The Duenna

This article is about Thomas Linley's English 18th-century opera. For Sergey Prokofiev's 20th-century Russian opera to the same libretto, see Betrothal in a Monastery. For the 1949 opera by Robert Gerhard, see The Duenna (Gerhard opera).
This article is about an English opera. For the social role, see Chaperone (social).

The Duenna
Comic opera by Thomas Linley and his son
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the librettist
LanguageEnglish
Premiere
21 November 1775 (1775-11-21)
Covent Garden Theatre, London

The Duenna is a three-act comic opera, mostly composed by Thomas Linley the elder and his son, Thomas Linley the younger, to an English-language libretto by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. At the time, it was considered one of the most successful operas ever staged in England,[1] and its admirers included Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Byron (the latter called it "the best opera ever written"[2]).

First performed in the Covent Garden Theatre on 21 November 1775, The Duenna was performed seventy-five times in its first season, and was frequently revived in Britain until the 1840s. In total, 256 performances of the opera had been held in London from its opening in 1775 to the end of the 18th century. Another 194 performances occurred in the capital during the 19th century, with the last known London staging happening in January 1851 (there were some subsequent Dublin performances in 1853). The opera was first performed in the Colony of Jamaica in 1779, and subsequently spread round the English-speaking world. Soon after its first London performance, representations sprang up in British provincial theatres, though these often used invented dialogue (Sheridan's original text was not published until 1794) to link the published songs and musical numbers. In Autumn 2010, English Touring Opera performed the complete opera in venues around the UK, beginning in the Linbury Studio Theatre within the Royal Opera House as part of ROH2's Autumn season – bringing the opera back to its Covent Garden home. Two modern operas based on Sheridan's libretto have been performed: Sergei Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery (composed 1940–1), and Roberto Gerhard's version of 1945–7.

  1. ^ Fiske, Roger. English Theatre Music of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1973) p.414
  2. ^ Michael Billington (30 September 2010). "The Duenna's 230-year elopement". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 September 2010.