<<  -- 5 --  Robert Hugill    VENUS AND ADONIS

After Purcell's death in 1695 Betterton, the manager who had championed semi-opera moved to a cramped theatre in Lincolns Inn Fields and there was a substantial decline in the genre. But, until Italian opera was imported in 1705, the theatre companies continued to present the occasional semi-opera. In 1707, theatrical politics meant that the Lord Chamberlain decreed a separation of function for the two main theatres. Drury Lane could put on plays without music and the Haymarket could present any type of opera, but semi-opera required the resources of both. By the 1710s impresario John Rich was once again presenting the semi operas The Island Princess and The Prophetess as well as a full opera, Bonocini's Camilla in English.

By the 1720s English musical forms were thriving, notably ballad opera. The boom in this was spawned from the amazing success of The Beggars Opera. In the later 1700s Covent Garden and Drury Lane continued to provide English operas as part of the six days a week theatrical repertory. Some, such as Arne's Artaxerxes were serious, but others were lighter.

None of these were strictly semi-operas, but the spoken word continued to exert a strong influence. As late as 1824, Planche's libretto for Weber's Oberon had so much spoken dialogue and so many important non-singing characters that it almost seems a throwback to the old genre.

Semi-opera was a peculiar English response to a set of circumstances caused by historical accident and the strength of English Theatre. But its problematic continuance on today's stages is simply due to one man. Purcell seems to have found the genre satisfying, in some way, and lavished on it some lovely music. It is now up to us to work out how we might make these works viable in a 21st century theatre.