THE RISE OF ENGLISH COMIC OPERA: 1762-1800 (SHERIDAN, RICHARD; SHIELD, WILLIAM; BROOKE, FRANCES; LINLEY, THOMAS JR.; COLMAN, GEORGE JR.)

The English comic opera, which dominated the London theaters during the last forty years of the eighteenth century, developed from the ballad opera, the opera comique, the opera seria, and the dramma giocoso. Isaac Bickerstaff started the vogue in 1762 with Love in a Village, and other librettists and composers refined his method of combining both new and old songs with dialogue, creating over one hundred such works by the end of the century.;My dissertation also discusses the evolution of the comic opera into the Gothic musical and melodrama during the 1790's and provides a chronological list of comic operas (including performance data), alphabetical lists of librettists and composers, and a list of the most frequently performed comic operas at each of the three patent theaters.;I provide an overview of the genre, but I also examine three comic operas in detail, considering not only the text, but also the music, stage history, and publishing history of these works: The Duenna (1775), Richard Brinsley Sheridan's and Thomas Linley the Younger's opera of wit and ingenuity; Resina (1782), by Frances Brooke with music by William Shield, a comic opera that critically examines sentimental drama; and George Colman the Younger's and Samuel Arnold's Inkle and Yarico (1787), a comic opera that tackles problematic social issues.