English Opera

What was called opera flourished in England to some extent soon after the invention of the LYRIC DRAMA (q.v.) by the Florentines. The introduction of music into stage plays was everywhere natural and easy in Europe where the earlier mystery stery plays were known. The bond between the play and the music was loose in England, and never became so closely knit as in Italian opera. Masks and other entertainments with incidental music were cultivated ab. 1650. In The Siege of Rhodes , 1654, instead of spoken dialogue recitative was used, and with the reopening of the theaters at the Restoration the love for opera grew. Purcell produced his Dido and Æneas 1675. In this also recitative was used, but soon after the conventional English form, with spoken dialogue and music introduced only in the form of songs, became fixed. The 18th century and first quarter of the 19th were prolific in these and ballad operas, the principal composers being Storace (1763-1796), Reeve (1757-1815), Hook (1746-1827), W. Shield (17481829), Dibdin (1745-1814), Kelly (1764-1826), Braham (1774-1856), and Bishop (1786-1855). The operas of these men, particularly the ballad operas, formed all the lyrico-dramatic entertainment which America enjoyed from 1750 to 1825. In the works of Balfe, Barnett, Benedict, and Wallace, the music still consists of independent pieces wrought into the plays, but a nearer approach to the lyric drama is made in the later works of Stanford, G. Thomas, and Mackenzie.