TY - BOOK ID - 80821011 TI - The politics of opera in Handel's Britain PY - 2013 SN - 9780511842559 9781107009882 9781139625050 1139625055 0511842554 110700988X 9781139612036 1139612034 1139621335 1139608614 1139615750 1107234611 1316620220 PB - New York Cambridge University Press DB - UniCat KW - Opera KW - Comic opera KW - Lyric drama KW - Opera, Comic KW - Operas KW - Drama KW - Dramatic music KW - Singspiel KW - Political aspects KW - History KW - History and criticism KW - Burlettas KW - Comic operas KW - Intermezzos (Operas) KW - Light operas KW - Opera buffas KW - Opera serias KW - OpeĢras comiques KW - Operettas KW - Puppet operas KW - Singspiels UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:80821011 AB - The Politics of Opera in Handel's Britain examines the involvement of Italian opera in British partisan politics in the first half of the eighteenth century, which saw Sir Robert Walpole's rise to power and George Frideric Handel's greatest period of opera production. McGeary argues that the conventional way of applying Italian opera to contemporary political events and persons by means of allegory and allusion in individual operas is mistaken; nor did partisan politics intrude into the management of the Royal Academy of Music and the Opera of the Nobility. This book shows instead how Senesino, Faustina, Cuzzoni and events at the Haymarket Theatre were used in political allegories in satirical essays directed against the Walpole ministry. Since most operas were based on ancient historical events, the librettos - like traditional histories - could be sources of examples of vice, virtue, and political precepts and wisdom that could be applied to contemporary politics. ER -