The Politics of Opera in Handel's Britain examines the involvement of Italian opera in British partisan politics in the first half of the eighteenth century, which saw Sir Robert Walpole's rise to power and George Frideric Handel's greatest period of opera production. McGeary argues that the conventional way of applying Italian opera to contemporary political events and persons by means of allegory and allusion in individual operas is mistaken; nor did partisan politics intrude into the management of the Royal Academy of Music and the Opera of the Nobility. This book shows instead how Senesino, Faustina, Cuzzoni and events at the Haymarket Theatre were used in political allegories in satirical essays directed against the Walpole ministry. Since most operas were based on ancient historical events, the librettos – like traditional histories – could be sources of examples of vice, virtue, and political precepts and wisdom that could be applied to contemporary politics.
• Corrects the mistaken approach to finding politics in Italian opera and opens the way for a more fruitful understanding of politics in opera in Britain • Identifies benchmarks for assessing the partisan politics of Italian operas and opens the way for a more plausible interpretation of opera politics • Relates Italian opera to political events in Britain, revealing how essays about events at the opera house had political objectives
Contents
1. Introduction; 2. Opera and political allegory: when is it an allegory? When is it political?; 3. Politics in the Royal Academy of Music; 4. The opera house, allegory, and the political opposition; 5. Handel's Second Academy; 6. Rival opera companies and Farinelli at the Court of Madrid; 7. Politics, theatre, and opera in the 1730s; 8. The opera stage as political history; Epilogue; Appendices: 1. Directors of the Royal Academy of Music; 2. Operas of the Royal Academy of Music; 3. Directors of the Opera of the Nobility; 4. Operas of the Opera of the Nobility; 5. Hanoverian celebratory pieces.
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