'
"No one will dispute but that understanding Italian would render our
entertainment at an opera more rational and more complete; but without that
advantage, let it be remembered by the lovers of Music, that an opera is
the _completest concert_ to which they can go; with this advantage over
those in still life, that to the most perfect singing, and effects of a
powerful and well-disciplined band, are frequently added excellent acting,
splendid scenes and decorations, with such dancing as a playhouse, from its
inferior prices, is seldom able to furnish."
Orchestral concerts in those days did not exist; concerts of any kind were
rare, and the best were to be heard in that historic room over Thomas
Britton's small coal shop, in Clerkenwell, where Handel himself sometimes
played on a chamber-organ for the genuine musical enthusiasts of London
society. It was no wonder that Italian opera became fashionable. Italian
singers have always been unrivalled in popular favour, and in Handel's days
they were not only something new to England, but were the exponents of a
vocal art which admittedly has never been surpassed. The theatre was new
and sumptuous; society was wealthy and at the same time exclusive; at the
opera the great world met together as in a sort of club.
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