Various Composers

The period 1760-1800 was the golden age of English comic opera. Each of the London playhouses -Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Little Theatre in the Haymarket - employed a resident composer who wrote for plays, pantomimes, three- act mainpiece operas, and one- or two-act afterpieces. Successful premieres were followed up with the publication of piano reductions to satisfy the insatiable home entertainment market. This volume includes overtures by all of the major figures of the period, including Dibdin, Arne, Arnold, Shield, Storace and Davy, whose opera What a blunder! provides the title for this fascinating anthology.