58 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
Hagen concert may be seen as an event in which Boston’s two leading musical
families took their act on the road to earn proceeds from an audience less famil-
iar with their work than Bostonians were. Their program was designed to appeal
to a broad range of audience tastes. Instrumental selections by leading Euro-
pean composers of the day testifi ed to their artistic seriousness. Vocal selections,
both solo and ensemble, expressed more-tender sentiments. And by placing
new patriotic numbers on the concert’s second half, the performers encouraged
Salem’s listeners to take pride in their American identity.THEATER MUSIC
Theater companies enhanced the musical lives of their communities. W hen a
company came to town, it arrived with singers and players who were also ready
to perform in concerts (as the Salem program shows), participate in church
music, and give music lessons. Some company musicians also became involved
in publishing and the selling of musical instruments and sheet music.
The eighteenth-century American theater was an extension of the London
stage. Some foreign performers toured the New World, then returned to the Old.
Others settled here. Not until well into the 1800s did any appreciable number of
American-born singers or players fi nd a place on U.S. stages. And musical works
by Americans had almost no place at all. New World residents whose musical
works were produced onstage were all immigrants who had arrived in the coun-
try as experienced musicians.
Like dance, the theater provoked strong opposition. Puritan thought treated
theater as a generally bad thing, symbolizing a preference for idleness and plea-
sure over hard work and thrift. For the Puritans, the theater was an institution
that lured people away from worthier pursuits, such as churchgoing. Actors and
actresses were considered vagabonds who threatened the stability of society.
Faithful to illusion rather than truth, the theater posed social dangers that made
it seem corrupt even to some who were devoted to other forms of art.
Nevertheless, the London-based English-language theater, especially Shake-
speare, was the source of enduring theatrical activity in America. English travel-
ing companies fi rst appeared in the colonies in the mid-1700s, in Philadelphia,
New York, Charleston, and Williamsburg, Virginia. New England resisted
the effort for a time; between 1750 and 1793 a Boston law prohibited theater
entertainments.
By the 1760s theaters were being built to accommodate audiences in seats of
varying location and price. A typical theatrical evening lasted four or fi ve hours,
starting with a long work (a tragedy, comedy, or drama with music) and end-
ing with an afterpiece (a short work with music, such as a farce). Musical inter-
ludes were common; so were encores of favorite numbers. Straight plays often
began with an overture, included music between the acts, and even featured
songs. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americans seldom formed the silent,
respectful gathering of playgoers that we now expect to fi nd in the theater. Early
audiences freely shared their opinions with the actors and musicians. The work
being performed seems to have been less important to them than the quality of
their own experience. If they liked what they saw and heard, they clamored for
more; if not, they demanded an end to it.
Favorite works of the British musical stage were also popular in America,
including The Beggar’s Opera (1728) by John Gay, which received its fi rst AmericanPuritan attitudes
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