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Management of Covent Garden 190 CHAPTER 11 : MANAGEMENT OF COVENT GARDEN On Saturday 22nd September 1759 the Drury Lane prompter, Richard Cross, preparing for the new season, noted in his diary: “Mr Beard is gone to Covent Garden, ‘tis said to be Manager”.1 He was right. John Rich had not only persuaded Beard to leave Drury Lane after an uninterrupted period there of eleven years, but he had given him a managerial role for an extra annual salary of £150. The reason for this is not hard to grasp. Rich was old and ailing. He had a wife and four daughters to leave the business to. But now there was a popular performer who had joined the family as a son-in-law. This was someone he liked, respected, and trusted. He knew the theatre business through and through. In the will that he drew up around this time Beard was named as joint manager with Mrs Priscilla Rich in the event of his death. Priscilla – so long as she remained his widow – had the right to dispose of the Theatre and the Letters Patent by which it had been established. If she remarried she was to be replaced by her brother Edward Wilford, who worked in the theatre’s Treasury. If she died, the co-managers were to seek the ‘concurrence and approbation’ of his four daughters in the running of the theatre. insert portraits of John & Priscilla Rich Rich had married Priscilla as his 3rd wife on 25th November 1744. She had formerly been an actress in the company (stage name: Mrs Stevens) before becoming his housekeeper. The daughters had all been the offspring of Amy, his second wife. She had died of ‘a hectick fever’ in 1737, probably in childbirth, after producing seven children. Two sons and one daughter had died young, leaving only the four daughters Henrietta, Charlotte, Mary and Sarah. In conversations with his new son-in-law Rich envisaged a plan to meet the challenge that Garrick was currently posing at Drury Lane. Rather than compete for the same audience with the same repertoire, as the two theatres had done so many times before, notably with the famous ‘Romeo’ war of 1750 when they had pitted their strongest teams against each other,2 Beard now came up with a practical suggestion. Since the Covent Garden company contained more singers and musicians than Garrick’s, and had a better track record for putting on Ballad Opera and English masques, why not make this a feature of the new season? Why not, in fact, develop an English version of Opera? Rich handed the project over to Beard, and made him his Deputy Manager. BEARD AS DEPUTY MANAGER: 1759 - 61 The effect on Garrick’s company would be enormous. Thomas Davies, Garrick’s biographer, opens his account of Drury Lane’s currently fluctuating fortune with this description of Beard’s successful campaign: 1 Cross/Hopkins Diaries, w.a.104 (1) (2) (3) Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington USA. In addition, Ridout, who Genest refers to as ‘Rich’s Prime Minister’ was in bad health, and died in 1761. Beard replaced him. 2 “Well-informed connoisseurs took to watching Barry in the first three acts, in which he was reputed to be superior to his competitor, and then rushing to Drury Lane to catch the two final acts, in which Garrick shone”. ‘The Revels History of Drama in English’, vol. 6, London 1975, p. 101 191 “The profits of Drury Lane Theatre in 1763 fell very short in their amount to those of preceding years. This was owing to one of those revolutions in the public taste, which we cannot well be surprised at, because it so frequently happens, and is so fairly deducible from the love of novelty and variety. Mr John Beard, a man universally beloved for his many amiable qualities… applied himself with great care to the task assigned him. As he was an excellent singer, and a complete judge of all musical pieces, he was determined to promote, amongst other entertainments of the stage, that which he understood best. He, in a very short time, presented to the public English operas and ballad operas, burlesque operas and dramatic operas etc., particularly Artaxerxes, Thomas and Sally, Love in a Village, Midas, and The Maid of the Mill,; all of which were played successively, and so accommodated by music, as well as acting, to the reigning taste, that they met with uncommon approbation”. 