most degrading libels. Cuzzoni and Faustina reached such a state of rage that on June 6, 1727, during the play, they fought and tore each other's hair unmercifully, amidst the yells of the audience, the Princess of Wales being present.[1]
After this everything went to the dogs. Handel tried hard to take the reins, but, as his friend Arbuthnot said, "the devil was loose, and could never be caged again." The battle was lost, despite three new works of Handel, where his genius again shone forth: Riccardo I (November 11, 1727); Siroe (February 17, 1728); and Tolomeo (April 30, 1728). A little venture by John Gay and by Pepusch, The Beggar's Opera (A War Opera) finished the defeat of the London Academy of Opera.[2] This excellent operetta, spoken in dialogue, with popular songs interspersed, was at the same time a trenchant satire on Walpole, and a spirited parody of the ridiculous sides of the opera.[3] Its immense success
- ↑ The Director of the Drury Lane Theatre, Colley Gibber, produced, a month later, a farce called The Contretemps, or The Rival Queens, where the two singers were depicted tearing their chignons, and Handel saying in anger to them, whom he wished to separate, "Leave them alone, when they are tired their fury will spend itself out," and, in order that the strife might be definitely finished, he wound it up with great strokes on the drum. Handel's friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, also published on this subject one of his best pamphlets, "The Devil let loose at St. James's" (see Chrysander, Volume II).
- ↑ The last representation at the Academy took place on June 1, 1728, with Almeto.
- ↑ Amongst others, the accompanied recitative, the air Da Capo, the opera duets, the farewell scenes, the great prison scenes, the inconsequent ballads. Pepusch even took an air of Handel and parodied it. In the second act a band of robbers came together in the tavern, and solemnly defiled before their chiefs to the sound of the March of the Crusaders' Army in Rinaldo—The Beggar's Opera, given for the first time on January 29, 1728, was played all over England, and aroused violent polemics. Swift became a passionate champion for it. After the success appeared in the following years a number of operas with songs—Georgy Kalmas has dedicated a very complete article to The Beggar's Opera in his Sammelbände der I.M.G. (January to March, 1907).
