Musical Offerings ⦁ 2025 ⦁ Volume 16 ⦁ Number 1 1 Musical Offerings 16, no. 1 (2025): 1–12 ISSN 2330-8206 (print); ISSN 2167-3799 (online) © 2025, Hannah Burkholder, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) The Opera Party: An Inquiry into the Politics of Opera in England during the 17th and 18th Centuries Hannah Carmichael Burkholder Cedarville University olitics–a topic that some are excited to embrace while others dread yet another discussion on the many views that can be held on a myriad of issues. Regardless of one’s opinion on the matter, politics have the power to encroach upon every aspect of our lives; and although governmental policies and current events may seem unrelated to fields such as music and theater, they are very much intertwined in the entertainment we enjoy. Considering the history of opera, the methods and intentions of composers, and the political status of Great Britain during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this paper seeks to prove that composers in London during this period, especially Handel, composed with the intention of making political statements. The Development of Opera and Its Arrival in England During the Renaissance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, different developments in the dramatic music of France, Italy, and England led to the eventual birth of opera.1 The French ballet, Italian mascarade, and English masque were three dance genres that contributed to the formation of opera through their use of allegory and satire to tell a story using music.2 However, Italy was the true center for the evolution of opera. Italian pastorales, madrigal comedies, and intermedio were instrumental in bringing opera into existence. Pastorales were poems 1 Grout, 21. 2 Grout, 23–24. P
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