| The musical styles and genres that accompanied the exploits of charismatic outlaws on London stages during the long eighteenth century provided much of the source material for the popular action-adventure scores of later eras. This study explores the martial, pseudo-traditional and commercial origins of such music and examines in detail the dramatic features and historical contexts of a few key swashbuckler-themed masques, operas, ballets and melodramas from the English Restoration to the Romantic era. Such an inquiry reveals how these works of musical theater both comment upon and reflect the influence of pivotal social and political developments of this period, such as the growth of the bourgeois public sphere, changing models of masculinity, the European colonial project and the international military conflicts of the era. |
