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Dragon of Wantley, The Burlesque opera in three acts by John Frederick Lampe to a libretto by Henry Carey; London, Little Theatre in the Haymarket, 16 May 1737. This was Lampe’s first great success, and it came after about ten years’ work in the London theatre as a bassoonist and composer. Carey, his regular collaborator, probably came from the Rotherham area of Yorkshire, and would therefore have known the local legend of Moore of Moore Hall and the dragon of Wantley or Wharncliffe, though it was also well known nationally through the ballad printed

Young, Esther [ Hester ] [ Mrs Jones ] Member of Young family ( b London , Feb 14, 1717; d London , bur. June 6, 1795 ). English contralto , sister of Cecilia Young. She appeared in concerts from 1736 and created the role of Mauxalinda in Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley. She had other Lampe roles, played Lucy in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera for many years and in 1744 sang Juno and Ino in the première of Handel’s Semele. It is sometimes stated that she went to Ireland with the Arnes in 1755 , but in fact she sang at Covent Garden throughout

English singers: ‘There's Beard, and there's Salway, and smart Kitty Clive’. He took the title role in Gay's ballad opera Achilles , where the hero is disguised as a woman throughout, had other petticoat roles, and in 1737 created the dragon-despatching Moore of Moore Hall in Lampe's parody of Italian opera, The Dragon of Wantley. In March 1731 he was Damon in the first public performance of Handel's Acis and Galatea , and he sang for Handel at Oxford in 1733. Bibliography BDA; LS H. Carey : ‘The Beau's Lamentation for the Loss of

bap. ? Jan 3, 1716; d London , Jan 5, 1795 ). English soprano , sister of Cecilia Young. She had small singing roles at Drury Lane in 1733–4 but otherwise appeared only in concerts until she sang the heroine Margery in John Frederick Lampe’s burlesque opera The Dragon of Wantley in 1737. In the middle of its long run she married the composer and subsequently created roles in all his stage works, including Thisbe in Pyramus and Thisbe ( 1745 ). The Lampes went to Dublin in 1748 and she appeared for two seasons at the Smock Alley Theatre, and sang

Comus at the Aungier Street Theatre, Dublin and took the title role in his Rosamond ( 1743 ). Her first London appearance was in Arne’s The Temple of Dullness ( 1745 ) at Drury Lane, where she sang for three seasons, mostly in theatre pieces by Arne but also in Lampe’s Dragon of Wantley and Leveridge’s Macbeth music. In 1747 she joined the King’s Theatre company, appearing in the Handel pasticcio Lucio Vero and Hasse’s Didone and Semiramide riconosciuta. She sang in Handel’s oratorio seasons of 1748 and 1749 , when she created the parts of Aspasia

BurneyH FiskeETM GroveO (‘Dragon of Wantley, The’, ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, P. Holman ) HawkinsH LS NicollH P. Lord : ‘The English-Italian Opera Companies 1732–3’, ML , 45 (1964), 239–51 R.B. Price : A Textual, Dramatic and Musical Analysis of Two Burlesque Operas, ‘The Dragon of Wantley’ and ‘Margery, or A Worse Plague than the Dragon’ (diss., U. of Texas, 1975) J.E. Wierzbicki : Burlesque Opera in London 1729–1737 (diss., U. of Cincinnati, 1979) H.C. Wolff : ‘Eine englische Händel-Parodie: “The Dragon of Wantley”, 1737’, Hjb , 29 (1983), 43–54

Benjamin ( fl London , 1740–60 ). English engraver. Several engravers of this name flourished in England during the 18th century, though probably only one worked at music. His first work appears in Walsh's publication of J.F. Lampe's Songs and Duetto's in … The Dragon of Wantley ( 1738 ) and music from the same composer's Margery ( 1740 ). His most important work was for the British Melody, or The Musical Magazine , published in 15 (probably fortnightly) instalments from February 1738. It reappeared as a set, published by Cole, in 1739. This was

