2
Once the ticket was bought, the
owner would either keep it or sell it for a profit once the period for purchasing tickets
was closed to the public. Unlike today’s lottery, even if the ticket did not win a prize
and came up as a “blank,” the ticket-holder would not lose out entirely; Roberts
adroitly sums up the details:
This ticket could be exchanged for a share of stock worth £7 10s, with interest to accrue at
the rate of three percent per year. Thus the adventurer did not lose his entire investment even
if his ticket came up a blank; since the ticket entitled him to joint stock, he would collect the
interest on it twice a year, and then, at a date to be determined by the government, he could
redeem the stock for its £7 10s value. At the end of ten years, for example, the combined
worth of his blank and the cumulated interest would have slightly exceeded the initial ticket
price of £10.
3
We know that Fielding liked poking fun at the lottery; he also satirized it in
his novels Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, and railed against it in two of his essays.
4
He believed that the system took advantage of the “Adventurers” who staked their
small savings on the promise of future riches. Actually, considering that the ticket-
holder could exchange his “blank” for negotiable joint stock that would eventually
be worth more than the original investment, it is clear that the state lottery did not
aim to dupe average citizens out of their hard-earned money. Indeed, as Roberts
explains, “[i]n the actual writing, storing, and drawing of the tickets, then, there was
some chance for error, but little for outright dishonesty…The evils of the lotteries
2
See the announcement on 12 May 1731 in The Daily Courant. Roberts also gives an excellent
account of The Lottery’s relation to the state lottery in “Fielding’s Ballad Opera The Lottery (1732)
and the English State Lottery of 1731,” The Huntington Library Quarterly XXVII (Nov. 1963), 39-
52.
3
Roberts, “The Lottery,” 41.
4
Battestin, Henry Fielding, 124n. See Tom Jones (II.i), Joseph Andrews (III.iii), and writings in The
Champion (29 Dec. 1739 and 3 Jan 1740), and The True Patriot (12, 19, and 26 Nov. 1745).
271
occurred not in the drawing, but almost exclusively in the manipulation of tickets by
brokers or stockjobbers, like Fielding’s Stocks.”
5
These stockjobbers used a number of strategies in order to make vast sums of
money from the lottery. First, they bought large quantities of tickets at the beginning
of the sale and sold them for higher prices after the sale of lottery tickets to the
public had closed—much like ticket scalpers of today. Secondly, they sold shares of
the tickets to those who could not afford the price of a full ticket of their own. These
shares allowed each shareholder, in effect, to “rent” the entire ticket for particular
periods during the lottery’s drawing. These shares were often called “horses” in
common parlance and could be rented for the week, the day, or even an hour of the
lottery drawing, until their paid “ride” was finished. Air II in both editions of The
Lottery, sung by Mr. Stocks to “The Free-Mason’s Tune,” tells us “Here are the Best
Horses:”
Here are the best Horses,
that ever ran Courses,
Here is the best Pad for your Wife, Sir;
Who rides one a Day,
If Luck’s in his way,
May ride in a Coach all his Life, Sir;
The Sportsman esteems
The Horse more than Gems,
That leaps o’er a pitiful Gate, Sir;
But here is a Hack,
If you sit but his Back,
will leap you into an Estate, Sir.
If the ticket number for which they had a share drew a prize during the days they had
chosen, then they would receive that prize—minus the commission of the
stockjobber, of course. If the ticket came up a blank, the shareholder would receive
nothing at all. Additional problems arose when the a stockjobber sold more than one
5
Roberts, “The Lottery,” 46-47.
272
share for the same day, or did not actually own the ticket for which he was selling
shares in the first place.
6
Some of the secondary characters in the final scene of The
Lottery were cheated in this way by Stocks.
One month after its premiere, Fielding reissued a second edition of The
Lottery, and this new version would be the one revived throughout the century. Much
of the second edition is the same as the first; added is a new end scene which takes
place at the drawing of the lottery. Instead of receiving a written notice of her blank
ticket (as she did in the first version), main character Chloe watches the numbers
being drawn with her new husband. Additionally, some of the music was changed
with the reissue of the work. Four of the original nineteen airs were cut, and seven
new ones were added—most of them in this new expanded lottery scene (see Table
5.6).
7
The Lottery went on to be printed many more times throughout the century,
including in Scotland, but the printers never deviated from this second version of the
piece. As it was apparently Fielding’s preferred version of the ballad opera, I will
focus on this edition in the Case Study. The existence of unique manuscript
orchestra parts that were probably used for performances of the work at Drury Lane
facilitates the musical analysis (see Appendix I).
6
See Roberts, “The Lottery,” 47-51.
7
The airs that were cut are: Air XI “Nice Honour, by a private Man (Dame of Honour),” Air XV
“Whom do not Debts inthrall? (Hunt the squirrel)” Air XVII “Heav’n fear’d, when first it Woman
made (an original tune, “Set by Mr. Seedo”),”and Air XVIII “Smile, smile, my Chloe, smile (Si
Caro).” Added in the second edition were: Air XIV “Oh how charming my Life will be (White
Joak),” Air XVI “The Lottery just is beginning (South-Sea Ballad),” Air XVII “In all Trades we’ve
had (Buff-Coat),” Air XVIII “Number One Hundred Thirty-Two (Now ponder well, ye Parents
dear),”Air XIX “Number Six Thousand Eighty Two (Dutch Skipper. Second Part),”Air XX “Now, my
dear Chloe, behold a true Lover (Virgins beware),” and Air XXI “Since you whom I lov’d (an original
air, “Set by Mr. Seedo”).”
273
The Cast
It is clear that much of the success of this version of The Lottery was due to
its excellent casting. The star character of Chloe was played by Miss “Kitty” Raftor
(soon to be Mrs. Clive), who was just beginning to become renowned for her singing
comedic roles.
8
The Lottery is particularly significant in Kitty Clive’s career, as it
marks the beginning of her collaboration with Fielding, and this ballad opera was
only the first of several with star roles created especially for her. Chloe’s country
admirer, Lovemore, was played by Charles Stoppelaer, and these two actors sung the
majority of the airs in the ballad opera. Notably, Stoppelaer and Clive performed
together in several other musical stage pieces, including Coffey’s The Boarding-
School (1733) and The Devil to Pay (1731), Drury’s The Devil of a Duke (1732), and
Fielding’s The Intriguing Chambermaid and The Mock Doctor, among others. The
Lottery, like most eighteenth-century stage pieces, was reliant on its cast of actor-
singers to bring audiences back to the theater over and over again. Noting the
number of times this cast performed the ballad opera during the next decade,
Fielding succeeded admirably in choosing just the right performers for each of the
parts.
The duplicitous Stocks was played by John Harper (d. 1742), a fat, jolly man
who often assumed comedic roles for the Drury Lane troupe from 1721 onwards.
9
8
Her other Fielding roles include: Miss Sprightly in the Tragedy of Tragedies, Isabel in The Old
Debauchees, Kissinda in The Covent Garden Tragedy, Lappet in The Miser, Deborah in Deborah: or
a Wife for You All, Lettice in The Intriguing Chambermaid, and Lucy in An Old Man Taught Wisdom.
She reprised the role of Chloe in The Lottery during the 1738-39 season, and later played Lappet (The
Miser) in 1741 in Dublin. Her last Fielding ballad opera was the only new play on the stage during
the 1741-42 season (Miss Lucy in Town), in which she played Lucy.
9
“Harper is peculiarly happy in his Corpulence, for some Parts, but I should be very unjust if I placed
all his Merit in that, and if I did not rank him with the good Comedians.” (The Comedian, 7)
274
He was well known for his humorous skirt parts (his Huncamunca in Fielding’s The
Tragedy of Tragedies was a great success). During the Actor’s Rebellion, Harper
was unfortunately chosen by Highmore and the Drury Lane managers to serve as an
example to the deserting actors, and he was notoriously arrested for vagrancy on the
Haymarket stage.
10
According to the Biographical Dictionary, Highmore thought
that Harper would be an easy mark, but as it happens he was a homeowner and a
voter, and after the case was thrown out he was consequently “carried in triumph
from the hall by his friends.”
11
The First Buyer of lottery tickets in the opening scene of the ballad opera—a
non-singing role—was played by Edward Berry (1706-1760), a life long actor,
singer, and dancer in the Drury Lane company. From the beginning of his career, he
found success in comedic roles, though later in life he appeared successfully in
several tragedies, particularly those by Shakespeare. He also acted Sparkle in
Fielding’s The Miser and Merlin in The Tragedy of Tragedies during the 1732-33
season, and was known as a very fine actor and a hard worker.
12
Jack Stocks, who tricked Chloe as foppish “Lord Lace,” was acted by
Theophilus Cibber (1703-1758).
13
The first son of Colley Cibber, Theophilus left
school at age sixteen to join his father’s Drury Lane company, and never left except
to lead the Actor’s Rebellion in 1733 against the new managers of the company.
This event was immortalized in a caricature by Laguerre called “The Stage Mutiny,”
10
Documents relating to the trial and acquittal are listed in Milhous and Hume, ii, 815, 817-22.
11
Biographical Dictionary, 117.
12
See Biographical Dictionary, 60-65.
13
See Anon., Apology, and Francis Truelove, The Comforts of Matrimony, Exemplified in the
Memorable Case and Tryal Lately Brought by T. C. against W. S. Esq. for Criminal Conversation
with the Plaintiff's Wife (London: Printed for Sam. Baker, 1739). A copy of this second document is
in the British Library.
275
which depicts Theophilus with his seceding players (his father Colley Cibber can be
seen in the corner counting his profits) (see Fig. 5.4).
14
Theophilus was well known
for his foppish parts (he undoubtedly was terrific as “Lord Lace”) as well as for his
dancing in pantomimes. He received much praise for many of his roles in Fielding’s
ballad operas—but Cibber’s stage career has been eclipsed in the history books by
the juicy scandal with his wife, Mrs. Susanna Cibber (née Arne) and William Sloper.
According to several accounts, Theophilus encouraged Sloper to sleep with his wife,
and then sued both his wife and her lover afterwards. The sister of composer
Thomas Augustine Arne, Susanna was a very fine singer and actress. Though the
events with Sloper caused her to become estranged from her husband, she still
managed to have a first-rate stage career. She played the role of Chloe in The Lottery
during the 1735-36 Drury Lane season, and also sang in Handel’s Deborah at the
King’s Theatre in 1733.
The Second Buyer, a hackney coachman, was performed by Fielding favorite
William Mullart (d. 1742). He was undoubtedly a very reliable actor and singer, as
he also played Luckless in The Author’s Farce, King Arthur in Tom Thumb, Ramble
in Rape upon Rape, Robin in The Welsh Opera, Porter in The Modern Husband,
Captain Bilkum in The Covent Garden Tragedy, James (and later Harry) in The
Mock Doctor, Bubbleboy and the Lawyer in The Miser, and had much success as
14
The caricature can be found on page 14 of The Prompter: A Theatrical Paper (1734-1736) by
Aaron Hill and William Popple, ed. William Appleton and Kalman Burnim (New York: B. Blom,
1966). It is held by Houghton Library in the Harvard Theatre Collection.
276
Sancho in Don Quixote. Mullart was so popular with the public that he often had
roles both at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Drury Lane during the same season.
15
There were several minor parts in The Lottery; all of these were non-singing
roles. Robert Wetherilt (1708-1743), played Whisk (Lovemore’s valet) in The
Lottery and several other Fielding characters at the Drury Lane Theatre, including
Mr. Heroick Diction in the introduction to The Tragedy of Tragedies and Harry in
The Mock Doctor. Wetherilt later acted the role of Jack Stocks in revivals of The
Lottery (and eventually moved to Dublin, where he continued this same role). He
probably did not sing very well, as he never was assigned any singing roles in
Fielding’s ballad operas. The character of his sister-in-law Mrs. Stocks was played
by Robert’s real-life mother Elizabeth Wetherilt (fl. 1708-1743). She left the stage in
1737, but before that year played the roles of the Miller’s Wife (later Mrs. Wisely) in
The Miser and Teresa Pancha in Don Quixote.
16
The actress who played the Lady/Mrs. Sugarsops, Mrs. Oates, might be the
wife of James Oates, who had a long career as an actor at Drury Lane and also
shared the management of fair booths at Bartholomew Fair with Fielding in 1730 and
1734. Another possibility (but less likely) is a Miss Ann Oates, daughter of James,
who was a dancer.
17
The role of the Lady is a non-singing one in both editions of the
ballad opera, and the character only has a few lines.
Chloe’s maid Jenny was originally played by the actress and dancer Miss
[Susanna?] Williams (b. 1714?). Her exact identity is unknown—she later possibly
15
Biographical Dictionary, x, 374-78.
16
Biographical Dictionary, xvi, 13.
17
Miss Oates has no mention in the Biographical Dictionary, but The London Stage shows that she
played several (minor) roles and danced with the Drury Lane troupe from 1731-41.
277
became Mrs. Charles Fleetwood or was a sister to her. In any case, our Miss
Williams started as a dancer at Drury Lane in 1730, and also played roles at the
Fielding/Oates booth at Bartholomew Fair during the same year. We can see from
advertisements that one of her most popular dances was “The Black Joke,” and
possibly she danced during this tune in performances of The Lottery.
18
During the
seasons of 1731-33 Miss Williams played Beatrice in The Old Debauchees and
Charlotte in The Mock Doctor. She might have gone off the stage after that season,
as the Biographical Dictionary records no other appearances for her (perhaps she
was married?). If she is indeed the Miss Williams who was married to Fleetwood,
she later married Francis Hayman (1708-1776), the scene painter, after the death of
her first husband.
19
The Music
The Lottery marks the beginning of a series of highly original musical
afterpieces by Fielding, including The Mock Doctor, Deborah, The Intriguing
Chambermaid, An Old Man Taught Wisdom, Tumble-Down Dick, and Miss Lucy in
Town. Most of the ballad operas in this succession were written for Kitty Clive, and
nearly all of them included new music; The Lottery was the beginning of this new
trend by Fielding. From this point on, musical afterpieces would prove to be the
most enduring type of ballad opera, and The Lottery was among the most successful
and long-lasting ballad operas of the century.
18
Biographical Dictionary, xvi, 144.
19
Biographical Dictionary, xvi, 144-45.
278
Musically, The Lottery demonstrates Fielding’s shift away from traditional
music towards the use of newly composed music in his ballad operas. While The
Author’s Farce had two new airs (“Barbarous cruel Man” and “Wou’d you the
charming Queen of Love”), The Lottery had ten original tunes out of approximately
the same number of songs. Fielding would continue this trend with four original airs
in The Mock Doctor and a song-list of almost entirely new music in Eurydice.
Though The Lottery would never be a “typical” ballad opera (its use of new music in
particular was not common among other authors), its existence is indicative of
general musical trends towards mid-century musical pastiches with spoken dialogue
(like the burletta). Arne’s Rosamond and his musical version of Fielding’s The
Opera of Operas, for example, appeared the next season with several newly
composed songs in the style of The Lottery.
The majority of the airs in both versions of The Lottery were sung by Clive
or Stoppelaer, and—as they were assigned most of the new music and Handel
arias—they had the most difficult tunes as well (see Table 5.6). Clive had nine airs,
and Stoppelaer had eight; additionally, they sung a duet together, and Stoppelaer had
some solo verses in the final tune of the opera. Mr. Harper had three airs and some
solo verses at the end, and Mr. Mullart sung two airs. Two unnamed persons acting
as the ticket-drawers sang out the lottery numbers during two airs, but the actors are
not named in the printed ballad operas.
A major coup for musicologist is the set of parts for the second edition of The
Lottery held by the British Library; these parts allow for further musical analysis of
the opera’s newly composed airs, as well as the arrangements of the traditional tunes.
279
I will therefore limit myself to a brief examination of each of the twenty-two airs in
the second edition and disregarding those tunes which were cut from the first edition.
The Lottery opens with the character of Mr. Stocks (Mr. Harper) alone,
singing the tune “A Lottery is a Taxation.” This first air of The Lottery is an original
tune “Set by Mr. SEEDO” (as it is indicated in the printed version), and it sets the tone
of the ballad opera by describing Fielding’s feelings on the lottery—essentially, that
it is a tax on fools. As we shall see, the main character Chloe is one of these fools, as
