ABSTRACT
Critics have assumed that political commentary conveyed by allegory is a pervasive feature of 'Restoration' masques and operas. Critics have recognised, opera as an extremely flexible generic concept for audiences in London, and the form's diverse origins encourages the composition of works so different as often to be virtually unrelated, even if designated 'opera'. Opera was introduced by Mazarin, who saw it as a means of exalting the glory of the king and underwrote six such productions between 1645 and 1662. Theoretical statements of the time about opera are scant and contradictory, their authors disinclined to take up political issues. Any account of opera in the public theatre prior to the redivision into two companies in 1695 needs to take Betterton's concept of the genre into account. Allegorical portrayal of all sorts of events was commonplace and often 'transparendy political'. Operas serves as an expensive form of propaganda: 'opera theatre is first and foremost an instrument of political authority'.
