Opera of the Nobility
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| Opera of the Nobility | |
|---|---|
| Name | Opera of the Nobility |
| Caption | Poster for a London opera season, c. 1730 |
| Location | London |
| Founded | 1733 |
| Founder | Frederick, Prince of Wales |
| Closed | 1737 |
| Genre | Italian opera seria |
Opera of the Nobility was a London-based opera company established in 1733 to present Italian opera seria in polite society and to challenge the dominance of competing impresarios in the 1730s. The company assembled a roster of prominent singers, patrons, and composers to mount productions at venues in London, drawing on networks linked to the Hanoverian court and aristocratic patrons. Its existence intersected with prominent figures and institutions of Georgian culture, influencing the careers of composers, librettists, and performers active in Britain and Europe.
Background and Founding
The company was formed amid tensions involving George Frideric Handel, John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Sir Robert Walpole, Frederick, Prince of Wales, Carlo Goldoni, Metastasio, Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, Giuseppe Tartini, Niccolò Jommelli, Tommaso Traetta, Giovanni Bononcini, Nicola Porpora, Francesco Maria Veracini, Farinelli, Senesino, Caffarelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti, Pietro Metastasio (Metastasio), Lord Burlington, Charles Jennens, James Boswell, Lord Chesterfield, Viscount Bolingbroke, John Arbuthnot, Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, William Congreve, and Henry Fielding. Patronage from members of the nobility, including patrons associated with Carlisle House and the household of Frederick, Prince of Wales, provided the social and financial impetus that spurred the company's founding and its opposition to established enterprises.
Organization and Key Figures
Management and artistic direction involved aristocratic backers and leading Continental musicians such as Nicola Porpora, Senesino, Farini?, Giacomo Durazzo, Francesco Mancini, Antonio Sacchini, Eustachio Porpora?, Baldassare Galuppi, John Rich, John Frederick Lampe, John Gay (as librettist-collaborator in rival contexts), Charles Burney, Johann Christoph Pepusch, Thomas Arne, James Quin, Michael Rosing, Casparini?, Galli?, Luigi Ricci?, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Giuseppe Sammartini, Johann Adolph Hasse, Tommaso Traetta, Giovanni Battista Logroscino, Giovanni Battista Martini, Gian Francesco de Majo, Gennaro Manna, Carlo Broschi (Farinelli), Giovanni Carestini, Antonio Bernacchi, Caffarelli, Antonio Maria Bernacchi, and aristocratic patrons such as The Duke of Newcastle, Lord Hervey, The Duke of Devonshire, The Earl of Burlington, and The Marquess of Rockingham. Performers drawn from the Italian peninsula and from London opera circles included leading castrati and prima donnas whose names circulated in correspondence with Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon, and collectors such as Sir Hans Sloane.
Repertoire and Productions
The company's seasons featured works by Continental and Italian composers including George Frideric Handel's rivals such as Nicola Porpora, Giovanni Bononcini, Johann Adolf Hasse, Baldassare Galuppi, and operas influenced by librettists like Metastasio and Apostolo Zeno. Productions staged arias, recitatives, and seria plots drawn from sources such as Ovid, Virgil, Homer, Dante Alighieri, and libretti circulating across Venice, Naples, Rome, Vienna, and Milan. The company mounted premieres and revivals of works associated with singers like Senesino, Farinelli, Caffarelli, and Giovanni Carestini, and instrumental contributions from virtuosi such as Giuseppe Tartini, Pietro Locatelli, Carlo Ambrogio Lonati, Arcangelo Corelli, and Antonio Vivaldi. Season programming intersected with public concerts at venues tied to Covent Garden Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, Haymarket Theatre, Drury Lane, and aristocratic salons.
Rivalry with Handel and Impact
The company's formation precipitated an intense rivalry with George Frideric Handel's enterprise, involving contested access to singers, libretti, and audiences in London. This rivalry entangled personalities such as Frederick, Prince of Wales, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Hervey, John Gay, Alexander Pope, Charles Jennens, and impresarios who negotiated contracts with castrati like Senesino, Giovanni Carestini, and Farinelli. Competition produced counter-programming, polemical pamphlets, and shifts in patronage linked to figures like Lord Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, James Thomson, Allan Ramsay, and critics recorded by Charles Burney and Samuel Johnson. The clash influenced the tastes of London audiences and affected the circulation of Italianate styles associated with Metastasio, Hasse, Pergolesi, and Porpora.
Financial Troubles and Decline
Like many 18th-century London ventures, the company confronted mounting debts, fluctuating patronage, and the high costs of engaging star singers and staging elaborate productions. Financial pressures were exacerbated by competition with George Frideric Handel, economic policies associated with Sir Robert Walpole, and the limited size of elite audiences in London. The collapse involved creditors and bailiffs referenced in contemporary reportage alongside financiers and collectors such as John Law, Nicholas Barbon, Thomas Willingale?, John Blunt?, The South Sea Company, Bank of England, and aristocratic retrenchment by houses like Althorp House and Chatsworth House. By the late 1730s the company ceased sustained operations, with personnel migrating to other European courts in Dresden, Vienna, Naples, Rome, Venice, and Paris.
Legacy and Influence on British Opera
Although short-lived, the company's activities reshaped London's operatic ecology by stimulating rivalry that affected composers such as George Frideric Handel, Nicola Porpora, Giovanni Bononcini, Johann Adolf Hasse, Francesco Saverio Geminiani, Thomas Arne, William Boyce, Michael Arne, and critics including Charles Burney and Samuel Johnson. The episode influenced patronage practices among the Hanoverian elite, redirected careers of singers and librettists to courts in Dresden, Naples, Vienna, and St Petersburg, and contributed to the evolution of English opera and ballad opera traditions tied to John Gay, Thomas Arne, Henry Purcell, William Shield, and George Alexander Stevens. Its archives and printed libretti circulated among collectors such as Sir Hans Sloane and informed 19th-century antiquarian scholarship by figures like Edward Hawkins, William Chappell, and historians compiling catalogues at the British Museum and the Bodleian Library.