ABSTRACT
It is perhaps characteristic of the complicated development of musical drama in seventeenth-century England that what is for modern audiences the most readily recognizable manifestation of the form-through-composed opera incorporating both tuneful air and recitative-emerges as the most uncertain, the most ephemeral, and the most contested generic category in the seminal period under discussion in the present book. We have explored, in the Introduction, the range of issues surrounding the definition and use of the term “opera” in England during this period, and have noted the ways in which the English perception of opera was influenced by a variety of genres and styles. We might also take into account the widely acknowledged influence, both direct and indirect, of Italian and French practice on the developing notion of opera, and its constituent parts, in England during the first half of the century. What this discussion reveals is that, apart from the presence of music, no single feature can be regarded as indispensable to the establishment of an operatic form in England, although certain essential qualities may be seen to predominate within the larger categories we have established.
