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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Repertory and rivalry : opera and the Second Covent Garden Theatre, 1830-56. Dideriksen, Gabriella The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 Repertory and Rivalry: Opera at the Second Covent Garden Theatre, 1830 to 1856 Gabriella Dlderlksen PhD, Historical Musicology King's College London, University of London June 1997 Abstract Victorian London has hitherto frequently been regarded as an operatic backwater without original musical or theatrical talent, and has accordingly been considered only marginally important to the history of 19th-century opera in general. This study seeks to assert London's importance as an operatic centre during the mid-l9th century by establishing the history of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, later the Royal Italian Opera, as one of the three major theatres at which opera was staged, as well as the details of opera production. The operatic repertory of Covent Garden consisted to a large extent of adaptations and translations of foreign works, and it is the lack of understanding of this concept to which many of the misconceptions concerning the London opera industry owe their origin. Owing to the scarcity of adequate secondary research tools and the conversely vast number of largely untapped primary sources, the structure of this thesis necessarily crosses the boundaries of strictly musicological research into theatre history. It establishes for the first time the details of operatic and theatrical management at Covent Garden from 1830 to 1856 by focusing on the management and finance, the artistic policy of individual managers (in particular with regard to opera), the repertory structure, and the details of individual opera productions. In particular this investigation has concentrated on the establishment and analysis of a repertory calendar, an examination of the finances and organisation of the theatre through mainly legal and financial documents, and a comprehensive study of libretti and musical sources for opera productions at Covent Garden. This project for the first time provides a detailed and systematic analysis of opera production in mid-l9th century London. It has -2- furthermore resulted in a study of Covent Garden within the cultural context of London in the first half of the 19th century, a subject corresponding with other major research work currently being undertaken on the opera houses in Paris and Italy. -3- Contents Pages Abstract 2 Contents 4 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 8 Part One - Competition and Financial Management 18-131 Chapter One: The Theatre Royal Covent Garden 20-65 1) Monopoly versus Competition 20 2) Financial Management: Expenditure 22 3) Financial Management: Income 37 4) The 1843 Theatre Regulation Act and Its 48 Aftermath at Covent Garden Notes to pages 18-52 53 Chapter Two: The Royal Italian Opera, 1847-1856 66-131 1) A Second Opera House for London? 66 2) The Establishment of the Royal Italian Opera 67 3) Surviving the First Year 73 4) Gye gains Control 76 5) Financial Management: Income 82 6) Financial Management: Expenditure 92 7) The Fire of 1856 and Its Aftermath 106 Notes to pages 66-107 108 Part Two - Artistic Policies and Repertory 132-239 Chapter Three: Strategies for the Playhouse 135-178 1) The Monopoly Debate and the Playhouse 135 Repertory 2) Drama 139 3) Opera 149 Notes to pages 132-170 171 Chapter Four: Strategies for the Opera House 179-239 1) The Repertory at Her Majesty's Theatre 180 before 1847 2) The Repertory of the Royal Italian Opera 182 in 1847 3) The Repertory of the Royal Italian Opera, 187 1848 to 1855 4) Negotiations for Performance Rights 205 5) The Company of the Royal Italian Opera: 211 Influence on Programming Notes to pages 179-225 226 -4- Part Three - Operas for Covent Garden 240-343 Chapter Five: English operas for the Theatre Royal, 241-286 Covent Garden 1) English Opera: Drama with Songs? 