ABSTRACT
The ‘dramatick operas’ of Henry Purcell, staged in the early 1690s, were an anomalous and unique form of theatre. They were developed after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ when it was clear the old Restoration comedies of rakes and amoral escapades were no longer appropriate and the drama had not yet found an alternative way. They had a long, if thin, pre-history. The Jacobean and Caroline court masques employed much music and spectacular scenic affects, and these had not entirely been forgotten during the Interregnum. Shirley’s Cupid and Death, for instance, had been staged at Cromwell’s court in 1653, and Davenant had managed to present The Siege of Rhodes, which boasted the first use of recitative in English, and other extravaganzas with music, before 1660.
