Article1997

Ballads and Britons: Imagined Community and the Continuity of ‘English’ Opera

25 citations0/0 files storedJournal of the Royal Musical Association

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

Musicology and Musical Analysis Theater, Performance, and Music History Literature, Musicology, and Cultural Analysis

Abstract

Joseph Addison'sSpectatoris perhaps the best-known early eighteenth-century periodical, its title a byword for the period's acute critical sensibility, its pages of enthusiastic enquiry a fitting monument to what we like to call the ‘Age of Reason’. Of the many commentaries on opera included in its pages,Spectatorno. 5 (6 March 1711), critiquing the inadequacy of attempts at scenic verisimilitude on London's operatic stage, is justly renowned. Addison's tale of the undesirable (and wholly unmusical) results of releasing quantities of sparrows inside a theatre derives much of its pungency from the consequences of what Addison feels to be an improper juxtaposition of 'shadows and realities': sparrows and castrati alike escape pastoral fantasy to invade more sordid reality, penetrating ‘a lady's bed-chamber’ or perching ‘upon a king's throne’.

Citations in this library

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 25 citations exist upstream.

References

2018A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period 1995Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought 1951Source Readings in Music History, from Classical Antiquity Through the Romantic Era 1995Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London

Cited by

2013FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES, AND THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF ‘RULE, BRITANNIA!’2012ALLAN RAMSAY, THE IDEA OF ‘SCOTTISH MUSIC’ AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ‘NATIONAL MUSIC’ IN EUROPE 2019British Enlightenment Theatre 2014The rival sirens: performance and identity on Handel's operatic stage 2009Fielding and Italian Opera

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.