Sullivan, Daniel ( d Dublin , Oct 13, 1764 ). Irish countertenor. He appeared at Chester with the Lampes in 1741 and made his London début at Drury Lane in 1743 as Moore in The Dragon of Wantley , singing in several other stage pieces by Lampe at Drury Lane and the New Theatre in the Haymarket ( 1743–5 ). Handel engaged him for his Covent Garden oratorios in spring 1744; he created the parts of Athamas in Semele and the title role in Joseph and his Brethren , and sang Micah in Samson and David in Saul. According to Mrs Delany he was ‘ a block

musicians in the London theatre. In 1741 the revolution in Shakespearean acting initiated by Macklin and Garrick diverted attention away from music, and Lampe produced no new work in the major theatres for four years. Pyramus returns to the vein of burlesque that he mined in The Dragon of Wantley ( 1737 ), his first popular success; it ridicules Italian-style opera and opera singers rather than Shakespeare’s plays and players. The onstage audience, originally Duke Theseus and his entourage, consists of Mr Semibrief (the impresario) and two gentlemen, one of whom has

in pantomimes, afterpieces, ballad operas and burlesques. He sang again for Handel, creating Curio in Giulio Cesare ( 1724 ), his English theatre roles being taken by other singers on Italian opera nights. His most popular roles were Hob in Flora and Gaffer Gubbins in The Dragon of Wantley. He sang Corydon in the first public performance of Handel's Acis and Galatea in March 1731. In 1724 he married the dancer and actress Everard Rogeir, née Smith ( 1702–39 ); they always worked together and after her death in 1739 his career declined. In 1741 he was

(Mercury) in Handel’s Atalanta in May 1736 and the sole bass the following season, when he sang in the premières of Arminio (Segestes, 1737 ), Giustino (Polidartes, 1737 ) and Berenice (Aristobolo, 1737 ). Later in 1737 he created the comic role of the Dragon in Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley , which received 68 performances in its first season. His other English stage roles included Sir Trusty in Arne’s Rosamond and the Lion in Lampe’s Pyramus and Thisbe. In Handel’s two seasons at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre ( 1739–41 ) he sang Polyphemus in Acis

6 Duets, 2 vn, vc and pf ad lib (1896) 4 Duets, 2 vn, vc and pf ad lib (1896) 2 Concert Pieces, va, pf (1908) works for pf and ww Vocal Requiem Mass, S, Bar, chorus 8vv, orch (1914) The Dragon of Wantley, children’s chorus, 3vv, pf (1915) Atalanta in Caledon, solo v, SATB, str; Hymn of Pan, Bar, orch; partsongs and songs

failed in its aims, but succeeded instead with burlesques of the same operatic style and conventions. By far the most successful was The Dragon of Wantley (Little Theatre, Haymarket, 10 May 1737 ), a collaboration between Carey and Lampe, which had an unprecedented first season run of 69 performances at Covent Garden. Based on the ballad A True Relation of the Dreadful Combat between Moore of Moore-Hall and the Dragon of Wantley ( 1685 ), Carey’s text and Lampe’s music combine to provide a sophisticated and entertaining send-up of the more absurd conventions of

voice broke). Reinhold presumably provided the mysterious voice in Act 3. The scenes for the bear and sea-monster in the opera are often supposed to have been the inspiration for The Dragon of Wantley , the amusing operatic burlesque by Henry Carey and John Frederick Lampe produced at Covent Garden on 26 October 1737; but as Carey states in the preface to the wordbook that The Dragon ‘had lain several Years dormant in the Repository’ of Drury Lane Theatre, Giustino may have provided only the stimulus for its performance. Giustino received a total of nine pe

number of his publications, though impressive, does not give a complete picture of his unremitting industry. He did much to encourage younger writers and had many friends. The width of Blom's interests is evident from his first book, Stepchildren of Music , which ranges from The Dragon of Wantley to Bartók's first two quartets. The Music Lover's Miscellany , which he edited, also gives evidence of wide reading as well as discrimination in the choice of texts and their juxtaposition. Music in England is a popular history which achieved a broad readership. Though he

full-length works by Lampe, J. C. Smith and Arne. One of the most gifted dramatic composers of the age, Maurice Greene, failed to gain a proper hearing for his works. All-sung afterpieces were occasionally successful throughout the century, as were such burlesques as Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley ( 1737 ). A new era began in 1762 with Arne’s Love in a Village , a succession of 41 songs, mostly borrowed, some new, with spoken dialogue to connect them. Its popularity lasted until the 1840s, during which time it was a model for countless successors. The type has been

stormy history. Meanwhile at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, musical entertainments in English were proving very profitable indeed. Although the Licensing Act of 1737 produced a lengthy drought in new works of all kinds, the enormous popularity of the Carey-Lampe afterpiece The Dragon of Wantley ( 1737 ) foreshadowed the English opera boom of the 1760s. This was inaugurated, ironically, by T.A. Arne’s Artaxerxes ( 1762 ), an all-sung English version of Metastasio’s Artaserse that was regularly revived well into the 19th century. It was followed by lighter fare, with