she has staked her marriage and virtue on the fortune she believes she will gain from
her lottery ticket. The ballad opera also introduces many other foolish characters in
the final lottery-drawing scene, including two who have bought rides on the same
ticket from Stocks. The initial air is not a simple one, as the range is rather high, and
the manuscript version of The Lottery even shows a trill on the word “Taxation.”
20
Harper must have been at least an adequate singer, as he sings two other airs in the
ballad opera and contributes to the final tune of the ballad opera with his own verse.
Stocks tries to persuade two buyers to rent rides on the lottery’s “horses” with
the rollicking song “Here are the Best Horses.” The air is that of “The Free-Mason’s
Tune,” and it is in a lively 6/4 meter that is also found in songs about riding or
hunting (probably because of the reference to “horses”). The original tune is one of
conviviality and brotherhood—and is therefore perfectly chosen to help Stocks set
the tone in order to persuade the two men to purchase the ride. Fielding was no
doubt familiar with this version found in volume three of Watt’s Musical Miscellany
20
See BL R.M..21.c.45 (1-3).
280
(called “The FREE MASON’s Health”), as he used it earlier in The Grub-Street Opera
(see Ex. 5.17).
21
Air III, “The Soldier in a hard Campaign” is the response of the Mullart’s
Second Buyer (a hackney-coachman), to Stock’s hard sell. Set to the tune of “Black
Joke,” the air demonstrates his excitement about making a fortune without having to
work, and describe how courtiers, gamesters, and gambling women (playing “the
black Ace” of quadrille) without virtue get what they want easily (see Ex. 5.18).
22
We have already seen the original words and know the bawdy nature of the tune;
certainly, the previous meaning of the air casts a vulgar shadow over the lottery and
the “rides” sold by Stocks.
Chloe’s suitor, Lovemore, arrives in town looking for his beloved and
planning another assault on her virtue. He sings Air IV, “Women in vain Love’s
powerful Torrent,” one of the more difficult airs in the ballad opera. The tune
indicated is “Chloe is false, but still she is charming,” which is a version of Handel’s
“No, non piangete pupille belle” (Il Floridante) as identified by Joncus. According
to Hans Dieter Clausen, Handel revised this aria several times for the different
21
The “Free-Mason’s Tune” was also previously used in Charles Johnson’s The Village Opera (1729)
and Edward Phillip’s The Chamber-Maid (1730).
22
The last six lines of the lyrics are as follows:
And Town-bred Ladies too, they say,
Get less by Virtue, than by Play;
And dowdy Joan
Had ne’er been known,
Nor Coach had been her Ladyship’s Lot,
But for the black Ace, and all, all that.
The “black Ace” denotes the card game Quadrille, where black aces are permanent trumps. Chloe’s
Quadrille master, Mr. Spadille comes to the door in Sc.II of The Lottery—Fielding is certainly
commenting negatively upon the relation between the fashion for the card game with the well-bred
ladies of the town.
281
performances of Floridante, as it was sung by various singers.
23
The melody is
much changed between its original 1721 version and the simpler ballad-opera air
used by Fielding, but the melodic gestures are still apparent (see Ex. 5.19). As is
common with these truncated ballad-opera versions, the B section of the original aria
is dispensed with. In the British Library manuscript vocal score, which is possibly
Stoppelaer’s version of the air, the tune is a whole step higher than in the printed
edition.
24
In the manuscript, the word “Torrent” has a trill, which is not notated in
printed edition. The text at the end of the tune, “Down, down, she goes,” is also
changed from the printed version to a more apt downward motion in the manuscript,
more in line with both the meaning of the text and the Handel original. This tune
appeared previously in The Grub-Street Opera (at the end of Act II, Scene ii) with
exactly the same lyrics; the words of the air make much more sense in the first opera,
although the context of both scenes is very similar: Molly and Owen are fighting, as
Molly is determined not to relinquish her virtue until they are married. In The
Lottery, Chloe has fled to the city because her passion for Lovemore, “growing too
violent,” will no doubt cause her to succumb to his charms in no time.
Lovemore asks his valet Whisk to report on Chloe’s whereabouts, and he
describes how she has set herself up in town with a “Procession of Milliners,
Mantua-makers, Dancing-masters, Fiddlers, and the Devil knows what.” Lovemore
sings Air V, “How hapless is the Virgin’s Fate,” a newly composed tune by Seedo.
23
The secondary role of Timante was first played in 1721/22 by Benedetto Baldassari, who was a
soprano, but later revisions (1722 and 1727) were for the altos Gaetano Berenstadt and possibly
Antonio Baldi. See the Preface to Handel’s Il Floridante, Opera in tre atti, HWV 14, ed. Hans Dieter
Clausen, Ser. II, Band 11 of the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe (Kassel and New York: Bärenreiter,
2005), xx.
24
The printed second edition of The Lottery shows the air in Bb major; the manuscript is in C major.
Handel’s original version in 1721 (in A major) was changed to D major for the later alto singers.
282
The text of the song likens the chase for a woman to the hunt for a hare, much like
the hunting song sung by Owen as Air VII in The Grub-Street Opera. Unusual for a
ballad opera tune, the air is in a minor key (G minor) in each of the printed and
manuscript versions. The lively tune is full of embellishments and quick sixteenth
notes that would have shown off Stoppelaer’s first-rate voice.
Chloe appears with her maid Jenny and sings Air VI, “Farewel, ye Hills and
Valleys,” also composed by Seedo. The text cleverly reverses the subject of other
nostalgic pastoral airs popular during this period by having Chloe show no regret at
leaving her supposedly idyllic country life—in fact, she is excited about her inane
city pursuits. The manuscript version shows a repeat of the first four lines, and a da
capo indication at the end to return to this same section. Undoubtedly, Chloe used
these opportunities to add ornamentation to the already difficult line to demonstrate
her vocal agility (extra sixteenth notes and one grace note are already added on the
words “Farewel ye verdant Shades”). The attractiveness of this particular air to the
audience is evident in the number of times it appeared in later songbook collections
and musical miscellanies in the 1730s and 1740s, usually under the new name of
“The Country Girl’s Farewell.”
25
Roberts has called “Farewel, ye Hills and Valleys”
the “most popular of all the songs from Fielding’s ballad operas.”
26
Though this
statement ignores the longevity of the “Roast Beef Song,” it is certainly true that this
25
The air was printed in volume one of the second and third editions of The Vocal Miscellany (1734
and 1738), volume four of Walsh’s British Musical Miscellany (1735?), The Universal Musician
(1738?), The Nightengale (1738), Calliope (1739), The Aviary (1744?), and The Linnet (1749).
Roberts believes that the popularity of this song has to do with a companion piece that was published
in the third edition of The Vocal Miscellany, the subject of which is the country girl’s farewell to the
city. See Roberts, “Possible Additions to Airs 6 and 7 of Henry Fielding’s Ballad Opera ‘The
Lottery’,” Notes and Queries (Dec. 1962), 455-6.
26
Roberts, “Possible Additions,” 456.
283
air was printed more times during the preceding decade than any other Fielding tune.
The authors of the songbook collections added two additional stanzas to the text.
Since these lines are not found in any of the printed or manuscript versions of this
ballad opera, it can safely be assumed that they were not written by Fielding (see Ex.
5.20).
The next air, also sung by Chloe, is “Oh what Pleasures will Abound,” which
only has the indication: “In Perseus and Andromeda.” We find that the tune is the
third part of the simple duple-meter “Haymaker’s Dance” in Rich’s pantomime of
the same name (see Ex. 5.21).
27
Perhaps not so coincidentally, Clive starred in this
pantomime as Minerva. The choreography was by Weaver and the music by
Pepusch, and the pantomime contained ballad airs to be sung, such as “Thomas, I
cannot” (which was one of Fielding’s favorite tunes). The simple key of the dance-
turned-ballad tune (C major), as well as the simple bass line and harmonic structure,
are suitable for a silly air sung by such a simple girl. Like “Farewel, ye Hills and
Valleys,” “Oh what Pleasures will Abound” also appears in later songbooks and
miscellanies with one additional stanza (also probably not by Fielding):
28
What tho’ my Birth and Breedings poor,
Gold will add Arms and ‘scutcheons store;
Then for a Dutchess I might pass,
Tho’ I am but a Country Lass.
Who’ll dispute my
Wit and Beauty,
When my golden Charms are found,
Oh! what Flatt’ry,
In the Lott’ry,
When I’ve got ten thousand Pound.
27
See [Galliard], The Comic Tunes in PERSEUS and ANDROMEDA As they are perform’d at the
Theatre Royal in Covent Garden… (London: Printed for Charles and Samuel Thompson, [1760?]).
28
The new two-stanza version appears in The British Musical Miscellany, i (1734-37)), A Complete
Collection of Old and New English and Scotch Songs, ii (1735), The Aviary; or Magazine of British
Melody (1745), and The Thrush (1749).
284
By the time the anonymous ballad opera The Ladies of the Palace; or, the New-
Court Legacy was printed in 1733, Fielding’s version of the tune was so familiar to
audiences that the author simply indicated his Air VIII as “O what Pleasures will
abound, &c.”
29
The next two songs, Air VII and VIII, were both sung by Chloe while in
private conversation with her maid Jenny. Before she begins to sing Seedo’s “When
love is log’d within the Heart,” Chloe shows us that she is agitated about her strong
feelings for her pursuer, poor Squire Lovemore, by describing her feelings to Jenny:
Jenny. It may be better for you [being in London], than seeing the Squire; for, if I mistake
not, had you stay’d many Weeks longer, he had been a dangerous Visitant.
Chloe. I am afraid so too—for I began to be in love with him, and when once a Woman’s in
love, Jenny-------
Jenny. Lud have Mercy upon her!
The shifting keys in the music of Air VIII demonstrate this tumult even when the
lyrics do not. The opening quatrain of the air is in A minor:
Chloe. When Love is lodg’d within the Heart,
Poor Virtue to the Outworks flies;
The Tongue, in Thunder, takes her part,
She darts in Lightening from the Eyes.
The second four lines end the air in C major, cheerfully foreshadowing Chloe’s
eventual fate:
From Lips and Eyes with gifted Grace,
In vain we keep out charming Sin;
For Love will find some weaker place
To let the dear Invader in.
Stocks arrives to introduce Chloe to her admirer “Lord Lace” (actually his
brother, Jack Stocks, in disguise). Chloe flirts with “Lord Lace” and plays the
29
The air is recycled in later ballad operas, including Joseph Dorman’s The Female Rake; or Modern
Fine Lady (1736).
285
coquette with her next air, “Alas! my Lord, you’re too severe.” The piece seems to
have been written solely to show off her fine voice:
Alas! my Lord, you’re too severe
Upon so slight a thing;
And since I dare not speak for fear,
Oh give me leave to sing.
The lengthy silence due to the rests after the word “fear” aptly demonstrates
Fielding’s effective text setting. Additionally, this Seedo tune is in a galant style
with repeating gestures. The last line, Yet think not I can angry be,/With such a
noble Lord, is repeated twice for emphasis.
Chloe also sings Air X, “I’ve often heard two things,” which is also set by
Mr. Seedo, contains adroit remarks on the faithlessness of men and casts a slur on the
virtue of women. The music helps make the point in a clever way. In the B section
of the air, Chloe warns both men and women:
The Man who’ll prove/Once false to Love,
Will still make Truth his Scoff;
And Woman that/Has—you know what,
Will never leave it off.
Seedo interrupts the eighth-note patter to put “you know what” on slow dotted
quarter notes in order to emphasize their illicit meaning, before resuming the eight-
note melody for “will never leave it off.” Furthermore, the manuscript version
shows a trill on “know,” which probably caused Clive to hold it just a little longer in
order to prolong the bawdy turn of phrase.
Lovemore bursts in on Chloe and her “Lord Lace,” and rails against being
dropped for a “Beau” in Air XI “Some confounded Planet reigning.” The tune is
indicated as “Son confuso;” actually the aria is “Son confusa pastorella” from
286
Handel’s Poro (see Ex. 5.22).
30
In the Handel opera, the character Erissena is lost
and confused in a dark wood. There is an obvious analogy to Lovemore’s state, as
he cannot believe that the foppish “Lord Lace” could possibly attract his lover.
Fielding’s (and Seedo’s) version of the melody includes a dramatic fermata over a
measure of rest (m.65) at the end of the B section, and draws out the beginning of the
repeating A section with dotted-quarter notes (the first of which is sung up an
octave). In the original Handel aria, this pause occurs after the words “Si smarri”
(get lost)—the pause here could give time for a gesture to bring home the idea of the
cuckold’s “Horns.” These musical changes aptly demonstrate Lovemore’s
heightening fury during the aria. Fielding’s proficiency in text-setting is
demonstrated here as well; first, we notice that “Some confounded” starts with the
same letters and sounds as “Son confusa.” Secondly, Fielding sets phrases such as
“stoop so low,” and “who’d be under Woman’s Love,” to musical gestures which
gesture downwards (“who’d be under” goes below the words “Woman’s Love”). He
also situates the word “underrate” on a series of half-steps above and below D.
31
When “Some confounded Planet reigning” concludes, the music continues
directly into Air XII without break. This is an unusual technique that Fielding has
already used before in a ballad opera scene of anger. In The Grub-Street Opera’s
Act II, Scene 4, Susan, Robin, and William are fighting because of Owen’s letter-
30
Walsh printed PORUS an OPERA as it is Perform’d at the KINGS Theater in the Hay Market…
(London: J.Walsh, [1731?]), 75-77; is in D major with figures, for transverse flute, 2 violins, viola,
and basso continuo. The top of the piece reads: “Sung by Sig.ra Merighi in Porus.” The same plates
were also printed in THE Favourite SONGS in the OPERA call’d PORUS (London: Walsh, [1731?]),
75.
31
Brown was the first to notice that “Some confounded” began in the same way as “Son Confuso,”
and I thank him for pointing out some of the other instances of word-painting in this piece (personal
correspondence, 20 February 2007).
287
writing mischief. Susan sings Air XXXI (set to “Dame of Honour”), and is directly
followed by Robin and William’s duet and fight to the tune of “We’ve cheated the
parson” (Air XXXII). In The Lottery, Chloe interrupts Lovemore with Seedo’s “Dear
Sir, be not in such a Passion.” The piece is in the same key as the previous tune, and
the two characters trade the melody back and forth in a heated discussion.
Chloe. Dear Sir, be not in such a Passion,
There’s never a Maid in the Nation,
Who’ wou’d not forgo
A dull Squire for a Beau;
Love is not your proper Vocation.
Lovem. Dear Madam, be not in such a Fury,
For from St. James’s to Drury,
No Widow you’ll find,
No Wife of your Mind.
Chloe. Ah hideous! I cannot endure you.
Ah! see him—how neat!
Ah! smell him—how sweet!
Ah! hear but his honey Words flow;
What Maid in her Senses,
But must fall into Trances,
At the sight of so lovely a Beau!
At “Ah hideous!” the music almost turns to mock recitative, the beginning of which
is signified by a double barline in both the printed and manuscript versions.
However, the regular bass motion begins again, and Chloe returns to the melody on
“Ah! hear but his honey Words flow,” a phrase set to a running set of sixteenth notes
in a lovely example of word-painting. Fielding also stresses the descriptive phrase
“fall into Trances” with a falling musical gesture. The end of the piece is marked
“Da capo” in both the manuscript and printed versions, which I presume takes the
singers back to “Some confounded Planet reigning,” as the tunes are written as one
in all of the manuscript parts and scores. The music in The Lottery is unique among
ballad operas in that not all of the airs describe the character’s feelings: some of them
288
also advance the action. This entire fight between Chloe and Lovemore is tidily
contained within these two airs (“Some confounded” and “Dear Sir”).
Lovemore challenges Stocks to a duel, and Chloe sings a lament about the
possibility of seeing her “Lord Lace” hanged (“Ah think, my Lord! how I should
grieve”). This tune is also set by Mr. Seedo. He inserts a swinging, dotted-eighth-
note rhythm on the words “Tyburn Tree” as Chloe thinks about him “swinging in the
Air.” Before retiring to her private rooms in order to begin “consenting” with
Stocks, Chloe sings Air XIV “Oh how charming my Life will be,” which is set to the
tune of “White Joak.” The tune was well known as a companion piece to the vulgar
“Black Joke,” and the two pieces often appeared together in miscellanies of the
period.
32
It is possible that the version of the tune that Seedo and Fielding used was
the one found in Walsh’s The Third Book of Most Celebrated Jigs… (1730), as it is
identical to the one in the printed ballad opera (see Ex. 5.18). Unfortunately, the
original text of the tune was not included. Perhaps Fielding chose the “White Joak”
