Johann Friedrich Lampe
A burlesque opera in three acts (1737)
Libretto by Henry Carey after an eponymous ballad by an unknown author (1685)
Musical director: Michael Form
The Dragon, Gaffer Gubbins: Yannis François
Moore of Moore Hall: Oliver Johnston
Margery: Aurora Peña
Mauxalinda: Idunnu Münch
Walkenried Consort
Orquesta Humboldt
50/35 €
Ferocious dragons, damsels in distress and gallant knights – the stuff of grand drama? Librettist Henry Carey and the composer Johann Friedrich Lampe, thought to originate from Braunschweig, turned it into a brazen parody of Handel’s Italian operas. Lampe, who worked as a bassoonist in London in the same musical circles as Handel and cleverly imitated his style, got endless fun out of “the Beauty of Nonsense, so prevailing in the Italian operas” – and offset it by writing “burlesque operas”. Instead of shining heroic figures, The Dragon of Wantley features a decrepit knight and two village women who take on an eccentric singing dragon. Parallel to this, the protagonists get involved in weird and wonderful love tangles. At the same time, the music sounds very much like Handel. The contrast between the coarse, everyday language of the libretto and the ‘serious’ music made The Dragon of Wantley one of the most successful comic operas of 18th-century England – and to this day a charming, original comment on Handel’s brilliantly exaggerated heroic characters.
With the kind support of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung and Saalesparkasse