Masque and opera in England, 1656-1688 / Andrew R. Walkling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walkling, Andrew R., author.

Contributor:

Alfred Reginald Allen Memorial Fund of The Savoy Company.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Series:

Ashgate interdisciplinary studies in opera

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Masques with music.

England.

Opera--England--17th century.

Opera.

Masques with music--17th century--History and criticism.

Masques, English--History and criticism.

Masques, English.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xxi, 353 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Summary:

Masque and Opera in England, 1656-1688 presents a comprehensive study of the development of court masque and through-composed opera in England from the mid-1650s to the Revolution of 1688-89. In seeking to address the problem of generic categorization within a highly fragmentary corpus for which a limited amount of documentation survives, Andrew Walkling argues that our understanding of the distinctions between masque and opera must be premised upon a thorough knowledge of theatrical context and performance circumstances. Using extensive archival and literary evidence, detailed textual readings, rigorous tabular analysis, and meticulous collation of bibliographical and musical sources, this interdisciplinary study offers a host of new insights into a body of work that has long been of interest to musicologists, theatre historians, literary scholars and historians of Restoration court and political culture, but which has hitherto been imperfectly understood. A companion volume will explore the phenomenon of "dramatick opera" and its precursors on London's public stages between the early 1660s and the first decade of the eighteenth century. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I "Their greatest gallantry imaginable": Masques, balls, and "recreational" acting at court 25

1 Balls and the growth of Shrovetide entertainments 27

2 Youthful "recreational" theatrics, 1668-75 71

3 Masques and plays at court after 1675 112

Part II "For such uses as the King shall direct": Through-composed opera, foreign musicians, and the Roy a 11 Academy of Musick 141

4 Operatic experiments of the 1650s 143

5 Foreign musicians at the Restoration court, 1660-73 193

6 The Royall Academy of Musick, 1673-75 219

7 French musicians at court, 1675-89 264

8 Through-composed drama in the 1680s 291.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alfred Reginald Allen Memorial Fund of The Savoy Company.

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9781472446534

1472446534

OCLC:

944246504

Publisher Number:

99970019142