Music in the London Theatre from Purcell to Handel

List of figures; Music examples; Authors and editors; Introduction; Part I. From Purcell to Handel: 1. Purcell's 'scurvy' poets Roger Savage; 2. Opera as literature and the triumph of music Martin Adams; 3. The British Enchanters and George Granville's theory of opera Wolfgang Hirschmann; 4. Lost chances: obstacles to English opera for Purcell and Handel Jeffrey Barnouw; 5. Alexander's Feast, or The Power of Perseverance: Dryden's plan for English opera and its near-fulfilment in a Handel ode Andrew Pinnock and Bruce Wood; Part II. Handel and Italian Opera: 6. Ombra mai fu: shades of Greece and Rome in the librettos for Handel's London operas Peter Brown; 7. Handel and the uses of antiquity Reinhard Strohm; 8. From Metastasio's Alessandro to Handel's Poro: a change of dramatic emphasis Graham Cummings; 9. Deidamia as an 'heroi-comi-pastoral' opera Sarah McCleave; Part III. Handel and English Works in the Theatre: 10. Seventeenth-century literary classics as eighteenth-century libretto sources: Congreve, Dryden and Milton in the 1730s and '40s Matthew Gardner; 11. 'In this ballance seek a character': the role of 'Il Moderato' in L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato Ruth Smith; 12. 'Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures': glancing and gazing spectatorship in Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato Matthew Badham; 13. Accompanied recitative and characterisation in Handel's oratorios Liam Gorry; 14. Handel, Charles Jennens and the advent of scriptural oratorio John H. Roberts; Bibliography; Index.