243 2) Topics and Story]ines of English Operas, 247 circa 1820 to 1845 3) The Dramatic and Musical Composition of 255 English Operas, circa 1820 to 1845 Notes to pages 240-278 279 Chapter Six: Producing Foreign Opera 286-343 1) Financial and Artistic Benefits 287 2) Adaptation versus Original 291 3) Personnel and Working Procedures 294 4) Translations 304 5) Adaptations 307 Notes to pages 286-33 1 332 Conclusion 344 Appendices 346-372 Appendix 1: Receipts for the Theatre Royal, 346 Covent Garden, 1809-1843 Appendix 2: Lease Agreement between Frederick Gye 347 and the Proprietors of Covent Garden, 1854 Appendix 3: Monthly Singers' Salaries at the Royal 357 Italian Opera, 1848-1855 Appendix 4: Repertory of the Theatre Royal, Covent 360 Garden, 1829-1843: by Number of Performances Appendix 5: Repertory of the Theatre Royal, 365 Covent Garden, 1829-1843: Number of Opera Performances by Genre Appendix 6: Repertory of the Theatre Royal, Covent 367 Garden, 1829-1843: Opera Premieres! Revivals Appendix 7: The Repertory of the Royal Italian Opera, 369 1847-1855: Number of Operas/Proportion of Total Performances Appendix Ba: First Performances in England at the 371 Royal Italian Opera, 1847-1855 Appendix 8b: First Performances in England at 372 Her Majesty's, 1847-1855 Music Examples 373 Bibliography 378 -5- Acknowledgments Many friends and colleagues have given me invaluable assistance and advice over the past five years. To my supervisor Curtis Price I owe a deep gratitude for first encouraging me to embark upon this project and for his astute and critical guidance throughout my research. Matthew Ringel's enthusiasm and friendship were much appreciated during the many hours we spent discussing the intricacies of opera management in 19th-century London; without these debates this thesis would doubtiess be the poorer. I would also like to thank several colleagues, some of whom very generously shared research material with me, for their advice and encouragement: Irene Auerbach, Tracy C. Davis, Cyril Ehrlich, Mark Everist, Richard Fouikes, Jennifer Hall, Sabine Henze- Döhring, Robert D. Hume, Leanne Langley, Martha Ottlová, John Rosseffi, Christian Sprang, Reinhard Strohm and John M. Ward. My discovery of the Gye Diaries was probably the single most important find of this project. My special thanks are due to Roderick Gye and his family for permitting an indefinite loan of these valuable documents to the Archives of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. I am also immensely grateful to Francesca Franchi and her assistants Jane Jackson and Margaret Nicholson for the very generous access they were able to grant me to the diaries as well as the significant collection of music manuscripts and other material held at the Archives. I would further like to acknowledge the assistance of the following Libraries, their curators and staff: the British Library, in particular the North Library, the Music Reading Area and the Newspaper Library at Colindale, Tracey Earl at Coutts & Co (Strand), Jeanne New]in (former curator) at the Harvard Theatre Collection (Massachusetts), the Houghton Library (Harvard, Mass.), the Public Record Office -6- (Chancery La, the University of London Library (Senate House) and the Theatre Museum London. I would like to thank the Regents of the University of California for permission to reuse material first published in my joint article with Matthew Ringel, 'Frederick Gye and "The Dreadful Business of Opera Management"', 19th-Century Music, summer 1995, xix/1 :3-30. Several institutions provided generous financial assistance. The British Academy awarded me a three year Postgraduate Studentship in 1993; the British Federation of Women Graduates granted me an award in 1993/94. My research visit to the Harvard Theatre Collection in 1993 was very generously supported by the Society for Theatre Research (Anthony Denning Award 1993/94), the Houghton Library, Harvard University (John M Ward Fellowship in Dance and Music for the Theatre 1993/94) and the Central Research Fund, University of London. Finally, I would like to thank most warmly my husband Peter Firth and my parents Yvonne and Ole Diderlksen for supporting and encouraging me throughout these years of study. Peter also deserves my sincerest gratitude for his perceptive criticism and patient proof reading of my thesis. -7- Introduction It has been a frequently held view that 19th-century London was an operatic backwater without original musical or theatrical talent, and consequently of only marginal Importance to the history of 19th-century opera in general. Few major composers were connected with London's opera houses and theatres, as these relied principally on importing operas from Continental theatres, rather than commissioning new works. With the emphasis of the repertory thus placed firmly on adapted as opposed to original operas, few musicologists have examined either the institutions or the repertory itself.