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Account of the introduction of the Mufical Drama into England, together with fome Strictures on Mr Addifon's cenfure on the Italian Opera.-By Dr Burney.

TH

HE word Opera feems to have been familiar to our poets and countrymen, during the chief part of the last century. Stilo recitativo was talked of by Ben Johnfon, fo early as the year 1617, when it was a recent innovation even in Italy, After this it was used in other mafques, particularly fcenes of plays, and in cantatas, before a reguar drama, wholly fet to mufic, was attempted.

But the high favour to which operas had amounted in France by the united abilities of Quinault and Lulli, feems to have given birth to several attempts at Dramatic Music in England.

Sir William D'Avenant dying in 1663, while his new theatre in Dorfet Gardens was building, the patent, and management, devolved on his widow, Lady D'Avenant, and his fon Mr Charles, afterwards Dr D'A

This fenfual fupply of fight and found,' continues he, "coming in to "the affiftance of the weaker party, it was no wonder they should grow too hard for fenfe and fimple nature, when it is confidered how many more people there are, who

can fee and hear, than can think and judge.'

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Thus men without taste or ears for Mufic ever comfort themselves with imagining that their contempt for what they neither feel nor underftand is a mark of fuperior wisdom, and that every lover of Mufic is a fool. This is the language of almoft all writers on the, fubject. The ingenious author of the Biographia Dramatica tells us, that the preference given to D'Avenant's theatre, on account of its fcenery and decorations, alarmed thofe belonging to the rival houfe. To ftop the progrefs of the public taite, and divert it towards themfelves, they endeavoured to ridi'cule the performances which were fo much followed. The perfon ' employed for this purpofe was Tho

<

mas Duffet,' (a writer of miferable farces) who parodied the Tempest,

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venant, well known as a political wri-Macbeth, and Pfyche; thefe efforts ter and civilian, who purfued Sir William's plans. The new houfe was opened in 1671; but the public ftill more inclining to favour the King's company at Drury-lane than this, obliged Mr D'Avenant to have recourse to a new fpecies of entertainments, which were afterwards called Dramatic Operas, and of which kind were the Tempeft, Macbeth, Pfyche, Circe, and fome others, all fet off,' fays Cibber, with the most expenfive decorations of fcenes and habits, and with the beft voices and dancers.'

were, however, ineffectual.' This is fair and hiftorical; but after faying that the Duke's theatre continued to be frequented; when he adds, the victory of found and fhew over fenfe and reafon was as complete in the theatre at this period, as it has ' often been fince, it feems as if fenfe and reafon had for a moment quitted this agreeable, and, in general, accurate and candid writer. Opera is an alien that is obliged filently to bear the infults of the natives, or elfe the might courteously retort, that nonfenfe without Mufic is as frequently heard on the English ftage, as with it on the Italian; indeed, when Metaflafio is the poet, who will venture to fay that either good sense or good poetry is banished from the ftage?

But it does not clearly appear, becaufe

caufe Mufic and decorations were added to Shakespear's Tempeft and Macbeth, that one theatre was in greater want of fenfe at this time than another. I have seen the dramas as they were altered by Shad well and Sir William D'Avenant, and in the latter find that little was curtailed from the original play, or fung, but what is ftill fung, and to the fame Mufic fet by Matthew Lock, of which the rude and wild excellence cannot be furpaffed. In the Operas, as they were called, on account of the Mufic, dancing, and fplendid fcenes with which they were decorated, none of the fine Speeches were made into fongs, nor

early in 1673. And in February of the fame year, Pfyche. This last was a clofe imitation of a mufical drama witten in French by Moliere, and fet by Lulli in 1672, in the manner of the Italian operas which Cardinal Mizarine had had performed to Louis XIV. during his minority. The Mufic of Pfyche, as performed in London, was not printed till 1675, when it was published with the following title: The English

Opera; or the vocal Musick in PSYCHE, with the inftrumental therein intermix'd. To which is adjoyned the inftrumental Mufic in the TEMPEST. By Matthew Lock, compofer in ordinary to his

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was the dialogue carried on in reci-Majefty, and Organist to the

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The Tempest, the first of thefe femi-operas, was given to the public

tative, which was never attempted on our itage during the last century, throughout a whole piece. Indeed, it never fully fucceeded in this, if we except the Artaxerxes of the late Dr Arne; whofe Mufic, being of a fuperior kind to what our ftage had been accustomed, and better fang, found an English audience that could even tolerate recitative. In the cenfure of thefe mufical dramas, which has been retailed from one writer to another, ever fince the middle of Charles the Second's reign to the prefent time, the fubject seems never to have been candidly and fairly examined; and, indeed, it appears as if there had been no great caufe of complaint against the public tafte for frequenting fuch reprefentations,

Queen. This publication is dedicated to James duke of Monmouth. There is a preface of some length by the Compofer, Matthew Lock, which, like his Mufic, is rough and nervous, exactly correfponding with the idea which is generated of his privatė character, by the perufal of his controverfy with Salmon, and the fight of his picture in the mufic-fchool, at Oxford. It is written with that natural petulance which probably gave birth to moft of the quarrels in which he was involved. He begins with a complaint of the tendency of his brother muficians to peck and carp at other men's conceptions, how mean foever may be their own, And expecting to fall under the lafh of fome foft-headed or hard

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fpeare, in which the principal characters were performed by Mr and Mrs Betterton, as was the cafe in Macbeth, though Mufic, machinery, and dancing, were profufely added to the treat *.

particularly thofe written by Shake-hearted compofer,' he fets about removing the few blocks at which they may take occafion to stumble,' with a degree of indignation that implies an irafcible fpirit under no great governance. The first objection which he thinks likely to be made, is to the word Opera, to which he anfwers, that it is a word borrow Y 2 ed

* Of Betterton's merit as an actor every one has heard and read; but Mrs Betterton, according to Cibber, was at once tremendous and delightful,' in the part of Lady Macbeth. See his Life, chap. v.

In the year 1733 this English drama was fet, as a coup d'effai. by Mr Thomas Aug. Arne, afterwards Dr Arne, and performed at the little theatre in the Haymarket; in which his fifter Mifs Arne, afterwards Mrs Cibber, performed the part of Rofamond, that admirable actress appearing firft on the ftage in this character as a finger. The three following airs were admirably fet, and remained long in favour; No, no, 'tis decreed-Was ever nymph like Rosamond-and, Rife glory,

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rife.'