BRITISH OPERA

In the 16 th century there was nothing particularly new about drama and nothing new in the combination of music and drama. Such a combination had had a place, after all, in medieval Christian liturgy, with plays and music re- enacting events associated with Easter and with Christmas. From this a larger repertoire had grown, with plays based on events recorded in the Bible or derived from Christian tradition. Music was associated with dramatic action in secular performances of one sort or another. Court entertainments of various kinds took place in which elements of drama and music were combined. An extravagant example is recorded in accounts of the Feast of the Pheasant in Burgundy in 1454. A court banquet was given as an attempt was made to arouse interest in a Crusade, after the Turkish capture of Constantinople. On this occasion singers in the guise of musical blackbirds emerged from a giant pie for the edification of the guests. Such diversions, whether primarily political or artistic, took place throughout Europe. The essential difference in the new art of opera lay in its developed dramatic structure. This, in turn, was associated with a much more dramatic style of music, drawing on the classical art of rhetoric, the art of public speaking, which, nominally at least, formed part of the new education. The period now known as the Baroque developed in the last decades of the 16 th century. It is distinguished, above all, by the development of what has become known as dramatic monody. Here a simple form of melody closely follows the rhythms and intonations of speech, accompanied by simple if occasionally startling chords. The new technique of composition made opera possible. Plays with songs and dances were one thing, but works providing a dramatic combination of words and music throughout were something different.

England's literary tradition has always been a very important influence on the development of its musical tradition. In the seventeenth century it proved so strong that English opera did not become established for a long period of time.

In England, opera's antecedent was the seventeenth century jig. This was an afterpiece which came at the end of a play. It was frequently libellous and scandalous and consisted in the main of a dialogue set to music. The music was usually arranged from popular tunes of the time, so in this respect the jigs anticipate the ballad operas of the eighteenth century.
At the same time as jigs were being performed in the theatres, the masque was gaining a firm hold at Court. Masques had originated at the French Court but were transferred to the English Court which developed a taste for lavish spectacle. By the time of James I and Charles I, masques reached a degree of splendour never seen before. Inigo Jones became the supreme designer for these productions and was responsible for the costumes, scene-painting, stage-carpentry, and stage machinery. This love of, splendour, lavish costumes, and, in particular, highly realistic scenery was to dominate the English stage for the next 300 years.