Carestini sings, Pescetti composes;
the house is made up into little boxes, like the playhouses abroad." Dr.
Burney gives a comic account of the undertaking. "The opera, a tawdry,
expensive and meretricious lady, who had been accustomed to high keeping,
was now reduced to a very humble state. Her establishment was not only
diminished, but her servants reduced to half-pay. Pescetti seems to
have been her prime minister, Carestini her head man, the Muscovita her
favourite woman, and Andreoni a servant for all work." Concerts and
_pasticcios_ formed the main repertory, and Burney ascribes such success as
they enjoyed to the fact that the Little Theatre was a "snug retreat" in
which those who had the courage to quit their firesides during the great
frost might keep reasonably warm.
Handel had nothing to do with this theatre, but in 1740 again rented the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where on November 8 he revived _Parnaso
in Festa_ "in its original oratorio manner, with the addition of scenes,
dresses and concertos on the organ and several other instruments." It had
but one performance; on the 22nd, Handel produced a new opera, or, as
Burney calls it, an _operetta_, which had no more than two performances.
This was _Imeneo_.
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