Music for the Melodramatic Theatre in Nineteenth-Century London and New York

8. Melos in Crisis

207 Melos in Crisis ​D espite the widespread success of sensation and audiences’ fascination with spectacle in an age of fast-­growing technological developments , the popular drama—and the music long associated with it—underwent stunning diversification in the last third of the nineteenth century. In cities and towns across the English-­ speaking world stock companies continued a varied repertoire, of course, with old and new favorites. In major urban centers such as London and New York, the emphasis was on new plays, sparked by the opening of new theatres, the growing competition among managers, and the increased mobility of many playgoers. A rising middle class with expendable income resulted in an expanding range of entertainment options. Variety provided an alluring alternative to the legitimate theatre in New York, as did the rise of extravaganzas and “light opera” following the sensational run of The Black Crook at Niblo’s Garden in 1866. American popular music thrived in the minstrel show and variety theatre, especially in a city like New York, which in the last half of the nineteenth century became a nexus for the popular music industry. The growing numbers of music halls and casinos were luring audiences in London, especially younger ones, away from traditional theatres. By 1870 London had no less than eighteen music halls. Some, such as the Alhambra and the Royal Holborn, sported exceptional orchestras and enterprising leaders. (The Alhambra eventually became known for its very clever comic ballets under the baton of Georges Jacobi.) As the old minors had done earlier in the century, music halls were seeking permission to perform dramatic repertory as well.1 In 1866 a select committee met in Parliament to update theatrical licensing laws, which had not fundamentally changed since 1843. Some of the debates pertained to morality, such as how much (or rather how little) ballet dancers in burlesque theatres and music halls were allowed to wear. A relaxation of old laws threatened to hasten audience defection from the regular theatres. Some managers relied heavily on the new law’s “free trade” clause, which allowed them to hire music-­ hall 8 208 3. Transforming the Popular Drama artists as part of an evening’s entertainment. The new licensing freedoms also had serious implications for actors, who no longer needed to be bound professionally by their lines of business. Though the Era in the 1860s still contained ads for first old men, low comedians, and singing chambermaids for “theatres and music-­halls in every part of the kingdom,” it was becoming increasingly unlikely, complained Benjamin Webster, that an actor would be content to distinguish himself in a career as a walking gentleman at Drury Lane when he could play Hamlet in an east London theatre and be paid more for it.2 At the beginning of the 1870s the stock theatre was largely the functioning model on both sides of the Atlantic. Many major theatres still maintained house authors or adapters, such as C. H. Hazlewood at the Britannia , Paul Meritt and Henry Pettitt at the Grecian, T. W. Robertson at the Prince of Wales’s, and Robert Buchanan and G. R. Sims at the Adelphi. Still, the rules by which stock companies in major theatres would formerly “get up” a standard play—with the expected music—were quickly changing . “Those were the transition days in the professional theatre,” Augustus Thomas recalled, writing with fifty years of hindsight.3 Thomas was referring to the endangered stock traditions of local theatres and the new system that gradually seemed to be replacing them, featuring major theatres tied up with long runs of a single play and touring combinations with star actors that threatened to put many regional companies out of business. London managers increasingly sought the next play and actor that—through a run of a hundred nights or more and guaranteed bookings for a tour—would naturally reduce overhead and potentially yield enormous profits. In an article for the journal Dark Blue in 1871, Tom Taylor, author of Our American Cousin and dozens of plays popular on both sides of the Atlantic, complained about this mania and the detrimental effects on playwrights and audiences. Taylor’s major concern for the future of theatre—at least for England—was that modern practices did nothing to foster permanence as the old patent system had, in terms of either the reputation of the theatre or standards in dramatic writing. Star actors are like comets that burn brightly and then go out, Taylor warned, while...