ABSTRACT
The London opera world into which Regina Mingotti sailed was, according to Charles Burney, in a state of 'poverty and disgrace', and indeed, the seasons immediately prior to her arrival were both mediocre and problematic. Vanbrugh's building was reputedly acoustically 'difficult', and probably because of this, the auditorium underwent a refit in 1709, but then remained substantially unchanged until the alterations of 1778. The case of Crosa and his burletta troupe appears to offer a fifth model, one in which the manager, Vanneschi, bought in a working company, apparently in the hope that this would shift the financial burden to the outside impresario. The repertory of the opera for most of these years consisted of a regular diet of opera seria, usually new – or newly adapted for London – by the musical directors and house composers.
