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Gender History

Ballad operas are all about women. Although packaged as nation-building entertainments (see Political History), the dramatic action and musical numbers of ballad operas focus on females: why they should marry, how they should behave, what their frailties are, and how these frailties can be corrected.

Following the traditions of sentimental comedy, plots frequently consist of a young couple whose union is thwarted, typically by an older male whose ward is the maiden. Thanks to the efforts of the suitor, and perhaps a crafty servant, obstacles to the lovers’ marriage are challenged. The maiden, while defying her male guardian, is largely passive. Conflict is usually resolved by the revelation of the suitor’s previously unrecognized noble birth, ‘recuperating’ thereby the plot from any earlier challenges to normative power relationships. There exist, however, many departures and permutations of this standard plot.

Fig. 1: The Devil to Pay: or, The Wives
Metamorphos'd. An Opera.

Whatever the plot, the agenda of showing what to expect from females and how they should be handled remained central, as titles such as The Wanton Countess or The Fashionable Lady indicate. Emblematic characters like ‘Miss Foible’ signalled to audiences that it was female frailties, such as vanity, that the suitor would have to reform in order for the lover’s union to be realized. Ballad operas are littered with Fine Ladies, fashion-crazed Daughters and termagant Wives included to teach audiences about types of female conduct to avoid or oppose (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Detail. The Devil to Pay: or, The Wives Metamorphos'd. An Opera. As it is perform'd at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty's Servants. With a Table of the Songs (London: printed by Ed. Cook, 1736). © The Bodleain Library, University of Oxford.

Fig. 2: Tight Lacing, or The Cobbler's Wife in the Fashion.

Fig. 2: Tight Lacing, or The Cobbler's Wife in the Fashion. Print. After unknown artist, 1777. © Trustees of the British Museum.

Into each ballad opera’s plot is woven musical numbers which chiefly comment on, rather than dramatize, the action and characters. Airs predominately reflect on females, or represent what was considered inherent to their nature. Song titles (‘A Maidenhead's like the Philosopher's Stone’) and first lines (‘A Prude, my Dear’s a formal Elf’, or ‘Fine Women are Devils, compleat [sic] in their Way’) identify many such numbers. Users are encouraged to browse and search air titles, first lines and subject topics to find examples of musical numbers about women, and then view these musical numbers on Eighteenth-Century Collections Online.

Partly because ballad operas centred on women, leading female players such as Lavinia Fenton, Catherine Clive and Charlotte Charke (see Stars of Ballad Operas) were central to popularizing works. By searching under the player’s name, users may compile a female players’ ballad opera repertory. Subject searches can guide the user to ballad operas and musical numbers of interest to feminist historians.

Expanding this resource

This catalogue does not reflect the full extent to which ballad operas thematized female representation and conduct. We would like to index ballad opera works and songs using keywords that capture the breadth and depth of commentary about women. Please enhance our chances for further funding by requesting more information.