The Welsh Opera is a play by Henry Fielding. First performed on 22 April 1731 in Haymarket, the play replaced The Letter Writers and became the companion piece to The Tragedy of Tragedies. It was also later expanded into The Grub-Street Opera. The play's purported author is Scriblerus Secundus who is also a character in the play. This play is about Secundus' role in writing two (Fielding) plays: The Tragedy of Tragedies and The Welsh Opera.
The play served as a tribute to Scriblerians (satirists and members of the informal Scriblerus Club), as such it allowed Fielding to satirise politics. As a political allegory that satirised the government of the time, the play was subject to attacks and a ban. Critics agree that the play was bold in both its writing and its message.
Read more about The Welsh Opera: Background, Cast, Plot, Themes, Sources, Response
Famous quotes containing the words welsh and/or opera:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“Are you suggesting that we reopen the Opera with a murder as an added attraction?”
—Eric Taylor, Leroux, and Arthur Lubin. Lecours (Fritz Feld)