for its crude implications as to Chloe’s upcoming behavior with Stocks.
33
When Chloe and Stocks leave in order to consummate their marriage,
Lovemore enters what he now thinks is a bawdy house and offers money to Mrs.
Stocks (the sister-in-law of the groom) in order to procure Chloe for him. In his song
32
See THE THIRD BOOK of The most Celebrated Jiggs, Lancashire Hornpipes, Scotch and Highland
Litls…To which is added the Black Joak, the White Joak, the Brown the Red and the Yellow
Joaks…(London: Printed for J. Walsh, 1730), 7. Both the Black Joke and White Joke in The Lottery
(printed 2nd ed.) are the same keys as printed in Walsh, although the melodies have slight
differences—to fit the words, no doubt.
33
Notably, Fielding uses “white” in his new text, in a sort of vaudeville fashion:
A Halter ‘round your white neck bound
Instead of Solitaire.
A “solitaire,” according to Brown, is the black collar band that men commonly wore during this era
(see his “‘I cacciatori amanti,’ The Portrait of Count Giacomo Durazzo and His Wife by Martin van
Meytens the Younger,” in Metropolitan Museum Journal 32 (1997), 167).
289
to her, “When the Candidate offers his Purse” (an original air by Seedo), Lovemore
likens a politician to a bawd. Unlike the endings of the other pieces in the
manuscripts, there is no orchestral ritornello or conclusion, allowing the tune to be
cut off by Mrs. Stocks’s cries of protests.
The final scene of The Lottery takes place at the Guildhall, where the tickets
are being drawn. The first tune in this scene is sung by Stocks. “The Lottery just is
beginning” parodies a simile aria by comparing the Adventurers’ chance at getting in
on the action to a lover’s fleeting chance at a woman’s virtue. Fielding has chosen
the “South-Sea Ballad” most likely because it parallels his feelings concerning
lotteries; namely, that they are frauds. Though there were several South-Sea Ballads
written during this era, they all concern the same topic: the “South Sea Bubble,” a
notorious economic bubble that had burst in England in 1720.
34
The collapse was
due to a government investing scheme that overvalued stock in the South Sea
Company, a company which had been granted a monopoly on trade in South
34
The ballad used by Fielding in this instance is one called “A New South Sea Ballad Made and Sung
by Mr Anthony Aston in the Magician or Harliquin [sic] Director” (BL G.316.g). The words of the
first verse even refer to a lottery book:
Here’s a whim wham new come over,
and who will prick at my Lott’ry Book,
it’s spic-and-span new to Dover,
from France where it lately took;
T’will ease you of all your Troubles ho!
by a Chymical new Chymerical way;
But first of all down wth ye Bubbles ho!
For this is the fairest play;
Come Jenny the Chamber maid trudge it;
come Tinker and Pawn thy Budget.
And Gillian no longer amble on foot.
290
America. When investors speculated too wildly, fortunes were lost on a grand scale;
even Sir Isaac Newton famously lost over £20,000.
35
The hackney coachman (Mullart) appears again to sing Air XVI, “In all
Trades we’ve had.” The tune Fielding selected, “Buff-Coat,” has a voluntary-like
melody that might have been accompanied by trumpets. Indeed, when we notice in
the manuscript that the key has been transposed to D major, the addition of these
instruments seems very likely. The subject is the one of the dishonesty of stock-
jobbers, and the author places the deviousness of those practicing this profession
above lawyers and the (mainly Jewish) financiers in “Change-Alley.”
36
The next two tunes, Air XVIII and Air XIX (“Number One Hundred Thirty
Two!” and “Number Six Thousand Eighty Two”) advance the action of the plot.
Two men take turns calling out ticket numbers in both airs, and they are broken up
only one line of dialogue by one of the background characters, called only “I. Mob.”
The two tunes chosen for these airs are “Now ponder well, ye Parents dear,” and
“Dutch Skipper. Second Part.” They are surprisingly not in the same key, though
they are sung by the same characters both times. According to the manuscripts of
The Lottery, the second tune was transposed down a fourth for the singer from the
version printed by Watts; in addition, both tunes have eight-measure introductions
35
See J. Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (London: Cresset Press, 1960) and Virginia Cowles, The
Great Swindle: The Story of the South Sea Bubble (London: Collins, 1960 and reprinted 2002). This
tune was used previously in The Beggar’s Opera (Air XLII [Act III, Air II]) and Fielding’s The Grub-
Street Opera.
36
See Dugaw, “High Change in ‘Change Alley’”: Popular Ballads and Emergent Capitalism in the
Eighteenth Century,” in Eighteenth-Century Life 22/2 (1998), 43-58, who also sees the “South Sea
Ballad” as an anti-Semitic rant.
291
and no ending ritornellos.
37
The second air (“Number Six Thousand Eighty Two”)
includes a “Chorus” indication at the end of the printed version, and by looking at
the manuscript we can see that the final stanza was meant to be repeated, presumably
with everyone singing together. It is also possible that this number would have
included a dance, as the Dutch Skipper was a popular dance tune.
38
Lovemore appears when Chloe’s ticket comes up a blank and her new
husband (finally unmasked as Jack Stocks) wishes to have nothing to do with her.
He sings “Now, my dear Chloe, behold a true Lover” to the tune of “Virgins
beware.” The first appearance of this tune was in Colley Cibber’s 1729 pastoral
ballad opera Love in a Riddle (later shortened to one act and called Damon and
Phillida), where the music was written by Henry Carey (see Ex. 5.23).
39
Kitty Clive
starred in the original production of this pastoral piece as well as the one-act
adaptation, playing the main character Phillida. The original words of this air are as
follows:
Virgins, beware how you fix on a Lover!
Beds of Flowers may harbour a Snake;
Gold and Silver gayly may cover
Heads that wander, and Hearts that forsake.
Courtly Rovers,
37
In the printed edition, the first air is in F major and the second in C major, which was a related key
and therefore easier to move into after only one line of dialogue; however, with the transposed version
in the manuscript, the key of the second air (G major) was now in an unrelated key. The protracted
introduction (eight measures), which no doubt interrupts the moving along of the drama, makes much
more sense in this case.
38
“Now ponder well” was used often in ballad operas. Gay used it in The Beggar’s Opera, and
Fielding also used this tune in The Author’s Farce and An Old Man Taught Wisdom. The second part
of the Dutch Skipper is also known as the “Jigg” and it had a very specific dance assigned to it. A
manuscript held by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (E24) says that the jigg was to be
danced “Longways for as many as will,” and a note to the musicians says “Each Strain is to be play’d
twice over.” The dance is described thus: “Then being in the second Couples Place, the first and
second Couple Hands all four across quite round, and turn single…Then Hands across all four back
again, and turn single…Then all four turn their Backs inward and go quite round, and turn
single…And Right and Left quite round, and turn your Partner…”
39
Cibber, Love in a Riddle…(London: Printed for J. Watts, 1729), 39, 86.
292
When bound for Life,
Seldom Lovers
Prove to the Wife.
But on the Plains poor Swains are true;
Nor love themselves, but die for You.
One can assume that Fielding used this tune as a not-so-subtle hint to Chloe (and a
warning to other women), who will now go into keeping as Lovemore purchases her
from Stocks (note the final line: “Love shall hold thee dearer than Wife”). The piece
is tuneful, with repeating gestures in the second stanza. Chloe seems happy with the
arrangement, as she believes “what the dull Husband denies, Is better supply’d by
Gallant.” The original air is set by Mr. Seedo, and is unusual in that it is in a minor
key (G minor in the printed edition, and F minor in the manuscripts)—perhaps the
key signals that Chloe is still upset over the events, or does not intend to keep
faithful to Lovemore?
The Lottery concludes with a strophic vaudeville final-type ending, where the
entire cast is assembled on stage and each of the main characters sings a verse of
“That the World is a Lottery, what Man can doubt?”
40
Each of the verses for each of
the characters is entirely written out in the manuscript. The original tune for this
dance-like air is not indicated, but we can identify it from its timbre-like refrain as
“Sing Tantara Rara” or “Ye Madcaps of England,” a tune also employed previously
40
The extras and secondary characters which were involved in the lottery drawing sequence are still
on stage, as the directions in the printed edition describe that the “Commissioners, &c. close the
Wheels, and come forward” before the last air.
293
by Fielding in The Grub-Street Opera.
41
It is likely that the audience joined in on the
refrain “Sing Tantararara,” as sometimes occurred in the finales of ballad operas.
42
***
The Lottery was one of Fielding’s greatest successes, and remained one of the
staples of the Drury Lane repertoire for many years. The ballad opera enjoyed
revivals throughout the eighteenth century, even as late as 1783. Undoubtedly,
Seedo’s showy new music was refreshing for audiences who were used to hearing
many of the same traditional ballad tunes every night at the theaters. In addition, the
work’s lasting popularity was certainly due to the solid career-making performances
of so many fine actors, particularly those of audience favorites Clive and Stoppelaer.
Fielding’s excellent musical choices—along with his intuitive selection of well-
suited actor-singers—added much to this well-written and enduringly funny stage
work.
41
For information on the different incarnations of this popular seventeenth-century tune, see Simpson,
664-66. One interesting version of the song was written by Garrick, called “All in the Wrong”
(ca.1750) and beginning “Ye Critics above, and ye Critics below.”
42
We have some evidence of audience participation in singing ballads in the operas; for example,
Cibber invited the audience to sing along to the sung epilogue composed by Carey in his Love in a
Riddle. The refrain to the sung epilogue is as follows:
Then, Free-born Boys, all make a Noise,
As France has done before us;
With English Hearts, all bear your Parts,
And join the Jolly Chorus.
294
Table 5.6. Table of Airs and Actors in the First and Second Editions of The Lottery
(1732)
The Lottery, 1
st
edition: The Lottery, 2
nd
edition: Character/Actor:
1. A Lottery is a Taxation.
(“Set by Mr. Seedo”)
2. Here are the best Horses.
(Free-Masons Tune)
3. The Soldier, in a hard
Campaign. (Black Joke)
4. Women in vain Love’s
powerful Torrent. (Chloe is
false, but still she is
charming)
5. How hapless is the
Virgin’s Fate. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
6. Farewel, ye Hills and
Valleys. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
7. Oh what Pleasure will
abound. (In Perseus and
Andromeda)
8. When Love is lodg’d
within the Heart. (“Set by
Mr. Seedo”)
9. Alas! My Lord, you’re too
severe. (“Set by Mr. Seedo”)
10. I’ve often heard. (“Set by
Mr. Seedo”)
11. Nice Honour, by a
private Man. (Dame of
Honour)
12. Some confounded Planet
reigning. (Son Confus)
1. A Lottery is a Taxation.
(“Set by Mr. Seedo”)
2. Here are the best Horses.
(Free-Masons Tune)
3. The Soldier, in a hard
Campaign. (Black Joke)
4. Women in vain Love’s
powerful Torrent. (Chloe is
false, but still she is
charming)
5. How hapless is the
Virgin’s Fate. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
6. Farewel, ye Hills and
Valleys. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
7. Oh what Pleasures will
abound. (In Perseus and
Andromeda)
8. When Love is lodg’d
within the Heart. (“Set by
Mr. Seedo”)
9. Alas! My Lord, you’re too
severe. (“Set by Mr. Seedo”)
10. I’ve often heard. (“Set by
Mr. Seedo”)
11. Some confounded Planet
reigning. (Son Confuso)
Mr. Stocks (Mr. Harper)
Mr. Stocks (Mr. Harper)
Second Buyer (Mr. Mullart)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppelaer)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppelaer)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppelaer)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppelaer)
295
Table 5.6. Continued
13. Dear Sir, be not in such a
Passion. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
14. Ah think, my Lord! How
I shou’d grieve. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
15. Whom do not Debts
inthral? (Hunt the squirrel)
16. When the Candidate
offers his Purse. (“Set by
Mr. Seedo”)
17. Heav’n fear’d, when first
it Woman made. (“Set by
Mr. Seedo”)
18. Smile, smile, my Chloe,
smile. (Si Caro)
12. Dear Sir, be not in such a
Passion. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
13. Ah think, my Lord! How
I shou’d grieve. (“Set by Mr.
Seedo”)
14. Oh how charming my
Life will be. (White Joak)
15. When the Candidate
offers his Purse. (“Set by
Mr. Seedo”)
16. The Lottery just is
beginning. (South-Sea
Ballad)
17. In all Trades we’ve had.
(Buff-Coat)
18. Number One Hundred
Thirty Two! (Now ponder
well, ye Parents dear)
19. Number Six Thousand
Eighty Two. (Dutch Skipper.
Second Part.)
20. Now, my dear Chloe,
behold a true Lover. (Virgins
beware)
21. Since you whom I lov’d.
(“Set by Mr. Seedo”)
Chloe (Miss
Raftor)/Lovemore (Mr.
Stoppelaer)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppelaer)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppleaer)
Mr. Stocks (Mr. Harper)
Second Buyer (Mr. Mullart)
1st and 2nd Procl. (no actors
named)
1st and 2nd Procl. (no actors
named)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppelaer)
Lovemore (Mr. Stoppelaer)
Chloe (Miss Raftor)
296
Table 5.6. Continued
19. That the World is a
Lottery, what Man can
doubt? [Ye Madcaps of
England]
22. That the World is a
Lottery, what Man can
doubt? [Ye Madcaps of
England]
Lovemore (Mr.
Stoppelaer)/Stocks (Mr.
Harper)/Chorus
297
Fig. 5.4. The Stage Mutiny. Caricature by Laguerre. Houghton Library, Harvard
Theatre Collection.
298
Ex. 5.17. Anonymous, “The FREE MASON’s Health,” iii, Musical Miscellany (1729-
31)
299
300
Ex. 5.18. Traditional, three “Joak” tunes from Walsh’s The Third Book of the most
Celebrated Jiggs… (1730)
301
Ex. 5.19. Handel, “Nò, non piangete, pupille belle,” Il Floridante (1721)
302
303
304
Ex. 5.20. Seedo, “The Country Girl’s Farewell,” song sheet, British Library [1740?]
305
Ex. 5.21. Galliard, Part three of the “Haymaker’s Dance,” Perseus and Andromeda
(1730)
Ex. 5.22. Handel, “Son confusa pastorella,” Poro [1731?]
306
307
308
Ex. 5.23. Carey, “Virgins Beware,” Love in a Riddle (1729)
309
CHAPTER VI:
CONCLUSION
Fielding as Musical Inspiration in the Late Eighteenth Century
Fielding’s genius is evident in his ability to write varying kinds of successful
theatrical works (both musical and non-musical), as well as widely differing types of
ballad operas. Significantly, Fielding switched from using traditional and popular
airs in his ballad operas (as in The Author’s Farce and The Grub-Street Opera) to
trying out some newly composed music by Seedo in The Lottery and The Mock
Doctor and entirely original music for Miss Lucy in Town. Furthermore, this crucial
change occurs over a theatrical career with a notably short span. Fielding’s earlier
full-length ballad operas contained as many as sixty-five tunes, though by the time
he wrote Tumble-Down Dick he used only five airs. Most noteworthy is Fielding’s
last ballad opera, Miss Lucy in Town, in which he used eight newly composed airs
(now lost); additionally, in Miss Lucy and in Eurydice he even includes recitative.
From this shift we can see that the direction of English opera was beginning to turn
from full-length ballad operas (and their surplus of old airs) to shorter musical
afterpieces, burlettas, and comic operas with newly-composed music and recitative,
all of which were important in England during the middle part of the century. In
short, Fielding’s ballad operas are both the culmination of the Restoration opera
tradition and the beginning of a new, modern species of English theater and opera.
In light of this realization, it therefore was unfortunate that Fielding’s
lucrative dramatic career was short-lived, as was the popularity of ballad opera in
310
general. The Licensing Act in 1737, with its provisions for censorship of the London
stage and the suppression of several theaters, ended the experimentation of this
unique type of musical stage work, as well as the dramatic career of Fielding, who
then turned to writing novels. Roberts has stated that “clearly, the ballad operas
provided him with at least part of the testing ground on which he developed the
handling of language, theme, and characterization that make classics of [his novels]
Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones.”
1
Had Fielding continued to be successful as a
playwright and as an author of ballad operas, he might never have turned to writing
his famous novels at all. It is very likely that the history of English opera and
musical theater would have been quite different.
Even after the decline of ballad opera in the late 1730s, Fielding’s afterpieces
were still popular as several of them remained in the repertoire.
2
In the late 1760s
and early 1770s, works by Fielding—still considered one of England’s greatest
writers—received a resurgence of interest, and several composers wrote operas that
had been inspired by his stories, both dramatic and literary.
In Chapter I, we saw that Fielding’s Tom Thumb play would go on to become
