Handel had now been twenty-four years in London where he had raised the Italian Opera to a pitch of excellence unequalled elsewhere in Europe, except perhaps at Dresden, which during the first half of the 18th century was universally celebrated for the perfection of its operatic performances at the Court Theatre directed by Hasse. But of the introduction of Italian Opera into England, and especially of the arrival of Handel, his operatic enterprises, his successes and his failures, I must speak in another chapter.
INTRODUCTION OF ITALIAN OPERA INTO ENGLAND.
Operatic Feuds.--Objections to Nose-pulling.--Arsinoe.--Camilla and the Boar.--Steele on insanity.--Handel and Clayton.--Nicolini and the lion.--Rinaldo and the sparrows.--Hamlet set to music.--Three enraged musicians.--Three charming singers.
It was not until the close of the 17th century that England was visited by any Italian singers of note, among the first of whom was the well-known Margarita de l'Epine. This vocalist's name frequently occurs in the current literature of the period, and Swift in his "Journal to Stella" speaks in his own graceful way of having heard "Margarita and her sister and another drab, and a parcel of fiddlers at Windsor." This was in 1711, nineteen years after her arrival in England--a proof that even then Italian singers, who had once obtained the favour of the English public, were determined to profit by it as long as possible. Margarita was an excellent musician, and a virtuous and amiable woman; but she was ugly and was called Hecate by her husband, who had married her for her money.
The history of the Opera in England is, more than in any other country, the history of feuds and rivalries between theatres and singers. The rival of Margarita de l'Epine was Mrs. Tofts, who in 1703 was singing English and Italian songs at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Instead of enjoying the talent of both, the London public began to dispute as to which was the best; and what was still more absurd, to create disturbances at the very theatres where they sang, so that the English party prevented Margarita de l'Epine from being heard, while the Italians drowned the voice of Mrs. Tofts.[11] Once, when the amiable Margarita was singing at Drury Lane, she was not only hissed and hooted, but an orange was thrown at her by a woman who was recognised as being or having been in the service of the English vocalist. Hence considerable scandal and the following public statement which appeared in the _Daily Courant_ of February 8th, 1704.