Elkanah Settle's The World in the Moon : a critical edition
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This dissertation investigates Restoration dramatic opera from its beginnings in the Commonwealth, considers the culmination of the form in the productions of Henry Purcell, and finally examines those works presented at the close of the century to provide a context for an understanding of Elkanah Settle’s The World in the Moon (1697). Chapter I explores the various attempts at defini tion of the English compromise in dramatic opera, a mixture of sung and spoken dialogue which, for the English, was necessary to give primacy to the word as opposed to the Italian technique of all-sung opera. The chapter further examines the criticism which surrounded this new generic form. Chapter II deals with the influence of the masque as the predecessor of the dramatic opera? its emphasis on music and dialogue, in combination with elaborate scenery and dance, provided the basic components of the later Res toration dramatic opera. The gradual usurpation of the poetry by the scenes and the triumph of Inigo Jones over Ben Jonson, provided a foreshadowing of what occurred in the dramatic opera after the death of Purcell. Chapter III offers a survey of the musical works of William Davenant, generally considered to be the founder of English opera. Davenant's position in the history of dramatic' opera is important because he provides a link between the masques of the court of Charles I and the public stage of the Restoration. His First Day's Entertainment and The Siege of Rhodes were important as the first truly operatic works of the period, despite the restrictions imposed upon him by the Puritans. His early works after the opening of the theatres in 1660, Siege, Macbeth and The Tempest, began the sporadic history of dramatic opera in the Restoration. Chapter IV examines those dramatic operas produced between 1660 and 1685, works which were without rules to govern their creation and which were tentative explorations in form. Most were artistic failures; but Shadwell's Psyche, produced in 1675, offered the most successful solution to the problem of reconciling and synthesizing the diverse elements of the operatic form. The model established by Shadwell inexplicably was not followed between 1675 and 1690, and it was not until the productions of Henry Purcell that Shadwell's prototype was successfully emulated and brought to the heights of its artistic potential. Chapter V deals mainly with the works of Henry Purcell which, beginning with Dido and Aeneas in 1689, brought the dramatic opera form to its full artistic culmina tion. The greatest dramatic opera. King Arthur (1691), in collaboration with John Dryden, achieved the synthesis of music, drama and scene which had been lacking in earlier works. His music for Dioclesian, The Fairy Queen, Bonduca, and The Indian Queen dominated the stage during the early 1690’s. His untimely death in 1695 left England without a musical successor to equal his talents; the dramatic opera slowly lapsed into a degenerate form, allowing the music and scenes to dominate over the drama, thus denying the equal roles that these elements had played in King Arthur. Those operas produced after Purcell's death, including The World in the Moon, are evidence of the gradual corruption of ths form. Chapter VI describes Settle's career and examines The World in the Moon as dramatic opera. The reasons for Settle's unusual synthesis of comedy and opera and the work's place in the context of English dramatic opera are discussed. An examination of Settle's other dramatic operas, The Virgin Prophetess (1701) and The Lady's Triumph (1718), is also included. The Virgin Prophetess was the last dramatic opera of the Restoration; with its production, the English compro mise had run its full spectrum of genesis, culmination and decay. The Lady's Triumph was produced after the domination of Italian opera in England and cannot be considered among its Restoration predecessors. Chapter VII examines the text of The World in the Moon and especially concentrates on the so-called "second edition." Collation of eight copies of the play, six of the first edition and two of the "second edition," proves that there was no second edition of the play but that those copies described as a "second edition" were simply a further im pression of the first with an altered title-page. Other textual problems are explored, the possibility of a second compositor, for example. A discussion of the musicians, Daniel Purcell and Jeremiah Clark, and their music for The World in the Moon is included. To provide the most correct text, portions of copies from the Newberry Library and the University of Chicago Library have been conflated. Textual and explanatory notes are included. The two folio editions of the music for the single songs in The World in the Moon are reproduced in an appendix.
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