quite a popular subject with later opera composers. The first musical adaptation
appeared in 1733 by William Hatchett and Eliza Haywood and was printed by
1
Roberts, “Eighteenth-Century,” 80. Other scholars have explored the links between Fielding’s plays
and novels. See Frederick Wilbur, Henry Fielding’s Life in the Theatre and the New Species of
Writing, Ph.D. diss. (Duke University, 1974): “Joseph Andrews is, in a very real sense, a final
manifestation of the spirit moving behind the plays and the career in the theatre. The continuity
between them is everywhere evident. Fielding’s plays and his life in the theatre may be seen almost
to predict the structure and the themes of Joseph Andrews.” (392)
2
According to The Index to The London Stage, The Author’s Farce had two revivals in 1748 (at
Covent Garden on March 28, and at the Little Haymarket on May 4), and Don Quixote was revived
several times, even as late as 1782. The Intriguing Chambermaid, The Mock Doctor, An Old Man
Taught Wisdom, or The Virgin Unmask’d, and The Lottery were revived the most, and were used as
afterpieces well into the nineteenth century.
311
Rayner. Titled The Opera of Operas, the opera was a “rehearsal play” with an added
character, Sir Crit-Operatical, who commented on the tragedy. Hatchett and
Haywood’s adaptation had thirty-three airs; these same tunes were set to music by
two different composers for different productions. The first musical setting was
composed by T. A. Arne for the Haymarket company (1733) and the second was by
J. F. Lampe for performances at Drury Lane (also in 1733).
3
The tunes are not
included in the printed volume of the opera, but a later publication includes Arne’s
version of The overture, songs, duets, & choruses, in Tom Thumb…(London: J.
Preston, 1781). A third version, by Kane O’Hara entitled Tom Thumb: A burletta,
appeared in 1780; no music survives. Charles Dibdin wrote another Tom Thumb
burletta called The Life, Death, and Renovation of Tom Thumb; a legendary
burletta… (London, 1785).
4
Arne and Fielding also had a long relationship, at least musically. We are not
entirely sure how well the two knew each other, or if they even formally met at all.
We do know that Fielding was acquainted with Arne’s music, as he effectively
satirized his Fall of Phaeton music in his own parody, Tumble-Down Dick. We also
know that Arne was the theater composer who set the music for Fielding’s Miss Lucy
in Town (written in 1737). It is tempting to think that the two had a chance to work
together closely when the work was finally staged in 1742. Arne later revised this
ballad opera as The Country Madcap in London for a performance in 1770.
3
There is some confusion over the history of The Opera of Operas, which was staged in three
different versions in 1733 alone (another version was composed by Arne in 1780). For a discussion
of this “first burlesque opera,” see Fiske, English Theatre Music, 145-49.
4
Although only the libretto was published, Dibdin’s music survives in manuscript in the British
Library (Add. 30952).
312
Arne’s comic opera Squire Badger: A burletta, in two parts, as it is
performed at the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket (London: printed for E. Cox, 1772)
was derived from Fielding’s ballad opera Don Quixote in England. In Arne’s
version of the story, the politicizing of Sir Thomas is much reduced and the focus is
on the love story between Clarinda (previously Dorothea) and Fairlove, with tart
asides thrown in by Clarinda’s maid, Pert. Some of Fielding’s musical choices were
retained, including “Oh hasten my Lover, dear Cupid,” “The Doctor is feed for a
dangerous Draught,” “Thus the Merchant, who with Pleasure” (slightly changed into
the Duetto “Thus the Merchant fails to measure”), as well as the famous “The dusky
Night rides down the Sky,” which was reprinted numerous times over the coming
decade and was a Vauxhall favorite (see Ex. 5.4).
5
Squire Badger was also reprinted as The Sot; A burletta in two parts
(London: printed for Cox and Bigg, 1775), with a few minor changes. Both versions
have the same number of airs, and a grand musical finale with a “Quartetto,”
recitative and “Duetto,” and ending with a rousing “Air and Chorus.” An
ADVERTISEMENT on the front matter of the published volume explains:
The Characters and Design of this Piece are taken from a Ballad Opera, written by
Henry Fielding, Esq. Some of the Songs are likewise written by that celebrated Author; but
many others, with the Quintetto and Chorus necessarily added, and the Measure of the
Dialect is obliged to be changed throughout, on account of its being delivered in Recitative.
As with the text, the music in The Sot is much the same as that in Squire Badger, but
the words have been cleaned up a bit. One tune that was retained by Arne was
5
See for instance BL G.312.(176.), H.1601.s.(13.), I.596.(34.), and G.426.kk.(52.). Mrs. Farrell was a
young singer who made her career with The Sot in 1775, and was advertised over a year later as “Mrs
Farrell, who sang the admired hunting song in The Sot.” She went on to play a very memorable
Macheath in The Beggar’s Opera in 1777, and it is highly possible that this song was added by Arne
as an incidental number, as it was a standard favorite in her repertoire.
313
Fielding’s “Sweet’s the little Maid” (the original tune was set to the tune of
“Giminiani’s Minuet”), which is sung by Fairlove in all three versions. The Squire
Badger text is as follows:
6
Sweet’s the little maid,
Who hath not learn’d her trade,
Fearing, yet languishing to be taught;
Tho’ she’s ne’er so coy,
You’ll reap the greater joy,
When she’s at last to compliance brought:
Women full of skill,
Sooner grant your will;
But all obtain’d---‘ tis not worth a groat.
Sweet’s the little maid, &c.
The Sot changes the words of the same air, though the meaning is similar:
Sweet’s the artless maid,
Of man’s deceit afraid,
Shuning [sic] the snare, and dreading to be caught:
Birds, by nature shy,
Tho’ from the net they fly,
Are by soft means to compliance brought.
Girls, too forward grown,
Sooner love will own;
But when obtain’d are not worth a groat.
Sweet’s the little maid, &c.
Fielding’s non-musical writings provided musical inspiration for other
composers, especially in France. Tom Jones, popular all over Europe, was
inspiration for the three-act opéra-comique of the same name by François-André
Philidor in 1766. In the opéra-comique, Philidor and Poinsinet use Fielding’s rural
6
Arne’s words are based closely on Fielding’s version, which in Don Quixote is sung by the bawdy
Jezebel (poor Don Quixote thinks this “transporting Melody” is the lovely singing of his imaginary
love, Dulcinea, which adds extra humor when the audience hears the coarseness of the words):
Sweet’s the little Maid,
That has not learnt her Trade,
Fears, yet languishes to be taught;
Tho’ she’s shy and coy,
Still she’ll give you Joy,
When she’s once to Compliance brought,
Women full of Skill
Sooner grant your Will,
But often purchas’d are good for nought.
Sweet’s the little Maid, &c.
314
characters to make fun of the English. Of note is the lovely septet at the end of Act
II; Philidor was one of the first opera composers to write septets. Fortunately, the
orchestral parts for the opera were printed, and today the full score is available in a
modern edition by Dover. There were numerous other French adaptations of the
novel, though they were not musical.
7
The same novel also found its way to the English stage during the same
period, as Tom Jones, a comic opera by Joseph Reed (printed in both London and
Dublin, 1769). In his Preface, Reed details the influence of the novel, and was quick
to deny that Philidor’s French version had any influence:
IT is needless to say the following Opera is taken from FIELDING’s celebrated novel of
Tom Jones; a production so replete with wit, humour, and character, that it can never want
admirers while the English language remains. My extreme veneration for the memory of the
truly-witty and ingenious novelist, naturally led me to preserve as much of FIELDING
throughout my Opera, as the nature of my plan would allow. Nay, when it was thought
necessary to shorten the piece, lest it should be too long in representation, I readily parted
with my own, to retain as much as possible of the invaluable Original…[Reed lists the
changes he has made]…I have endeavored to purge [Squire] Western’s character of its
coarseness and indelicacy, in conformity to the refined taste of the present age…
While I was writing the last act of this Opera (which was in June, 1765), the French Tom
Jones fell into my hands. I found its plan so very confined, and so materially different from
mine, that I could reap little or no benefit from it.
The music in this comic opera is a pastiche of the music of several composers. Many
tunes are “Set by Mr. Arnold,” but most of the music is Arne, Handel, Pergolesi,
“Mr. Bach,” and Hasse. Reed even decided to use Fielding’s timeless “The Roast
Beef of Old England.” “Old Sir Simon the King” also appears in Act II of the opera;
this is particularly appropriate, since in the novel this tune was said to be one of
7
See G. Ross Roy’s “French Stage Adaptations of Tom Jones” in Revue de Littérature Comparée
44/1 (1970), 82-94, where he discusses the Philidor/Poisinet adaptation, Desforges’s adaptation,
Colman’s The Jealous Wife (1761) and Piédeter’s Sophie et Francourt (1783). The Huntington has
manuscripts of Reed’s Tom Jones opera (Larpent 290) and Squire Badger (Larpent 333).
315
Squire Western’s favorites.
8
Some tunes are not indicated, and the musical relation
of this work to the ballad opera genre is obvious, both musically and in its theme. It
is a true tribute to Fielding and shows his enduring influence.
Some Conclusions and Possibilities for Future Research
In the course of this study we have seen several notable aspects of ballad
operas, some of which are suggestive of avenues for further research. These include
strains of anti-Semitism in the plots and music of the operas, and various gender-
related issues. Ballad operas seem to demonstrate a pervasively negative view of
women; wives are usually portrayed as cuckold-makers or social-climbing shrews,
and the single women are rendered as exceedingly foolish. The anti-Semitic
characterizations in the operas are also quite striking, especially in light of the fact
that at least one successful ballad opera author was known to be Jewish. Finally,
there is so much music contained in Fielding’s ballad operas that a dissertation-
length study simply would never be able to concern itself with all of it. There is
much analysis of the music and texts yet to be completed, and no doubt it will yield
additional rewards.
Do Fielding’s ballad operas, then, deserve a place in the theater repertoire of
the present day? The answer is that most of the pieces have a tremendous amount of
potential. There is no doubt that Fielding’s operas are among the most varied and
interesting of the genre, and their skillful humor still comes across in contemporary
8
Squire Western “never relished any music but what was light and airy; and indeed his most favorite
tunes were Old Sir Simon the King, St. George he was for England, Bobbing Joan, and some others.”
(Tom Jones, II.v.)
316
readings. Indeed, the genre of ballad opera is very similar to modern musicals in
structure and tone, and several of Fielding’s works, for example Eurydice and Don
Quixote in England, still have a great deal of relevance today. In addition, the short
length of most ballad operas makes them easier to perform than many other
Restoration-era plays or operas. Fielding’s musical works ought to be very
successful in modern performance, especially if the music and dancing are done
well. The existence of playhouse parts for The Lottery assisted in reconstructing a
score for this ballad opera (see Appendix I), and can serve as a guide for recreating
the music in other works.
Fielding’s Eurydice and Miss Lucy in Town were staged by undergraduate
students at a 2004 conference at Yale, where they received an enthusiastic response.
Other performances of Fielding’s ballad operas have been staged quietly at various
venues over the years, but the music has never been dealt with in a serious way. As
this study has shown, music is a significant part of the dramaturgy. Fielding chose
his tunes carefully and selected actor-singers who could perform the airs with a great
deal of skill. Although it is often difficult to find talented actors who can sing, we
must not forget to see the ballad operas in the same way as did eighteenth-century
audiences: as vehicles for the musical and dramatic abilities of their favorite actors.
We also must not forget that the text of the ballad opera is only one part of the
performance, and that music made up an even greater part of the operas than is
shown in the surviving printed editions. One would also need introductory music,
entr’acte pieces with singing and dancing, act tunes, and possibly even an afterpiece
in order to stage one of these pieces properly. As more information is uncovered
317
about musical practices in the theater, reconstructing ballad operas and their music
for performance will become easier for modern companies.
***
Fielding’s contributions to ballad opera are considerable, and his operas are
central to any study of the genre. Because Fielding wrote the largest number of
operas, he therefore has left us much more music to examine than did Gay or any
other author. In addition, emerging evidence of the musical proficiency of the ballad
opera writers, among whom Fielding is foremost, begins to demonstrate the
important role of the genre in the rise of English opera during the eighteenth century.
It is clear that along with The Beggar’s Opera, Coffey’s The Devil to Pay, and the
early operas by Arne, Fielding’s operas can be counted among the most significant in
the development of English comic opera in the 1720s and 1730s. As Fielding’s craft
developed, the genre itself changed (most likely with Fielding’s influence),
incorporating elements of pantomime, burlesque, pastoral opera, and pastiche. The
largest alteration to comic opera in England in the second half of the century was not
in the forms, plots, conventions, or characters of the operas, but in the increasing
popularity of galant music, characteristics of which had been employed in music
from the 1720s onwards. As we have seen, many of Seedo’s original airs showed the
influence of this rising musical style, but it was not until the 1750s that galant music
enjoyed widespread admiration. Fielding, then, was among the first to use this type
of music on the English stage.
The success of old plays and ballad operas continued into the middle part of
the century; this was an effect of the Licensing Act, which made new pieces difficult
318
to stage. It was not until the 1760s that there was a fundamental shift away from the
low humor of Restoration-type comedies.
9
It must be emphasized, however, that the
native comic operas of the 1760s and 1770s written by Arne, Isaac Bickerstaff,
Charles Dibdin, and Richard Sheridan exhibit more characteristics of ballad opera
than has been fully recognized. In addition, despite Gagey’s insistence that the genre
“degenerated,” several favorite ballad operas were revived for nearly a century. This
fact contradicts his (and others’) claims that audiences were no longer interested in
the “sing-song” tunes. Perhaps sentimentality, as well as rising English patriotism,
also had something to do with the longevity of the themes, characters, and music of
the ballad operas in later comic opera.
Ballad opera, then, is an important stage in the development of modern
musical comedy. Fielding, as chief author of the genre, is a vital link between past
musical-theatrical practices and the flourishing mid-eighteenth-century comic opera
tradition in England.
9
See Hume, The Rakish Stage, 79-80. The chapter on “‘Restoration Comedy’ and its Audiences”
discusses these trends further.
319
Ex. 6.1. Seedo, the words by Fielding, vocal score, “Women in Vain,” manuscript of
The Lottery, 2nd ed., British Library [ca.1740]
320
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340
APPENDIX I:
THE MUSIC OF THE LOTTERY, 2ND EDITION (1732)
A manuscript set of parts for the second edition of The Lottery and two other ballad
operas can be found in the British Library (RM.21.c.43-5). The set, which also
includes music for other theatrical productions, seems to have been used in actual
performances. The ballad operas consist of separate parts for Violino Primo, Violino
Secondo, Violoncello, and voice with unfigured Basso. As was common practice, the
two violins are in unison and double the voice part for much of the music. In
addition, the cello follows the basso line in most of the airs. The fact that the cello is
tacet in places is evidence that the parts were probably arranged by the theater
director in collaboration with the copyist, as was the practice during this era. I have
attempted to recreate with this score the way in which the music would have been
presented during its performances in the early eighteenth century: each player would
have had his own part, arranged especially for him by the director. In modern
performance, it would then be up to the music director to put together and arrange
these parts as he or she sees fit.
Dialogue cues and dynamics were marked in the manuscripts and were reproduced
here. For the most part, the capitalization has been kept the same as in the
manuscript, but punctuation from the printed edition was inserted for ease of reading.
Spelling irregularities have been silently corrected.



