Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 Of Priests, Fiends, Fops, and Fools: John Bowman's Song Performances on the London Stage, 1677-1701 Matthew A. Roberson Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC OF PRIESTS, FIENDS, FOPS, AND FOOLS: JOHN BOWMAN’S SONG PERFORMANCES ON THE LONDON STAGE, 1677-1701 By MATTHEW A. ROBERSON A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006 Copyright © 2006 Matthew A. Roberson All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Matthew A. Roberson defended on 22 May 2006. ____________________________ Jeffery Kite-Powell Professor Directing Dissertation ____________________________ Larry Gerber Outside Committee Member ____________________________ Charles Brewer Committee Member The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many library staff that have assisted me while I have been working on this project. The entire staff at the Warren D. Allen Music library at Florida State University has always been very helpful, particularly Olena Chorna, who took on a few extra projects for me. I am grateful to the staff in the Humanities Reading Room at the British Library, to David Lasocki at Indiana University, and to Peter Ward Jones at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. At Faulkner University, Ashleigh Wyrosdick has worked tirelessly entering my music examples in Finale, and I am thankful for her assistance. I would especially like to thank Anthony Rooley, who first suggested the topic to me several years ago. He has often offered invaluable advice and has shared his extensive library with me, as well as housed and fed me while I was in London. Additionally, Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson have graciously answered all my many questions along the way, and I have greatly benefited from their guidance. My dissertation director and friend, Jeffery Kite-Powell, has been fantastic throughout every step of the process, and I would not have been successful without his professional direction and kind encouragement. Charles Brewer and Larry Gerber, who also served on my dissertation committee, have always been collegial and helpful. Finally, my family has made innumerable sacrifices this past year to allow me the time to work on this project, and their support has been paramount to its fruition. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………...v List of Figures………………………………………………………………….................vi Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………...viii 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...............1 2. CONVENTIONS AND STYLE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF SONG ……………28 3. APPRENTICESHIP AND DUKE’S COMPANY ROLES………………………….70 4. UNITED COMPANY (1682-1694) PART I: THE COMEDIES AND SERIOUS DRAMAS………………………114 5. UNITED COMPANY (1682-1694)…………………………………………………154 PART II: THE OPERAS 6. LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS (1695-1705)……………………………………............177 APPENDIX A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SONGS PERFORMED BY BOWMAN……..227 APPENDIX B SONGS PERFORMED FOR THE DUKE’S COMPANY…..………………...231 APPENDIX C SONGS PERFORMED FOR THE UNITED COMPANY...…………………..239 APPENDIX D SONGS PERFORMED AT LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS..……………………..246 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………301 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………………...313 iv LIST OF TABLES 2.1. Vices and Virtues of the Voice……………………………………………………...43 2.2. “With this sacred charming Wand”………...………………………………………60 4.1. “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part I…………..……………………………………..143 4.2. “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part II…………...…………………………………....143 4.3. “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part III…………...…………………………………...144 5.1. Possible Distribution of Bass Roles in Albion and Albanius ……………………...157 5.2. Bass Solos, Duets, and Trios in Dioclesian’s Act V Masque……………………...164 v LIST OF FIGURES 2.1. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 1-5……………………………………… 61 2.2. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 5-6 ……………………………………... 63 2.3. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 7-10 …………………………………….65 2.4. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 11-13 …………………………………....66 2.5. