Drama in Words and Music: Jane Austen Sings: A Program of Theatre Music from the Austen Family Music Collections

In her letters Jane Austen sometimes described visits to the theatre, often in a critical or dismissive way. After one night at the theatre in November 1814, at which she saw Eliza O’Neill and Charles Mayne Young in David Garrick’s Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage, she wrote to her niece Anna, “I fancy I want something more than can be. Acting seldom satisfies me” (29 November 1814). She levelled this sort of criticism not only at actors but also at singers on stage. Her assessment of the soprano Catherine Stephens in Thomas Arne’s English opera Artaxerxes was “a pleasing person & no skill in acting” (9 March 1814).