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
Air I
Set by Mr. Seedo
A Lottery is a Taxation
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





 
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
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 
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
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
 
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
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


 
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 




Mr. Stocks
  




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 
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
 Basso

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 
 






 


 

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  
 





 





 


 


  
 




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 


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
   



  


 







  


 




341











 







 
  

piano










 







 
  

piano


   
Song
A



 

  


  



 

  


  





 



 




 

 


 


 




 



 




 

 


 


 




Lot
 
te - ry



- is
 
a Tax



a

 
- tion,


- u pon



- all
 
the fools


 
_in

Cre

-


piano


 
 



  


piano


 
 



  
342




 
 





 












 
 





 












a
 
tion;

- and

hea


ven - be



prais'd,
 
it is



ea


si - ly



- rais'd,

Cre

-




 




 






 




 






 







 
    


 




 







 
    


 




du
 
li - ty's



- al


ways - in


 
fa

shion:

-

For

fol ly's




- a

Fund,

will



 


  



 


 


  



 
343






 


 













 


 











ne ver


 
- lose

Ground,

while

Fools are




so

rife


in the











 








 





 

forte












 



 

forte












 


Na

tion.

-

  





forte





  





forte





  
344










Free-Masons Tune
Here are the Best Horses
Air II --worth ten thousand Pounds.
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





 
  





   






 
  





   






Mr. Stocks
  










 



Basso







 






  





 
piano
 
  








  





 
piano
 
  







 
Here
Mr. Stocks

are

the

best

hor


ses, - that














piano















piano




345






   




  





 






   




  





 





e

ver

- ran

Cour
 
ses, - Here



is

the

best

Pad


for your



Wife,

Sir;
 
who







 













 












 
   














 





 
   














 






rides

one

a

Day,
 
if



luck's


in his



way,

may ride



in

a

Coach
 
all his






 
 




 





 
 




 


346






 
 
  





   







 
 
  





   






life,

Sir.
 
The

Sports

man

- es

teems


- his



Horse

more

than

Gems,
 
that
















 













 






  





 



   







  





 



   






leaps

o'er

a

pi


ti - ful



Gate,

Sir,
 
but here



is

a

Hack,
 
if you

























  
 
347
















 

















 






Sit


but his



back,

will leap


 
you in



to
 
- an Es



-



 







 








 
forte


 



 




 




 
forte


 



 




 



tate,

Sir.
   






forte

 











forte

 





348










--in a Minute at play. Air III
Black Joke
The Soldier, in a hard Campaign
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello






 

 

 

  



 
 







 

 

 

  



 
 





2nd Buyer
   
 

 
 
 

  


 
Basso

 
 
 

  






 

  









 
piano


 

 



 

  









 
piano


 

 



  
The


Sold

ier


- in

a


 


 

  




piano
 
 
 


 

  




piano
 
 
349




 

  



 
 



 

  




 

  



 
 



 

  




hard Cam




paign, - gets




less



than


a


Game ster,





- by


throw ing
 



- a


Main, or




 
 

  




 
 
 

  




 











 


 

 










 


 

 



dea ling





- to


Bub bles,




- and


all, all




that:

The


stou

test


- Sai

lor,


-
 

  





 
 
 

  





 
 
350




 

  



 
 





 

  



 
 





[e v'ry
 

- one]




- knows, gets




less



than


the


Court ier,





- with


 
 

  


 
 

  






 

  









 




 

  









 




crin ging




- bows, and,




Sir,


I'm


your


Vas sal,




and


all, all




that:

and


 


 

  





 


 

  





351







 

 






 
 
 






 

 






 
 
 



Town

bred


- La

dies


- too, they




Say,

get less

 
by


Vir

tue,


-
 
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 




 







 


 

  




 







 


 

  




than by




Play;

and dow



dy


- Joan

had


ne 'er - been




known, nor




 


 


 




 


 


 




352





 
 



 

  













 
 



 

  












Coach had




been her




La dy
 

- ship's




- Lot, but




for the





black


Ace,

and


 
 




 

  
 
 




 

  






 
forte











 




 
forte











 


all, all




that.

  
 




forte



  




 




forte



  




353










--Arrow still sticks in her side. Air IV
Women in vain Love's powerful Torrent
Chloe is false
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello






 













 









 Lovemore
   












Basso


























 








piano



 








 








piano



 




   
Wo

men

- in

vain
 


love's







 





piano










 





piano




354













 



















 









po

wer

- ful

tor



rent,

- with


un

e

- qual
 

- Strength




op

pose;


-












 
 











 











 
















 













Rea

son,

- a

while, -
 


may

stem

the

strong

Cur



rent,

- Love

still

at


    














355














 
















 















last

her
 

Soul




o'er

flows.


Plea

sures

- in

vi

-

ting,

-

    



 





 















   



  











   



  

Pas

sions - ex


ci




- ting,



- Her

Lo

ver

- Charms

her,



of

Pride

dis

-

 



 



 

 





 



356






















 










 

arms

her;



down,

down she


goes.


 






 






 



forte
   








 

forte
   








 

   

forte








 

forte








 
357
Set by Mr. Seedo Air V
How hapless is the Virgin's Fate
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





--fallen into the Collonel's.







 
 




















 
 













Lovemore
    

















 



Basso














 










 
 










 


piano















 
 










 


piano










   
How


hap less


is




the






 












piano
 









 













piano




358





 
 


 
















 
 


 
















Vir
 

gin's - fate,
 



whom


all


man kind's




- pur su

 
- ing;


- for


while


she flies




this





 




 



 

 





 




 



 

 







 
 










 







 
 










 







treach 'rous
 

- bait,
 



from


that she





meetsher


ru

 
in.




- So






 













 









359





















 





















 





the


poor Hare,




when


out


of breath,




from


hound


to


Man is prest,







Then























































































she


en coun


- ters




- cer tain


- death




and


'scapes the


Gent


ler


-




 



 








 



 






360
Da Capo.
Da Capo.


























 
















 





Beast.


  





forte
 












  
361





--and falling Waters.
Farewell, ye Hills and Valleys
Air VI
Set by Mr. Seedo
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello














  













  






Chloe
 
 


  









 



Basso
 






























 

 









 





















 

 









 







  
 

















 







 

















 







362

















piano







  
















Chloe
piano







  
















Fare well,


- ye




hills


and


Val leys;




-

fare well


ye


Ver


dant




- Shades;
 

I'll


 


 
piano















 

 


 
piano















 






















 












 











 












 







make


more


plea sant




- Sal lies,
 



-

to


Plays




and Mas


quer


- ades.

 


-
 









 







 









 







363


































  






















  





With


joy,


for


Town


I'll


bar ter




-

those


banks


whereflo


wers




- grow;


what


are


 


 



 









 


 



 

































  























  
















Ro ses


- to




a


Gar ter?




-

what


Lil lies


- to


a


Beau?




 







 







 
 







 







 
364







forte

















forte

















 
 



forte






 
 



forte






 
365





In Perseus and Andromeda
Air VII
O what Pleasures will abound
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello



--to begin methinks.