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 12-14 ……………………………………67 2.6. “With this sacred charming Wand,” 15-19 …………………………………………68 3.1. “Prepare, the Rites begin,” mm. 1-17 ……………………………………………..110 3.2. “Hark! behold the heav’nly choir,” mm. 19-35 …………………………………...113 4.1. “O Love, that stronger art than Wine!,” mm. 44-48 ………………………………119 4.2. “Celia that I once was Blest” (melody only) ……………………………………...121 4.3. “GreatT Jove once made Love like a Bull,” mm. 28-36 ……………………………129 4.4. “Of noble Race was Shinking” ……………………………………………………133 4.5. Illustration of Peter Holland’s Reading of The Double-Dealer …………………...137 4.6. “Ancient Phillis has young Graces” ……………………………………………….139 5.1. “Let us Laugh,” mm. 81-94 ……………………………………………………….158 5.2. “The Royal Squadron marches,” mm. 33-45 ……………………………………...159 5.3. “Great Diocles,” mm. 20-22 ………………………………………………………162 5.4. “Ye Blust’ring Brethren” …………………………………………………………166 5.5. “When a cruel long Winter” ………………………………………………………173 vi 5.6. “Come let us leave” ……………………………………………………………….174 5.7. “Hush, no more” …………………………………………………………………..175 6.1. “Fair Belinda’s youthful charms” …………………………………………………183 6.2. “Rich Mines of hot Love” …………………………………………………………187 6.3. “At dead of night, while wrapped in Sleep” ………………………………………199 6.4. “Thou Plague of my Life,” mm. 36-45 ……………………………………………209 6.5. “My Mars, My Venus” ……………………………………………………………210 6.6. “Arm Brittians,” mm. 1-4 (Voice and Continuo)………………………………….214 6.7. “Arm Brittians,” mm. 4-8 (Trumpets)……………………………………………..214 6.8. “Arm Brittians,” mm. 25-29 (Voice and Continuo)……………………………….215 6.9. “Arm Brittians,”mm. 47-49 (Voice and Continuo)………………………………..215 6.10. “Ye mighty Pow’rs,” mm. 37-43 ………………………………………………...217 vii ABSTRACT Referred to as Henry Purcell’s “favorite baritone,” the actor-singer John Bowman (ca. 1655-1739) became the leading baritone on the London stage during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Centering on the career and song performances of Bowman, this dissertation provides a fresh perspective from which to view Restoration music theater, a reorientation that shifts the spotlight away from the works themselves—the plays and their music—and away from composers and playwrights, to one that focuses on performers and their concerns. The purpose of this work is to provide an account of the performance practice of Restoration theater song using Bowman as a case study. Bowman is an excellent subject for a case study for several reasons. He sang in Purcell’s first stage commission and went on to sing many more songs by Purcell, as well as music by other significant composers of the era, including John Blow and John Eccles. As an actor, Bowman performed roles written by virtually every playwright of the late seventeenth century in England and worked with such actors as Thomas Betterton and Anne Bracegirdle. A desired outcome of this project is that singers wishing to cultivate their adeptness in historically informed performance of Restoration song will find this a helpful resource. To this end, Chapter II focuses wholly on performance practice in Restoration theater, covering both vocal production and acting, and concludes with a very detailed application of these to a song Bowman performed. This chapter also includes a guide outlining a practical approach for historically informed performance of Restoration theater song. As this guide shows, the initial step in the process, after having located the music, is to determine how each song fit into the larger dramatic context. Subsequent chapters are thus devoted principally to uncovering and reproducing all extant, unpublished songs Bowman performed, and to describing Bowman’s characters and the contexts in which their song performances occurred. viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In May 1694, the United Company mounted the first two parts of Durfey’s trilogy The Comical History of Don Quixote, its final musical extravaganzas before the Actors’ 1 Rebellion that brought about the Company’s disintegration early the following year.TP PT At the beginning of Act IV during the premiere of Don Quixote I, the veteran actor John Bowman, dressed in “Ragged Cloaths,” stood poised to enter the stage of the Dorset Garden Theater with perhaps 800 or more spectators in attendance, seated uncomfortably 2 on wooden, backless benches.TP PT As Bowman observed from the wings, Thomas Doggett (playing Sancho Pancha) and William Bowen (as Don Quixote) entertained the crowd with their witty repartee, which Bowman eventually interrupts by singing from offstage. Upon hearing Bowman, Doggett, in Sancho’s hilarious country dialect, responds by telling Quixote that there is “another Adventure coming, and I hope ‘twill end better than the last, because it begins Musically.” This is Bowman’s cue, and, assuming a “Wild Posture” befitting a bedlamite, he enters as Cardenio, a gentleman who had been 3 “treacherously depriv’d of Luscinda, his Betroth’d.”TP PT Cardenio, as Don Quixote and Sancho quickly notice, is mad, driven frantic by love. 1 TP PT The Actors’ Rebellion is covered in detail in Judith Milhous’s Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1695-1708 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979),