The Welsh Opera - Response

Response

The contemporary view of The Welsh Opera was split: the common people enjoyed the show, but the members of the government did not. However, there was no prohibition of the play by the government. This, according to F. Homes Dudden, encouraged Fielding to expand the play into The Grub-Street Opera. John Loftis focuses on the blatant politics of Fielding's piece and declared, "If the political meaning of The Tragedy of Tragedies is mild and ambiguous, that of Fielding's The Welsh Opera is audacious and absolutely clear". Thomas Cleary wrote that the revised version "is a much better play".

Robert Hume believes that, in The Welsh Opera, "Fielding daringly vented his penchant for burlesque. Its politicality has often been overestimated, but its audacity is beyond question." Likewise, the Battestins point out that "the play cannot have been acceptable to the authorities; it is too impudent in making a public spectacle of the foibles of the Royal Family". Harold Pagliaro characterised the play as "often droll and always merry." Thomas Lockwood declares that the plays The Welsh Opera and The Grub-Street Opera are characterised by a "spirit of fun" but are complicated by the 18th-century politics that gave them birth.