  







 





  







 

Chloe
  








Basso 






















piano




  







 





piano




  







 


O
Chloe.
what


plea



sures

- will

a bound,



- when I've


got



ten




piano









piano






366











  












  




thou

sand - pound!



Oh how


cour



ted

- I

shall be!
























  















  











Oh


what




Lords



will

sue

to me!



who'll dis


pu


- te




- my















367













































Wit and


beau


ty?



- when My


Gol


den


- Charms


are


found:


































































O what


flat


te


- ry,



- in the


Lot


te


- ry,



- when I've


got


ten

















368












 




forte













 




forte














thou sand


- pound!



 



forte







forte




369










When Love is lodg'd within the Heart
Set by Mr. Seedo
Air VIII
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello



--have mercy upon her.



 

 


 














 

 


 











Chloe
   







 





Basso






 

















 
piano



 

 


 











 
piano



 

 


 












Chloe.
When


love


is


lodg'd with


in
 



- the


heart, poor


Vir


tue


- to


the





 

piano





 



 

piano





 


370


  
 


 

 

 


 

  
 


 

 

 


 


out
 

works flies;
 



the
 

Tongue,


in


Thun - der,


takes
 



her


part,


she








 






 









 






 

 







 






 

 

darts


her Light


ning




- from


her
 

Eyes.



From


lips


and


Eyes


with


 
























371









 







 
 
 








 







 
 
 


Gift ed


Grace,




in


vain


we


keep


out


char ming


- Sin;




for


Love will


find


some

 

 
 

 







 
 

 











 
 
 









 
 
 








weak er


- place


to


let




the


dear


In va


- der




-


















372
Da Capo.
Da Capo.




 
forte








 
 


 
forte








 
 

in.
 
  

 
 





 

 

forte
 
373





Alas! My Lord, you're too severe
Set by Mr. Seedo
Air IX
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello






--me with your Eyes.








 














 






Chloe
 
 











 


Basso





























  
piano




















  
piano






 
A


-
 


 










 

 


 










 

374












 








 






















 








 
















las!
 
my


Lord,

 
you're


too
 
Se vere


-

 
u pon




- so

slight a





 


piano
























 


piano











































 

 



















 

 






thing;



and


since


I dare


not


speak




for
 

fear,

 
O


 




 






   

 




 

 


 

   

375




















 




 












 




 








give


me


leave


to Sing.

 

A


Ru

ral

- Maid


you'll


 






 



 



 






 



 














 






 







 









 






 







 




find in




me

 


that


fate,



that


fate


I've oft


de



 
-
 











 





 











 





376


























































plor'd;


-

then


think


not


I


can an


gry




- be,


withsuch


a


no


ble


-


 










 






























 




















 






Lord,
 
yet


think


not I


can


an


gry

 

- be

 
with


 











 


 











 


377




















  







  
3








  
forte
forte







  
3




such


a


No ble


- Lord.

  
 
 






 
forte






 
 






 
forte






 
378










Set by Mr. Seedo
Air X
I've often heard
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello




--you'll always be so.




 




 














 




 










Chloe
   
 

 





  


 
Basso

 





  



















piano











 







piano











 





I've
Chloe


of ten




- heard

two


things a


verr'd



- by


 




piano
 






 




piano
 






379












 





 



 














 





 



 






my dear




Grand ma


- mma,




-

to


be as




sure, as
 



light is

 


pure, or




 
 







 
 


  
 
 







 
 


  























 



 














 



 















kna ve


- ry


- in


 

Law.



The


Man who'll




prove

once


 









 
 


 







 
 


380
















 
 






















 
 










false to




love,

will


still make




truth his




Scoff;
  
and


e ve



- ry




- Wo man




-
 



  











 



  

















 



 




 












 



 




 










that



has


you


know

 
what,



will


ne ver




- leave it




 






 

 





 



 






 

 





 



381
















 
forte















 
forte













off.



  
 
 


forte











 



forte











382










Air XI
Son Confuso
Some confounded Planet reigning
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello




--Sacrifice to a Monkey.







  















  








Lovemore
     
 












 
Basso















 










 












 










 













       
 





















 





















383











 
 

piano







  









 
 

piano







  


    
Some


Con found


- ed




- Pla


net
 
-
 




















 
































































reign ing



- must have



mov'd you



to these




airs;

Or


could your



 













 













384

























 























 


In


cli


- na



- tion


-

Stoop


so


low




from


my


Pas

sion


- to


a

Beau?
 
 





















 
 




























  




  




    





  




  




    





Blood
 

and


Thun der!




-

Wounds
 

and


Won der!




-

Can
 

you


un der
 

-


-
 








 



 








 



385





 

 







 

 









 

 







 

 








rate me

 


so?
 



But


since


I, to




each Pre


ten
 

- der,



-

my


Pre


-
 
 


 

 












 
 


 

 


















 




       
 

 

 




 




       
 

 

 


ten


sions




- must Sur


ren


- der,


 
-

Fare well
 



- all your
 
 


frowns
 

and
 
 








 

    
 








 

    
386




 

 

   




  





 


 

 

   




  





 


Scorns;
 

 


Rot
 

me,


Ma dam,




- I



wish
 

my


Ri val




- joy!



Much

 
 
  
 

 




 
  
 
  
 

 




 
  




 


 

 
 
fortissimo



 






  


 


 

 
 



 






  


joy much
 



joy
 

of


his Horns.
 

 



Zounds!
fortissimo
 
and


Fu ries!




- Can


I
 
 


 



 















 


 



 















387
















 
 

















 
 





bear it?



Can I



tame ly



- Standthe




Shock?
 
Sure
 
ten



 















 


































 






















 







thou


sand




- De

vils


-

can


not


pro

ve


-

half


such


E vils,
 



- as


to

 
















 



 
















 



388




  






 
  




  






 
  




love.
 
Blood




and


Thun der!




- Wounds


and

Won der!



-

Who'd


be


 
 

















 
 







































 





















 

[Chloe]












un der





- Wo man's



- Love?


Dear


Sir,


be


not


in


such


a


 








piano




 


 








piano




 


389

















 





















 








Pas sion,




-

there's


ne ver




- a


Maid


in


the


Na tion,




-

who


would not





fore


-
 














 


















 











 









 











 









go
 
a


dull

Squ ire




- for


a


Beau;


Love


is
 

not




your


pro per




- Vo


-
 






 


 




 






 


 




390












 















[Lovemore]





 












ca


- tion.


Dear


Ma dam,






- be

not


in


such


a


Fu ry,




-

from


 










 






 










 


















 




















 












St.


James's to



Dru


ry,




-

no


Wi - dow




you'll


find, no





 









 



 









 



391











piano







 












piano







 





Wife of




your


Mind.




Ah!
Chloe


hid eous!




-

I


can not
 



en


-
 







 








 

 







 







 











 





 


 





 











 





 


 





 





dure


you.



Ah!


see


him
 


how neat!




 
Ah!


smell
 

him



how


sweet!
 

Ah!


 






 







 



 

 






 







 



 

392










 





 
  









 





 
  



hear


but


his


ho ney




- wordsflow;

 

what Maid



in


her


Sen ses,




-

but


must


 












 












Da Capo.
Da Capo.








 


  





 







 


  





 



fall


in to





Tran ces,




-

at
 

the


Sight

of


so


love

ly


- a


Beau!


 
  











 
 
  











 
393










Set by Mr. Seedo
Air XII
Ah think my Lord!
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello



--have a care of yourself.

 


 
 



 







 


 
 



 






Chloe
    





 
 


 

Basso




 
 


 









 
 
piano

 


 
 




 








 
 
piano

 


 
 




 


 
Chloe
Ah


think,

my Lord!


 

how


I

shall

grieve,


to







 

piano



 
 


 





 

piano



 
 


 
394






 
 





    


 










 
 





    


 







see

your Lord


 

ship


- bang'd;


but


great

er

- still
 
my


fears, be

 

lieve,




- lest


































 





 


  






 

 





 


  






 


I

shou'd

see you


hang'd.


 
Ah!


who
  
cou'd


see,

on

Ty burn



-
 
 





 



 







 



 


395





 






 



   





 






 



   



Tree,


you


Swing

ing - in



the

Air;
 

A


Hal

ter

- round
 
your



 

 

 








 

 

 










  
 







 

  
 







 

white

neck

bound,


in stead


- of


So


li


-

 
-




 









 





396



 
forte









 
 

 
forte









 
 

taire.
 
   

 
forte
 





 

 
forte
 





 
397










O how charming my Life will be
Air XIII
White Joak
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





--I long to be one of them.
 



 





 







 



 





 







Chloe   
 

 

  

  


 
 Basso
 

  

  





















 
piano
 





















 
piano
 







  
O
Chloe

how


charm ing




- my


 



 



  


piano
 


 



 



  


piano
 


398












 
 


















 
 











Life will




be,

when Mar


riage





- has


made


me


a


Fine

La dy!


- In




 

 

  




 
 

 

  




 






 







 
 








 







 
 







Char iot,



- Six




Hor ses,




- and


Dia monds




- bright,

In


Flan

ders


- Lace, and




 




  


 


 




  


 


399




 






 
 










 






 
 











'broi de


- ry




- Clothes,

O how





I


will


flame


it


a mong



- the


Beaus! In




 

 

  




 
 

 

  




 






 







 
 

 



 

 




 







 
 

 



 

 



Bed



all


the


Dayand




Cards


all


the


Night.
 
O!
 

how


I'll


re vel




- the


hours a


way!


 
-
 




  




 


 
 




  




 


 
400





 

 

















 

 

















Sing, and
 



dance


it,


Co quette




- it,


and


play;

With feas



ting,


- toas

ting,


-
 



 


 
 


 



 


 
 









 


 















 


 













Jes

ting,


- roas ting, - Ran




tam,


- Scan tum,




- flaun

ting,


- jaun ting, -




 

 


 




 
 

 


 




 
401
















 







 
forte








 




 







 
forte








 



laugh ing





- at


all the




world can




say.
 
 
 



 





forte
 
 





 




  



forte
 
 





402










Set by Mr. Seedo
Air XIV
When the Candidate offers his Purse
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





--the sauce box mean.








 














 






Lovemore
   
 

 



 


 
 Basso
 



 








 






piano












 






piano











  
Lovemore
When


the


Can di


- date


-


 






 
piano


 






 
piano


403





 









 

 



 









 

 



of

fers

- his

Purse,

what

Vo ter




- re qu


- ires



- what

he

meant?

When


a


 














 

























 
 





















 
 















great Man


at


tempts


 

- to


dis

burse,

- what

lit

tle

- man

asks

his in




-
 





 


 






 





 

 






404





 

















 

















tent?

Are


you


not

then a


sham'd,



- when


my


Mis

tress - I've




 

  





 




















































nam'd,

and


my


purse

I've pull'd


out,



a ny




- lon

ger - to




 










 
 










 
405












 














 







doubt

my

mean

ing, good


Mo



ther?

- my

mean

ing,

- my

 













 



















 










 









mean

ing,

- my

mean

ing, - good


Mo



ther?

-
 






forte

 






forte

406




 
forte

 





 


 
forte

 





 



   
 

   
 

   
407










Air XV
South-Sea Ballad
The Lottery just is beginning
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





--they begin presently.




 




 















 




 











Mr. Stocks
   
 

 


  
 


 
 
 Basso
 


  
 


 





 




 






 








  



 




 






 








  



    
 






  
 


 



 








  
 


 



408









 




 















 




 











The


Lot ter


- y




- just


is


be gin


- ing,



-

'twill


soon


be


too


late to




 


piano



  
 


 
 


piano



  
 


 





 




 






 





 




 






 





get
 

an


Es tate,



- for For


tune,




- like


Dames


fond


of


sin ning,


 
does


the


 



 



  
 
 



 



  
 
409











  


 






 











  


 






 





tar dy




- Ad ven


- tur


- er




- hate.
  
Then


if


you've


a


mind


to




have


her,
 
to


 



 










 
 



 










 





 






 











 






 











day

with


vi gour




- pur sue




- her,
 
o or


else

to mor


- row,




- you'll


 





 

  


 





 

  


410







 


 






 







 


 






 





find
 

to


your


Sor row,




- she'asgran


ted




- a no


- ther




- the


fa vour,



-

Or


 

   



  
 
 

   



  
 











 




 













 




 







else

to mor


- row,




- you'll


find
 

to


your


Sor row,




- She'as gran


ted




- a no


- ther




- the


 



 


 




 



 








411







 








  







 








  





fa vour,



-

which


to day




- she


in ten


- ded




- for


you.
  

 

 
 


 


 
 

 
 


 


 





forte
 






 








  



forte
 






 








  



   
 

forte



  
 


 



 

forte



  
 


 



412










Buff-Coat
In all Trades we've had
Air XVI
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





--don't break his neck.




 


 







 


 


 Coachman
[2nd Buyer]
  
 

 

 


 
 
 Basso
 

 


 










 
piano


 











 
piano


 






 
In all



trades

we've

had

some

 







 
piano


 
 







 
piano


 
413






 


 



 




 






 


 



 




 





good


and


some

bad,
 
but


a

Stock

job

ber

- has

no

fel

low;

-

To


 



 








 



 













 




 


 






 




 


 






Hell

who

wou'd

sal

ly,

- let


him


go


to


Change

Al
 
ley,


- there


are


 



 


 
 



 


 
414





 




 
 



 




 
 



Fiends

who

will

make

his

Soul

bel

low.

-

The

 







 
 







 











 


 














 


 








Law


yer


- who's

been


in


the

Pil
 
lo - ry



- seen,

while

 



 
 


 



 
 


415










 



  









 



  




Eggs


his


Com

plex
 
- ion


- make

yel

low;

-

Nay,


the


 









 




















 


 



 



 












 


 



 



 






De


vil's


- to

blame,


or


he'll

own
 
to


his

shame,
 
that


a

Stock

Job

ber

- has

no

 

 
 








 

 
 








416






 
forte






 




 
forte






 



Fel

low.

-

  
 




forte








 




forte








417










Number One Hundred Thirty Two
Air XVII
Now ponder well, ye Parents dear
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello




--to begin drawing.



 




 




 







 




 




 




1 Procl.
   














Basso 

















 




 







piano







 




 







piano


     
Num

-














piano















piano

418






 




 




 








 




 




 






ber


one


hun
 
dred


- thir ty




- two!
 
[2 Procl.]
That


Num ber




- is
 
a


blank.