3 By 1764 Beard had succeeded so completely that Benjamin Victor could write: “Covent Garden appears to be, at this juncture, the Seat of Music and English operas: - under the management of the late Mr Rich it was justly distinguished for Pantomimes – and now, under the direction of his son-in-law Mr Beard, Music must have its reign, and be properly supported by the best English singers”.4 But all this was in the future. As the season of 1759 approached Beard was determined to make a good start by injecting new life into an old warhorse. The Beggar’s Opera had been around since 1728 and had received little, if any, updating of its music. Beard now approached Thomas Arne with a request that he should rescore the orchestral accompaniments in a more ‘galant’ style, using a fuller orchestration. Arne, who was no lover of Garrick, and had had to fight to get his music heard at Drury Lane, accepted with alacrity. He also had his own personal reasons to change houses. Arne had produced a new singer that he felt would astonish the town with her prodigious coloratura soprano voice. Her name was Charlotte Brent. “Arne made a tender of her abilities to Mr Garrick, at a very moderate income. A taste for music, or even a tolerable ear for a song, was not among Mr Garrick’s endowments. Notwithstanding he was strongly pressed by several of his friends to employ Miss Brent, he persisted in refusing… The ensuing Winter he had full leisure to repent his obstinacy; for Mr Beard made Miss Brent his most powerful engine to demolish the success and humble the pride of Drury Lane”.5 A tale is told of Arne at this time that shows how Garrick’s instinct for what would work on the London stage was faltering. The anecdote is lively and has a ring of truth about it. “During his residence at [Thames] Ditton, near Hampton Court, Arne received a visit from Mr Garrick, chiefly with a view of hearing Miss Brent, whose taste the Doctor had cultivated with uncommon pains, and on whose vocal powers he justly set a high value. Garrick readily acquiesced in her superior merit; but at the same time told the Doctor that all his geese were swans. “Tommy”, said he, in his usual familiar way, “you should consider that music is, at 3 Thomas Davies, ‘Memoirs of the life of David Garrick Esq’, London, 1780 & 1808, p. 61-2 4 Benjamin Victor, ‘The History of the Theatres of London from 1760 to the present time’, London 1771 5 Thomas Davies, ‘Memoirs of the life of David Garrick Esq’, London, 1780 & 1808, p. 63 192 best, but pickle to my roast beef”. “By ---, Davy” replied the Doctor, in a strain of equal jocularity, “your beef shall be well pickled before I have done!” 6 Thomas Davies points out Garrick’s error by continuing his description of Drury Lane’s faltering fortunes: “… But by his engaging a new singer, rejected by the manager of Drury Lane, [Beard] absolutely turned the scale of public approbation, in spite of all the skill and various abilities of Mr Garrick, in favour of Covent Garden.”7 Beard not only engaged Arne8 and Miss Brent, but he also retained the services of Thomas Lowe, who might have thought that his job was on the line. Lowe had been the Covent Garden tenor during Beard’s eleven years at Drury Lane. He stayed with Beard for one more season before moving to Drury Lane in 1760. During this time he retained many of his old roles (which they had in common), thus freeing Beard to take part in the new works he was commissioning. The Covent Garden season started on 24th September, and for the first fortnight Beard painstakingly rehearsed his new version of The Beggar’s Opera’ with Arne. Also in the cast were his good friends John Dunstall (whose Epitaph he was to write for his gravestone some year’s later), James Bencraft – soon to be his brother-in-law,9 and the popular dancer Nancy Dawson. There is also the possibility that his mother-in-law Priscilla came out of retirement for a short while to take part in this enterprise. The Covent Garden accounts show payments to her on 13th October of £26 5s for five nights, and on 22 October of £31 10s for six nights (i.e. £5 guineas per performance). The only show on stage at the time was The Beggar’s Opera, so she must have had some kind of role in it. The first night was on 10th October, and there was an almost unparalleled run of forty performances from 10th October until 3rd December. After such a remarkable achievement Rich must have felt that he had been right to place his confidence in Beard. In all, there were 53 performances in the first season and Rich made a profit of £5,000.10 As Thomas Davies explains: “A new Polly, or a new Macheath, has successively given such a spirit and lustre to that humorous dramatic satire, that the public has often run in crowds to see it, for twenty or thirty nights successively.
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