Soon after the death of Purcell, the craze for Italian opera seems to have banished native art completely from the English stage.  At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the most popular form of entertainment consisted of operas set to a mixture of English and Italian words, but after a time the town, to quote Addison, tired of understanding only half the work, determined for the future to understand none of it, and these hybrid works gave place, after the arrival of Handel, to the splendid series of masterpieces extending from ‘Rinaldo’ to ‘Deidamia.’  From time to time attempts were made to gain a footing for English opera in London, and in 1728 ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ achieved a triumph so instantaneous and overwhelming as seriously to affect the success of Handel’s Italian enterprise at the Haymarket Theatre.  It is supposed, that the origin of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ is due to a remark of Swift’s that ’a Newgate pastoral might be made a pretty thing.’  Gay borrowed the idea, and constructed ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ round a cut-throat highwayman of the name of Macheath, while Dr. Pepusch arranged the music from old English and Scotch melodies, together with some of the most popular tunes of the day.  The success of the work was very remarkable.  It was performed sixty-two times during the first season, and even now is still to be heard occasionally.  It was the foundation of that exceedingly simple form of art, the English ballad opera, which was so widely popular in London during the closing years of the eighteenth century, and early in the nineteenth.  At first composers availed themselves largely of traditional or popular tunes in arranging the music which diversified the dialogue of these works, but as time went on they became more ambitious, and the operas of Storace and his contemporaries are for the most entirely original.

Meanwhile an attempt had been made by Arne to adapt the mannerisms of the Italian stage to English opera.  His ‘Artaxerxes,’ which was produced in 1762, was constructed strictly upon the lines of Italian opera, being made up throughout entirely of airs and recitative.  It had a most encouraging reception, but the enterprise seems to have borne little fruit, for after a few years we hear no more of English opera ’after the Italian manner,’ and London seems to have been content with Italian opera and ballad operas of the already familiar type.  The traditions of the latter were successfully carried on by Storace, a naturalised Italian, Dibdin, Shield, Hook, and many others, many of whose songs are still popular, though the works of which they once formed part have long been forgotten.  The ballad operas of these composers were of unimaginable naivete and depended entirely upon their simple tunefulness for such favour as they won.  Sir Henry Bishop (1786-1855) raised the artistic standard of this form of art considerably.  There is real musical interest in some of his concerted pieces, and many of his choruses, which are familiar to us under the incorrect name of glees, are capitally written.  Had Bishop possessed the necessary energy and enterprise, he might have founded a school of English opera which would have compared favourably even with its continental contemporaries.