[1 Procl.]
Num

-





























 

 




 









 

 




 










ber


one


hun
 
dred


- nine ty




- two,
 
[2 Procl.]
And


that's


a no

 
- ther

- blank.

[1 Procl.]
Num

-


























419






 




 




 








 




 




 






ber


Six


Thou
 
sand


- seven ty




- one!
 
[2 Procl.]
That


Num ber




- blank
 
is


found.

[1 Procl.]
Num

-





























 

 




 







 

 




 








ber


Six


Thou
 
sand


- Eigh ty




- two,
 
[2 Procl.]
O


that


is


twen

ty

-






















420





forte









forte








Pound.

  











forte
  
421










Air XVIII
Dutch Skipper. Second Part.
Number Six Thousand Eighty Two
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello




--Some Prizes here.







 












 





1 Procl.
 
 

 


 
Basso

 






  
 


  
 


  




  
 


  
 


  




  
 




 




 
 




 




 
422









 




 

 
 


 

 
 

 







 




 

 
 


 

 
 

 


  
 
 




 


 
 
 




 


 






 






 



  
 






 






 



  
 





Num




- ber Six



Thou
 
- sand



Eigh

ty

- two,


[2 Procl.]
Is



 


 
piano
 






 


 
piano
 






423




  
 


  







 





  
 


  







 





Twen

ty

- Pound,


is



Twen

ty

- Pound.

Num
[1 Procl.]




ber - Six



Thou
 
sand



-
 
 





  


 
 





  
















  
 


 

 
 

 






  
 


 

 
 

 



Chorus forte



Eigh

ty

- two!


Oh
[2 Procl.]



that
 

is

twen


- ty


 
Pound.



You

 


 


 


 
 


 


 


 
424




 



 



 


  















 



 



 


  















see
 
'tis all



fair,
 
see



no
 
thing - is



there,
 
the



Ham


mer - goes



down,


Hey



 
 


 

  


 




 

  
















 


  








 








 


  








 








Pres
 
to! - be



gone,
 
and



up


comes the



twen
 
ty



- Pound.



 
 

 






 



 






425










Air XIX
Virgins Beware
Now my dear Chloe, behold a true Lover
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello





--Now I'm undone indeed.







 















 








Lovemore
 














Basso













piano










 








piano










 








Now,


my


dear

Chlo


e,


- be

hold
 
- a


true

Lo

ver,

-



piano











piano








426















 


















 








whom,


tho'


your

cru


el - ty



- seem'd
 
to


dis

dain,


-





































 




























 


















Now

your

doubts


and



fears
 
may


dis

co

- ver,

- One

kind

look's


a


re

-






























427





 















 



 















 



ward
 
for


his

pain.


Thus

to

fold

thee,

how blest


is


Life!


 













































 













 



Love

shall

hold

thee

dea rer


- than


Wife.


 









 










 

428





   




   







   




   







What

joys

in

chains

of dull


Mar



riage

- can

be?











 











 
















 














 








Love's

on

ly

- hap

py

- when

li
 
king


- is

free.


























429





forte






 








forte






 








 



forte












forte









430










Set by Mr. Seedo
Since you whom I lov'd
Air XX
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello






--as I lik'd it before.




































Chloe
  





 
 
 
 
 





Basso

 
 
 
 
 
















 





  
piano











 





  
piano












 
Since


you


whom


I


lov'd

so








 

  

piano
 
 






 

  

piano
 
 
431

























 











  





 











  






cru el




- have


prov'd;

and


you


whom


I


slight ed




- so


true:
  
From


my






 
 
 



 

  





 
 
 



 

  








 






  





 







 






  





 






de li


- cate
 



fine


pow der'd




- Spouse,


  
I


re tract




- all


my


thrown
 

a way







  

  
 
 








  

  
 
 





432


























 

 
 







  






 

 
 







  






Vows,
 

 
and
 

give


'em


with


Plea sure




- to


you.
  
Hence






 








  





 








  







































all


wo men




- learn,

when


your


Hus bands




- grow


Stern,

and






 
 
 
 
 





 
 
 
 
 

433

























 





  



 







 





  



 








leave


you


in


Con ju


- gal




- want;
  
Ne ver




- whim per


 

- and


weep


out


your








 

  

 








 

  

 










 





 


 

 








 





 


 

 






Eyes,


 
while what


 

the


dull


Hus band
 



- de nies,


 

-
 
is
 





 
 
 




  






 
 
 




  


434






















  
forte








  










  
forte








  




bet ter




- Sup plied




- by


Gal lant.


 
-

  



 





  
forte








  



 





  
forte








  
435










That the World is a Lottery
Air XXI
[Ye Madcaps of England]
Violino Primo
Violino Secondo
Violoncello




--deceiv'd in a Lottery.


 

 




 

 


Lovemore
 
 

 


 
Basso

 







  



 

 

  





  



 

 

  




  
 


 


   


 


 


   


436


















 

 
















 

 


 
That


the


World

is

a

Lot

te

- ry,

-
 
 






 


 
 






 







  



 

 



  



 

 


what

man

can

doubt?

When born



we're

put

in,


when

 


 


 
 


 


 
437





  













  












dead,

we're

drawn

out;

And


tho'


Tick


ets


- are

bought

by

the

 
 

  


 
 

  






 













 













Fool,

and

the

Wise,


Yet


tis

plain


there


are

more

than

ten

 








 








438

























Chorus forte















blanks


to


a

Prize.

Sing

Tan


ta - ra



- ra

- ra,

- fools

all,

fools

all,

Sing

 












 






























 

 
















 

 


tan


ta - ra



- ra

- ra,

- fools

all.



[Mr. Stocks]
The

Court

has

it

self

- a

bad

 








 


 








 


439





  



 

 

  





  



 

 

  




Lot

te

- ry's

- face,

when ten



draw

a

blank,

be

fore

- one

draws

a

Place;

for


a


 


 


   


 


 


   














 













 





Tick


et


- in

Law


who

wou'd

give

you

thanks?

For


that


 
 






 
 

 



440
















































Wheel


con



tains


scarce

a

ny

- but

blanks.
[Chorus forte]

Sing

Tan


ta - ra



- ra

- ra,

- keep

 












 



















 

















 














out,

keep

out,

Sing

tan


ta - ra



- ra

- ra,

- keep

out.



[Lovemore]
'Mongs't

 












 












441





 

 

  





 

 

  




Doc

tors

- and

Law

yers

- some

good

ones

are

found;

but


a


-
 
 




 
 
 




 





 

 

  





 

 

  




las

they

are

rare

as

the

Ten

Thou

sand

- Pound.

How


 


   


 


   


442












 













 





scarce


is


a

Prize,

if

with

Wo

men

- you

deal,

Take

 
 






 
 

 















 





















 













care


how


you

mar

ry

- for

O

in

that

wheel

[Chorus forte]
Sing

Tan


ta - ra



- ra

- ra,

- blanks

 












 












443










































all,

blanks,

all

Sing

Tan


ta - ra



- ra

- ra,

- blanks

all.



[Mr. Stocks]
That


the


 












 

















 

 

  





 

 

  




Stage

is

a

Lot

t'ry,

- by

all

'tis

a

greed,

- where


 
 




 
 
 




 
444





 

 

  





 

 

  




ten

Plays

are

damn'd,


e'er

one

can

suc

ceed;

- the


 


   


 


   














 





















 













