Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • 4 - Cobblers, Country Fairs, and Cross-Dressing: Benefits and the Development of Ballad Opera

  • from Part I - Musical Benefits in the London Theatre: Networks and Repertories
  • Edited by Matthew Gardner, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany, Alison DeSimone, University of Missouri, Kansas City
  • Book:
    Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
    Published online:
    30 October 2019
    Print publication:
    31 October 2019, pp 83-102

  • Summary

    Ballad opera flourished in the 1730s and was one of the most profitable forms of theatrical entertainment in Britain. Significantly, over a quarter of all recorded ballad operas were premiered at benefit performances in London theatres, making a direct link between the benefits and the development of this extremely influential genre. This chapter utilizes advertisements for the benefit performances as well as the texts and music of ballad operas themselves in order to find out more about these important premieres. We shall see that benefit performances drove the development of ballad opera, whether by initiating experimental works by new authors, prompting a musical revision of an older repertory piece (as in the case of Flora), or by encouraging a performer to try out a new character type or singing role (as with the frequent benefit revivals of The Beggar’s Opera). This chapter argues that the benefit performances occupied a central role in the development of ballad opera and helped to craft the genre that dominated British stages for the second quarter of the century.