ABSTRACT

During his career as a dramatist Henry Fielding wrote several ballad operas. For the New Theatre in the Haymarket, his ballad operas were burlesques and satires, while for the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, they were farces and intrigues. Less well-known actors with either good or competent voices had a determining influence in Fielding’s selection of music. William Mullart, the original King Arthur in Tom Thumb, could take either leading or character singing roles. While the leading singing actors and actresses were notable primarily because of their voices, some players who had roles in Fielding’s ballad operas were unable to sing well. To them Fielding only rarely gave songs, which could probably have been sung at least partly in parlando. On any particular evening, then, the audience at one of Fielding’s ballad operas could have expected to be treated to a wide variety of entertainment.