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Shakespeare & Beyond

Shakespeare and opera: Verdi, Rossini, and other composers inspired by the plays

The birth of opera neatly coincided with the life of a man who would go on to hold – and continues to hold – great influence over the art: William Shakespeare.

What is generally considered the very first opera, Jacopo Peri’s Dafne, premiered in Italy in 1597 – coincidentally also the premiere year of Merry Wives of Windsor, which has proven to be one of the most popular Shakespeare plays with opera composers and librettists.

From Italy to England

Largely due to the rise of Puritanism in the early 17th century (and with it, the closing of theatres), it took nearly 100 years after Dafne premiered for opera to make its way to England.

England’s taste makers were initially suspicious of this Italian (‘foreign’) musical drama taking over English stages. For the land that brought the world Chaucer, Marlowe, and – of course – Shakespeare, the fripperies of Italian opera (not to mention its dangerous reliance on the effeminate and unsettling castrati singers) were seen to be beneath the splendor of English drama.

John Bull at the Italian opera. Published by Thomas Rowlandson, London, early 19th century. Folger ART File C277 no.5 (size S)

However, like in so many other cases, it was audiences who spoke loudest, and they couldn’t get enough of this silly, foreign, but highly entertaining art form! But why invest in creating English opera when Italian opera – soon to be taken to new levels of artistry in London by the German immigrant George Friedrich Handel – was packing out houses night after night?