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From stage to folk: a note on the passages from Addison's Rosamond in the "Truro" mummers' play - Topics, Notes And Comments

Folklore, August, 2003 by Tom Pettitt

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1.1 Page.                             Henry Crossrnan 15 [= St George]
34. Behold on yonder rising ground    Behould on yander risen ground
35. the bower, that wanders           the bour that woander
    In meanders,
    Ever bending,                     ever ending
    Never ending,                     ever bending
    Glades on glades,                 glades an glades
40. Shades in shades                  shades an shades
    Running an eternal round,         running on eternal round.

Rosamond Performed and Printed

Of the various channels by which this material might have got into the Truro play, the least likely is probably someone recollecting the text from a theatre performance, although the decisive factors are practical and geographical rather than chronological. The Truro play as we have it was recorded some time in the 1780s, and Addison's Rosamond was composed, published, and first performed three quarters of a century earlier, in 1707. But we do not know how long the Addison material had been in the Truro play before it was recorded, and conversely Addison's opera continued to be performed fairly deep into the eighteenth century. With libretto by Addison and music by Thomas Clayton, Rosamond was a failure at Drury Lane in 1707, achieving only three performances (Avery 1960, 142, 143). A later production with new music by composer Thomas ("Rule Britannia") Arne was vastly more successful, with seven performances at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in 1733 (Scouten 1961, 273 [advertisement], 276, 277, 278, 285, 286, 294 [performances]). These were followed by revivals at Drury Lane in 1740 (seven performances), 1741 (two performances), 1745 (thirteen performances) and 1747 (two performances) (Scouten 1961, 824, 825, 826, 827, 829; 892, 900; 1149, 1150, 1151, 1152, 1158, 1164, 1173; cf. 1175 [advertised but not performed]; 1278, 1279).

Except in 1733 and 1741, this version of Rosamond invariably appears as the afterpiece in a double bill, suggesting it may have been shortened, and one of the 1741 performances is indeed advertised as "Reduced to Two Acts"--Addison's original having had three (Scouten 1961, 900). However, there is no way of telling if this was true already of the 1733 production, as this version of the text does not seem to have been published. Finally, there were one-off revivals of the Addison-Arne version (on both occasions as an afterpiece) at Covent Garden in 1754 and at Drury Lane in 1765 (Stone 1962, 423, 1110). In observations on the contemporary stage written in 1760, John Locke had reported a rumour that Arne had recently responded to popular demand by further reducing the work to one act (Stone 1962, 1110). There is no evidence that this ever achieved public performance, but what we do encounter is another production with new music by yet another composer, Samuel Arnold, performed just once (and as an afterpiece) at Covent Garden on 21 April 1767 (Stone 1962, 1237). It was published in the same year by the London printers L. Davis and C. Reymers as Rosamond. an opera, altered from Mr. Addison; the music, entirely new, set by Mr. Arnold. It is not clear whether Arnold made his own adaption of Addison's original libretto, or used (or further adapted) Thomas Arne's version.

From stage to folk: a note on the passages from Addison's Rosamond in the "Truro" mummers' play - Topics, Notes And Comments

Folklore, August, 2003 by Tom Pettitt

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