Ballads and Britons

Imagined Community and the Continuity of 'English' Opera

Bibliographic Data

ID4408737
AuthorsSuzanne Aspden (St. John's College, corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume122
Issue1
Pages24-51
Publication date1997-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Royal Musical Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-0403 • E-ISSN: 1471-6933
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1093/jrma/122.1.24
OpenAlexW1977622367
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited4

Joseph Addison'sSpectatoris perhaps the best-known early eighteenth-century periodical, its title a byword for the period's acute critical sensibility, its pages of enthusiastic enquiry a fitting monument to what we like to call the 'Age of Reason'. Of the many commentaries on opera included in its pages,Spectatorno. 5 (6 March 1711), critiquing the inadequacy of attempts at scenic verisimilitude on London's operatic stage, is justly renowned. Addison's tale of the undesirable (and wholly unmusical) results of releasing quantities of sparrows inside a theatre derives much of its pungency from the consequences of what Addison feels to be an improper juxtaposition of 'shadows and realities': sparrows and castrati alike escape pastoral fantasy to invade more sordid reality, penetrating 'a lady's bed-chamber' or perching 'upon a king's throne

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Ballad · Damnation · Fantasy · Italian opera · Literature · Miscellany · Opera · Period (music · Poetry · Sensibility · Verisimilitude · Historical and Literary Studies · History

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