ABSTRACT
In the northern English-speaking colonies, the earliest performance that has come to light was a ballad opera called Flora; or Hob in the Well, which appeared in South Carolina in 1735. Theatrical presentations also figured in the lives of the colonists. It was difficult for an eighteenth-century American audience to see a play without a substantial amount of vocal music. Even more daringly, the American Company presented The Poor Soldier— an imported English comic opera— in 1785. Comic opera, like ballad opera, had spoken dialogue, but most of the songs were newly composed; the stories taught a moral lesson of some sort. English works avoided sung recitative and elaborate vocal ornamentation, which suited American taste. The first "American" work to appear on stage was Tammany; or, The Indian Chief, a ballad opera produced in 1794 by the Old American Company.
