ABSTRACT
Although strongly supported in various quarters, particularly among the aristocracy, Italian opera had been the target for sustained attack from the early years of the eighteenth century. Seen against the background of the deep-seated attitude towards Italian opera and the role it allocated to music, the development and continuing support for an alternative form using English texts, partially delivered in speech, was predictable. Emphasizing the importance of holding ‘a mirror up to nature,’ Burgoyne also insisted that no dramatic action could be set to vocal music: vocal music should be confined to express the feelings of the passions, but never to express the exercise of them. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, two distinct musical styles emerged within English opera. Whereas Storace, with his Mozartian connections, cultivated a cosmopolitan idiom, Arnold and Shield developed the use of national melodies.
