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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2022
The title of John Fuller Maitland's article ‘Wanted – An Opera’, in which he argued for the establishment in Britain of a state-supported national opera house, could almost be read as a statement of desire for an operatic work of British origin itself. The perception that composers produced little opera of value in the period of the so-called ‘British Music Renaissance’ has become a trope, despite research in recent years showing the extent of activity, both in terms of composition and performance, during the 20 years either side of 1900.
1 Maitland, John Fuller, ‘Wanted – An Opera’, Nineteenth Century, 43 (1898): 977–84Google Scholar.
2 Conversely, there are many parallels to be drawn between circumstances in Britain and the United States.
3 Macfarren's sole later attempt, Kenilworth (1880), remains unperformed.
4 Parallel arguments ran throughout this period for the establishment of a national theatre.
5 Individual arias from a far wider range of operas were performed in concerts, but I am referring specifically here to the immersive experience of whole operas performed in theatres.
6 It is, perhaps, no coincidence that the most successful of this period's playwrights, such as Wilde and Pinero, did not produce works that lend themselves easily to operatic adaptation: in short, few were capable of producing work that was operatic by the standards of the time.
7 The combative John Runciman conceded that he had no idea what musical style might be appropriate: ‘All that can be said is that English [sic] music must possess the subtle qualities necessary to make it acceptable to English people’; Magazine of Music, 1 July 1893, 162.
8 It is almost invidious to name specific examples, but contemporaneously successful operas include Goring Thomas's Esmeralda, Boughton's The Immortal Hour, Maccunn's Jeanie Deans and Stanford's Shamus O'Brien. Works that have been favourably viewed recently include Holst's Savitri and Smyth's The Wreckers, plus those reviewed elsewhere in this issue.