Music and Theater in Eighteenth-Century Britain

—a conference organized by Ian Newman, University of Notre Dame, and Felicity Nussbaum, University of California, Los Angeles

co-sponsored by
King’s College London
European Research Council
UCLA Office of Interdisciplinary & Cross Campus Affairs
UCLA Department of English

Music was the pivot around which debates about theatrical taste turned in eighteenth-century Britain. While music had always been important to the theater, the status of musical entertainment became increasingly fraught as the duopoly of the patent theaters was eroded, and the Licensing Act of 1752 enabled minor theaters to purchase annual licenses to produce entertainments that contained no spoken dialogue.

As more attention is given to the activities of minor and illegitimate theaters (both licensed and unlicensed) and to genres that catered to the popular taste for music-based entertainment, we are bringing together a group of leading scholars to rethink narratives of the eighteenth-century theater, which have often treated music as a decorative ornament to the serious business of spoken-word drama. The conference attempts to re-conceive the history of the eighteenth-century British theater by placing music at its heart, exploring the importance of both music to the eighteenth-century stage and theatrical songwriting traditions to the history of music in Britain.

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Image
James Gillray, Iohn Bull in Lilliput or Theatricals for the Nineteenth Century, published by S. W. Fores, 1805

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Speakers
Misty G. Anderson, University of Tennessee
Michael Burden, New College, University of Oxford
Judith Hawley, Royal Holloway, University of London
Oskar Cox Jensen, King’s College London
Berta Joncus, Goldsmiths, University of London
Ian Newman, University of Notre Dame
Daniel O’Quinn, University of Guelph
Vanessa L. Rogers, Rhodes College
Wiebke Thormählen, Royal College of Music

Performers
Thomas Thompson, Vocalist, University of California, Los Angeles
Julia Callander, Vocalist, University of California, Los Angeles
Thomas Feng, Accompanist, University of California, Los Angeles

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Program
Friday, November 4, 2016

9:30 a.m.
Morning Coffee and Registration

10:00 a.m.
Felicity Nussbaum, University of California, Los Angeles
Ian Newman, University of Notre Dame
Welcome and Introductory Remarks

10:15 a.m.

Session 1
Chair: Jon Mee, University of York

Berta Joncus, Goldsmiths, University of London
“Scoring for Celebrity: The Authority of the Vocalist in Love in a Village (1762)”

10:45 a.m.

Performance

George Frideric Handel, “Let Me Wander Not Unseen”
Thomas Augustine Arne, “The Stream That Glides”

11:00 a.m.
Discussion

11:15 a.m.
Misty G. Anderson, University of Tennessee
“The Busy Body: A Case Study in the Soundtracks of Comedy”

11:45 a.m.

Performance

Henry Purcell, “Since Times Are So Bad”
Richard Leveridge, “The Roast Beef of Old England”

12:00 p.m.
Discussion

12:15 p.m.
Lunch

1:30 p.m.

Session 2
Chair: Helen Deutsch, University of California, Los Angeles

Performance

William Shield, “The Wolf”

1:40 p.m.
Oskar Cox Jensen, King’s College London
“Song-Borne: The London Stage on Street and Page”

2:10 p.m.

Performance

Thomas Dibdin, “The Beautiful Maid”
George Alexander Stevens, “Cease Rude Boreas”

2:25 p.m.
Discussion

2:40 p.m.
Daniel O’Quinn, University of Guelph
“Cutting and Pasting: Post-American Handel”

3:10 p.m.
Discussion

3:25 p.m.
Coffee Break

3:40 p.m.
Judith Hawley, Royal Holloway, University of London
“Blowing Up the Pic Nics: Private Theatricals in the Regency Era”

4:10 p.m.

Performance

Samuel Webbe, “Now We Are Met”
James Smith, “London Now is Out of Town”

4:25 p.m.
Discussion

4:45 p.m.
Reception

Saturday, November 5, 2016

9:30 a.m.
Morning Coffee and Registration

10:00 a.m.

Session 3
Chair: Jayne Lewis, University of California, Irvine

Ian Newman, University of Notre Dame
“Circulating Criminals: ‘Jack Hall’ and the Transmission of Song”

10:30 a.m.
Discussion

10:45 a.m.
Wiebke Thormählen, Royal College of Music
“Consuming Opera at Home: Music’s Role in Emotional and Social Education in 18th-Century Britain”

11:15 a.m.
Discussion

11:30 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:45 a.m.

Session 4
Chair: Anahid Nersessian, University of California, Los Angeles

Vanessa L. Rogers, Rhodes College
“‘Can Nothing, Sir, Move You?’: Considering Musical Sentimentalism through the ‘Begging’ Airs of 18th-Century English Comic Operas”

12:15 p.m.
Discussion

12:30 p.m.
Michael Burden, New College, University of Oxford
“Farinelli’s Pindaric Flights: Singing with Nicola Porpora”

1:00 p.m.
Discussion

1:15 p.m.
Program concludes