Music in the London Theatre from Purcell to Handel

Contents

• List of figures
• Music examples
• Authors and editors
• Introduction
• Part I . From Purcell to Handel:
• 1. Purcell's 'scurvy' poets Roger Savage
• 2. Opera as literature and the triumph of music Martin Adams
• 3. The British Enchanters and George Granville's theory of opera Wolfgang Hirschmann
• 4. Lost chances: obstacles to English opera for Purcell and Handel Jeffrey Barnouw
• 5. Alexander's Feast, or The Power of Perseverance: Dryden's plan for English opera and its near-fulfilment in a Handel ode Andrew Pinnock and Bruce Wood
• Part II . Handel and Italian Opera:
• 6. Ombra mai fu: shades of Greece and Rome in the librettos for Handel's London operas Peter Brown
• 7. Handel and the uses of antiquity Reinhard Strohm
• 8. From Metastasio's Alessandro to Handel's Poro: a change of dramatic emphasis Graham Cummings
• 9. Deidamia as an 'heroi-comi-pastoral' opera Sarah McCleave
• Part III . Handel and English Works in the Theatre:
• 10. Seventeenth-century literary classics as eighteenth-century libretto sources: Congreve, Dryden and Milton in the 1730s and '40s Matthew Gardner
• 11. 'In this ballance seek a character': the role of 'Il Moderato' in L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato Ruth Smith
• 12. 'Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures': glancing and gazing spectatorship in Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato Matthew Badham
• 13. Accompanied recitative and characterisation in Handel's oratorios Liam Gorry
• 14. Handel, Charles Jennens and the advent of scriptural oratorio John H. Roberts
• Bibliography
• Index.