blanks


are


so

ma

ny,

- the

Pri

zes

- so

few,

we

all


are


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446
447
APPENDIX II:
FIELDING’S STAGE WORKS
1728 Love in Several Masques (16 February, Drury Lane)
1730 The Temple Beau (26 January, Goodman’s Fields)
*The Author’s Farce (30 March, Haymarket)
Tom Thumb (24 April, Haymarket)
Rape upon Rape (revised as The Coffee-House Politician) (23 June, Haymarket)
1731 The Letter Writers (24 March, Haymarket)
The Tragedy of Tragedies (revision of Tom Thumb) (24 March, Haymarket)
*The Welsh Opera (revised as The Grub-Street Opera, suppressed) (22 April,
Haymarket)
1732 *The Lottery (1 January, Drury Lane)
The Modern Husband (14 February, Drury Lane)
The Old Debauchees (1 June, Drury Lane)
The Covent Garden Tragedy (1 June, Drury Lane)
*The Mock Doctor (23 June, Drury Lane)
1733 The Miser (17 February, Drury Lane)
*Deborah (lost) (6 April, Drury Lane)
1734 *The Author’s Farce, revised version (15 January, Drury Lane)
*The Intriguing Chambermaid (15 January, Drury Lane)
*Don Quixote in England (5 April, Haymarket)
1735 *An Old Man Taught Wisdom (6 January, Drury Lane)
The Universal Gallant (10 February, Drury Lane)
1736 (organized “Great Mogul’s Company of Comedians” at the Haymarket)
Pasquin (5 March, Haymarket)
*Tumble-Down Dick (29 April, Haymarket)
1737 (the stage Licensing Act)
*Eurydice (19 February, Drury Lane)
The Historical Register (21 March, Haymarket)
Eurydice Hiss’d (13 April, Haymarket)
1739 (The Champion begins publication)
1740 (Fielding called to the bar, 20 June)
1741 (Shamela published)
1742 (Joseph Andrews published)
*Miss Lucy in Town (6 May, Drury Lane)
1743 (Miscellanies published)
The Wedding Day (17 February, Drury Lane)
1748 (appointed Justice of Peace for Westminster)
1749 (Tom Jones published)
1752 (Amelia published)
(The Covent Garden Journal published)
1753 (Died in Lisbon, 8 October)
1754 (Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon published)
1778 The Fathers, or the Good-natur’d Man (30 November, Drury Lane)
* denotes those which are ballad operas
448
APPENDIX III:
INDEX OF FIELDING’S TUNES AND FIRST LINES
KEY: Abbrev.
The Author’s Farce
The Coffee-House Politician
Don Quixote in England
Eurydice
The Fathers, or the Good-Natured Man
The Grub-Street Opera
The Intriguing Chambermaid
The Lottery (all editions)
The Lottery (1st ed. only)
The Lottery (2nd ed. only)
Love in Several Masques
The Letter-Writers
The Mock Doctor (all editions)
The Mock Doctor (1st ed. only)
The Mock Doctor (2nd ed. only)
Miss Lucy in Town
An Old Man Taught Wisdom (all editions)
An Old Man Taught Wisdom (1st ed. only)
An Old Man Taught Wisdom (2nd ed. only)
Rape upon Rape
The Temple Beau
The Tragedy of Tragedies
Tom Thumb
The Welsh Opera
AF
CHP
DQ
EU
F
GSO
IC
L
L1
L2
LISM
LW
MD
MD1
MD2
MLIT
OMTW
OMTW1
OMTW2
RUR
TB
TOT
TT
WO
Note: Italicized items below are the first lines of airs, which only occasionally
became identified as the song’s title.
Abbot of Canterbury (also called “Derry Down” and “A Cobler There
Was”), TDD
Ah be not angry, good dear Sir, OMTW
Ah Doctor! I long much as misers for pelf, GSO
Ah Sir! I guess, OMTW
Ah think, my Lord! how I shou'd grieve, L
Alack how alter’d is my Fate!, AF
Alas! how unhappy is that Woman's Fate, MD1
449
Alas! my Lord, you're too severe, L
All in the Downs, GSO, WO
All Mankind are mad, 'tis plain, DQ
All Men are Birds by Nature, Sir, AF
As down in a Meadow, MD1, IC, GSO
Away each meek pretender flies, AF
Barbarous cruel Man, AF
Bartholomew Fair, OMTW1
Beauties shall quit their darling Town, GSO
Be gone, thou Shame of Human Race, MLIT
Be kind and love (also found as anon. “Mi brilla nel seno un certo
seren”), AF
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, MD, OMTW, WO, GSO
Black Joke, AF, DQ, GSO, L, WO
Bobbing Joan (also known as “Bobbing Joe”), AF
Brightest Nymph, turn here thy Eyes, MLIT
Britons strike Home, GSO, WO
Buff-Coat, GSO, L2, OMTW, IC
Bush of Boon, IC, OMTW
Butter’d Pease, AF
Can my Goddess then forget, AF
Canny Boatman, GSO
Caro vien (originally G. F. Handel, “Caro, vieni al mio seno,” Poro,
1731), GSO, WO
Charming Billy, AF
Chloe is false, but still she is charming (also known as “Chloe proves
false,” originally G. F. Handel, “Nò, non piangete, pupille belle,”
Floridante, 1721), L, GSO
Claps universal, Applauses resounding, AF
Cold and raw, DQ
Come all who’ve heard my Cushion beat, AF
Come on, come on, come on, WO
Come to Church my Lads and Lasses, WO
Come, Charlotte, let's be gay, IC
Country Bumpkin, DQ, WO
Country Garden, GSO, WO
Couples united, ever delighted, GSO
Cruelest Creature, why have you woo'd me, GSO
Cupid ease a love-sick Maid, TT, TOT
Cupid, God of pleasing Anguish, GSO
Dainty Davy, GSO, WO
Dame of Honour (also called “Since All the World’s Turn’d upside
Down”), GSO, L1, WO, AF
Dear Sir, be not in such a Passion, L
Dearest Charmer [see “Dimi Caro”]
450
Dearest Creature, OMTW
Did Mortal e'er see two such Fools, OMTW
Dimi Caro [Dimmi Caro] (originally G. F. Handel, “Dimmi cara,”
Scipione, 1726), GSO, OMTW
Does my dearest Harriot ask, AF
Doctor is feed for a dangerous Draught, The, DQ
Dog his Bitt, The, GSO, WO
Do not ask me, Charming Phillis, GSO, WO, EU
Do you, Papa, but find a Coach, OMTW
Dusky Night rides down the Sky, The, DQ
Dusty Millar, AF
Dutch Skipper [includes Dutch Skipper, Second Part], GSO, WO, L2
Excuse me [See Buff-Coat]
Excuse me, Sir: Zounds what d'ye mean, OMTW
Fair Dorinda, AF
Fanny blooming Fair, IC
Farewel, my Dear, EU
Farewel, ye Groves and Mountains, EU
Farewel, ye Hills and Valleys, L
Fig for the dainty civil Spouse, A, MD2
Fill every Glass, RUR
First of August, The (also known as “Charles of Sweden,” “Come
Jolly Bacchus,” or “The Constant Lover”), AF
Fond Echo, GSO, WO
Free-Mason's Tune, GSO, L
From Aberdeen to Edinburgh, DQ
From Lessons like these, EU
Gaudy Sun adorning, The, GSO
Geminiani’s Minuet, DQ, AF
Gentle Preacher, Non-con Teacher, AF
Gently touch the warbling Lyre [see Geminiani’s Minuet]
Gilliflower gentle Rosemary, TDD
Giminiani's Minuet [see Geminiani’s Minuet]
Go marry what Blockhead you will, Miss, OMTW1
Go thrash your own Rib, Sir, at Home, MD
Go, and like a slub'bring Bess howl [see Sleepy Body]
Good Madam Cook, the greasy, GSO
Great Courtiers Palaces contain, GSO, TDD
Had your Daughter been physick'd well, Sir, as she ought, OMTW
Happy the Animals who stray, DQ
Happy with the Man I love, GSO
Hark, hark, the Cock crows, GSO, IC, WO
Have you heard of a frolicksome Ditty, DQ, OMTW1
Heav'n fear'd, when first it Woman made, L1
Hedge-Lane, GSO, WO
451
Here are the best Horses, L
Here stands honest Bob, who ne'er in his Life, GSO, WO
Hey Barnaby, take it for Warning, AF
Highland Laddy, AF
How bless’d is a Soldier while licens’d to range, LW
How blest is a Soldier when listed to Rove, LW
How can I trust your Words precise, GSO
How curst the puny Lover!, GSO
How hapless is the Virgin's Fate, L
How happy are the Nymphs and Swains, MLIT
How happy's the Swain, GSO
How odd a Thing is Love, GSO, WO
How unhappy’s the Fate, AF
Hunt the Squirrel, AF, GSO, L1
Idle Beau if Pleasure, The, GSO
If a Husband henceforth, who has buried his Wife, EU
If Flaunting and Ranting, MLIT
If I too high aspire, GSO, WO
If Love gets into a Soldier's Heart, GSO, WO
If Men from Experience a Lesson could reap, EU
If you hope by your Skill, MD2
I'll range around, GSO
I never yet long'd for a thing in my Life, OMTW1
In all Trades we've had, L2
In ancient Days I've heard, with Horns, MD
Indeed, my Dear, GSO, WO
In formal dull Schools, MD1
In long Pig-tails and shining Lace, GSO, WO
In Perseus and Andromeda, L
In Porus [see “Son Confuso”]
In spiritual Court, I'll shew you such Sport, GSO
In this little Family plainly we find, GSO
In vain a Thousand Heroes and Kings, AF
In vain the Parson Preaches, WO
In Women we Beauty or Wit may admire, OMTW
I once as your Butler, did cheat you, GSO
I was told, in my Life, AF
I wou'd have you to know, you nasty Thing, OMTW1
Irishman loves Potatoes, An, GSO
I've heard a noncon Parson preach, GSO, WO
I've often heard, L
Joan, Joan, Joan, has a Thundring Tongue, AF
Joan, You are the Plague of my Life, AF
Jokers have said, that Men of my Trade, The, OMTW1
King's Old Courtier, DQ, GSO
452
La! what Swinging Lyes some People will sell, OMTW
Lads of Dunce, GSO, WO
Lass of Patie's Mill, GSO, IC, OMTW1, WO
Let a Set of sober Asses, CHP, RUR
Let Ambition fire the mind, GSO
Let bold Ambition lie, IC
Let Misers with Sorrow To-day, IC
Let the Drawer bring clean Glasses (originally G. F. Handel, “Il
Tricerbero umiliato,” from Rinaldo, 1711), GSO
Let the foolish Philosopher strive in his Cell, AF
Let the Learn'd talk of Books, GSO
Let the others fondly court a Throne, AF
Like Gold to a Miser, the Wit of a Lass, DQ
Like the Whig and the Tory, TB
Lillibolero, AF, DQ
Little Jack Horner, GSO, WO
Little Master, Pretty Master, GSO
London is a fine Town (sometimes “Peggy Ramsey” or “Cuckolds all”
are sung to this tune), MD, TDD
Lord Biron's Maggot, GSO, WO
Lottery is a Taxation, A, L
Lottery just is beginning, The, L2
Love and Friendship, CHP, RUR
Lusty young Smith, A, WO
Mad Moll (also called “Cam’st Thou Not from Newcastle” or
“Newcastle”), GSO, WO
March in Scipio (originally from G. F. Handel, Scipione, 1726), GSO,
WO
Masquerade Minuet, GSO, WO
May all Maids from me take Warning, AF
Midsummer Wish, GSO
Moll Pately (also known as “Gillian of Croydon”), AF
Molly Mog, OMTW
More we know [see] of Human kind, The, GSO, WO, DQ
Mother quoth Hodge, GSO, WO, DQ
Music sure hath Charms to move, MLIT
My Chloe, why do you slight me, GSO
My Name is old Hewson, GSO
My tender Heart me long beguil'd, IC
New-market (also called “Old Sir Simon the King”), AF
Nice Honour by a private Man, GSO, L1
No Tricks shall save your Bacon, AF
Now ponder well, ye Parents dear (sometimes also called “Chevy
Chase”), AF, OMTW, L2
Now, my dear Chloe, behold a true Lover, L2
453
Number One Hundred Thirty Two, L2
Number Six Thousand Eighty Two, L2
O all ye Powers above, OMTW1
O cursed Power of Gold, MD
O Gin, at length, is putting down, TDD
O London is a fine Town [see London is a fine Town]
O Mother, this Story will never go down, TDD
O press me not, Sir, to be Wife, OMTW
Of a noble Race was Shinken, GSO
Of all bad sorts of Wives, GSO
Of all the Men in London Town, AF
Of all the simple things, OMTW
Oh dear Papa! Don't look so grum, OMTW
Oh Doctor, Oh doctor, where hast thou been, GSO
Oh fie upon't, Robin, Oh fie upon't, GSO, WO
Oh for Goodness Sake forbear, GSO
Oh hasten my Lover, dear Cupid, DQ, IC
Oh how charming my Life will be, L2
Oh Jenny, Oh Jenny, GSO
Oh London is a fine Town [see London is a fine Town]
Oh Lud! I should be quite asham'd, EU
Oh Mr. Constable, Drunken Rascal, AF
Oh my Sweetissa, GSO, WO
Oh! Pity all a Maiden, AF
Oh ponder well [See “Now ponder well”]
Oh, spare to take his precious Life away, AF
Oh think not the Maid whom you scorn, GSO, WO, DQ
Oh what Pleasures will abound, L
One Evening having lost my Way, GSO
Over the Hills and far away (also known as “Jockey’s Lamentation” or
“The Recruiting Officer”), AF
Pain which tears my throbbing Breast, The, DQ
Patty’s Mill [see “Lass of Patty’s Mill”]
Pierot's Tune [Pierrot’s Dance], GSO, TDD, IC
Pinks and Lillies, MD
Play of Love, GSO
Polwarth [Polworth] on the Green, OMTW1, IC
Red House, GSO, WO
Riches, can you Ease restore, EU
Robin, come on, come on, GSO
Rogues there are of each Nation, DQ
Round, Round the Mill, OMTW
See John and his Master as together they pass, IC
See, while I strike the vocal Lyre, MLIT
Si caro (originally G. F. Handel, “Sì, caro, sì,” Admeto, 1727), GSO,
454
L1
Since you so base and faithless be, GSO
Since you whom I lov'd, L2
Sir Thomas I cannot [See “Thomas, I cannot”]
Sleepy Body, GSO
Smile, smile, my Chloe, smile, L1
Smile, smile, Sweetissa, smile, GSO
So deep within your Molly's heart, GSO
Soldier and a Sailor, A (originally by John Eccles for Congreve’s
Love for Love, 1675), WO
Soldier, in a hard Campaign, The, L
Soldier Laddy, IC
Soldier, who bravely goes, The, MD1
Some confounded Planet reigning, GSO, L
Son confuse (originally G. F. Handel, “Son confusa pastorella,” Poro,
1731), GSO, L
South-Sea Ballad [South-Sea Tune] (also known as “Diogenes Surly
and Proud” or “The Tipling Philosophers”), GSO, L2
Spring's a coming, IC
Still he's the Man, OMTW1
Stone that all things turns at will, The, AF
Sure naught [nought] so disast'rous can Woman befall, GSO, WO
Sweet are the Charms, GSO
Sweet's the little Maid, DQ
Sylvia, my Dearest [Silvia, my Dearest] (originally “Con forza ascosa”
from Ariosti’s Vespasiano, 1724), GSO, AF
Tenant of my own, GSO
That Marriage is a great Evil, EU
That the World is a Lottery, what Man can doubt, L
There was a jovial Beggar (also called “A-begging we will go”), AF,
DQ
Think, mighty Sir, ere you are undone, GSO, WO
Tho' I cannot [See “Thomas, I cannot”]
Thomas, I cannot, GSO, WO, MD2, OMTW
Thus Couples united, WO
Thus the Merchant, who with Pleasure, DQ
Thus when the Tempest high, IC
Thus when the wretched Owl is found, TDD
Thus, lovely Patient, Charlotte sees, MD2
Tipling John, GSO, WO
Tis true, my good Dear, I am Bone of your Bone, MD1
To all you Husbands, and you Wives, AF
To Beauty compar'd, pale Gold I despise, MLIT
To wanton Pleasures, roving Charms, GSO
To you Fair Ladies (also called “Shackley Hay”), AF
455
Turn oh turn, dear, do not fly me, EU
Turn, oh turn thee, dearest Creature (originally “Vieni, torna, idolo
mio,” Teseo, 1713), EU
‘Twas when the Seas were roaring, AF
‘Twas Down in a Meadow [see “As Down in a Meadow”]
Tweed Side, GSO, WO, DQ, OMTW
Under the Greenwood Tree (also called “The Fair Maid of Islington”),
AF, GSO
Vain, Belinda, TB, TT, TOT
Valentine's Day, GSO
Virgin once was walking along, A, DQ
Virgins beware, L2
Virgins wary, IC
Virtue within a Woman's Heart, GSO, WO
Welcome again, ye rural Plains, MLIT
Were all Women's Secrets known, IC
Were I laid on Scotland’s Coast, AF
We've cheated the Parson (also known as “Harvest Home,” “Boys and
Girls come out to Play,” and “The State of Old Virgins”), GSO,
MD2, OMTW1, WO
What a wretched Life, GSO, WO
What avail large Sums of Treasure, GSO
What need be trust your Words precise, IC
What the Devil mean you thus, GSO, WO
What vast delights must Virgins prove, GSO
What Virgin e'er wou'd marry, OMTW1
What Woman her Virtue would keep, GSO, WO
When a Lady, like me, condescends to agree, MD
When a Lover like you, IC
When a Virgin in Love with a brisky jolly Lad, IC
When a Woman lies expiring, EU
When Guilt within the Bosom lies, GSO
When he in a Coach can be carry'd, OMTW
When I was a Dame of Honour [see “Dame of Honour”]
When Love is lodg'd within the Heart, GSO, L
When Master thinks fit, GSO, WO
When mighty roast Beef was the Englishman's Food, GSO, DQ
When Modesty sues for a Favour [see Oh hasten my Lover, dear
Cupid]
When mutual Passion hath posses'd, GSO, WO
When our Wives deny, OMTW1
When tender young Virgins look pale and complain, MD2
When the candidate offers his Purse, L
When you are like Bateman dead, OMTW1
While the sweet blushing Spring, F
456
Whilst I gaze on Chloe trembling (also called “While I gaze on
Chloris Trembling” or “The Lukewarm Lover”), AF
Whilst the Town’s brimfull of Folly [Farces], AF
White Joak, L2
Whom do not Debts inthral, L1
Whore of Fame is jealous, The, GSO
Why shou’d not I love Robin, GSO
Why shou’d not I love my Love [see Why shou’d not I love Robin]
Why will Florella, GSO, DQ
Why, Madam, do you give such Words as these, AF
Will my charming Creature, AF
Will you still bid me tell, GSO
Winchester Wedding (also called “The King’s Jig”), MD
Wise Man Others faults conceals, A, WO, GSO
With Joy my Heart's [Soul’s] o'erflowing, GSO, WO
Women in vain Love's powerful Torrent, GSO, L
Woman must her Honour save, A, GSO
Woman's Ware, like China, A, GSO, WO, MD
Worn-out Rake at Pleasure rails, The, GSO, WO
Wou’d you the charming Queen of Love, AF
Wou'd Fortune the Truth to discover, DQ
Would you my Love in Words display'd, GSO, WO
Wully Honey, OMTW
Ye Commons and Peers, AF
Ye Madcaps of England (also called “Sing Tantara Rara”), GSO, L
Ye Nymphs and Silvan [Sylvan] Gods (also called “The Milkmaids,”
The Merry Milkmaids,” or “The Milking Pail”), GSO, OMTW1,
WO, MD1
Ye Nymphs of Britain, to whose Eyes, LISM
Ye Virgins who would marry, GSO, WO
Yorkshire Ballad, OMTW
You wonder, perhaps, at the Tricks of the Stage, TDD
Young Daemon [Damon] once the happiest Swain, GSO, WO

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study examines the ballad operas of Henry Fielding (1707-1754), known primarily as one of the greatest novelists and satirists of eighteenth-century England. Fielding's works are fundamental to any comprehensive examination of the genre of ballad opera, and his technical and dramatic contributions are considerable. His eleven operas span many styles, ranging from full-length pieces similar to John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" to short one-act works with newly composed music that resemble later mid-century English burlettas. Many of his inspired theatrical and musical works briefly eclipsed other London entertainments in popularity and were among the best-loved stage pieces of the century.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Rogers, Vanessa Lynn (author)

Core Title Writing plays "in the sing-song way": Henry Fielding's ballad operas and early musical theater in eighteenth-century London

School Thornton School of Music

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Music (Historical Musicology)

Publication Date 08/02/2009

Defense Date 03/01/2007

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag 18th century,ballad opera,ballad operas,England,Fielding, Henry,music theatre,musical theater,OAI-PMH Harvest,plays with music,The Lottery

Place Name England (countries), London (city or populated place)

Language English

Advisor Brown, Bruce Alan (committee chair), Alkon, Paul K. (committee member), Ongaro, Giulio M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m744

Unique identifier UC1312510

Identifier etd-Rogers-20070802 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-549419 (legacy record id),usctheses-m744 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Rogers-20070802.pdf

Dmrecord 549419

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Rogers, Vanessa Lynn

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu