Librettist versus Composer

Little attention has ever been paid to a pair of mid-career flops by Thomas Augustine Arne. Henry and Emma died in one night in 1749; Don Saverio struggled through three nights amidst hisses in 1750. Roger Fiske points out in a brief discussion that the latter is of some historical significance: it was a pioneering attempt to mount an English form of opera buffa on the London stage. Ten years later, Arne's Thomas and Sally was to succeed in persuading London audiences to accept such conventions, but in 1750 the time was apparently not yet ripe. These obscure failures have not attracted much critical notice, because while librettos of both survive, only the overture to Henry and Emma and one song from Don Saverio are extant

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• The Problematics of “Evidence” in Historical Scholarship and Criticism

  Robert D Hume•Eighteenth-Century Life•2017

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