{{Short description|1783 British opera}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{italic title}} [[File:Poster for a Southampton performance of the play ‘The Country Girl’.jpg|thumb|Playbill for a 1790 performance of the opera at Theatre Royal, Southampton]] '''''The Poor Soldier''''' is a 1783 British pasticcio opera with music by William Shield and a text by John O'Keeffe. It was a comedy set around Irish soldiers returning home after fighting in the British army in the American War of Independence, which formally ended that year with the Peace of Paris.<ref>Shaffer, p. 174.</ref> One of the redcoats must fight for the love of Norah with the urbane Captain Fitzroy. The events are set entirely in a small Irish village called Carton, a few miles from Dublin, although several versions refer to it only as "a country village".<ref>Richards, p. 64.</ref>
''The Poor Soldier'' was an altered version, as an afterpiece, of the earlier ''The Shamrock, or The Anniversary of St Patrick'', first performed as a comic opera on 16 April 1777 at Crow Street Theatre, Dublin, followed by a London performance on 7 April 1783 at Covent Garden. The first performance of ''The Poor Soldier'' took place on 4 November 1783 at Covent Garden.<ref>White, Eric Walter: ''A Register of First Performances of English Operas'' (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1983), p. 49.</ref>
The work enjoyed widespread popularity in the newly independent United States, and was a favourite of George Washington.<ref>McLucas, p. 90.</ref>
The music by Shield was mostly based on Irish traditional tunes, which had been sung to Shield by the Irishman O'Keeffe,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jul/01/the-poor-soldier-review|title=The Poor Soldier | Opera review|website=TheGuardian.com|date=July 2010}}</ref> as in many other examples of the collaboration between Shield and O'Keeffe.<ref>Brian Boydell: "O'Keeffe, John", in: ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'' (MGG), biographical part, vol. 15 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2006), cc. 702–3.</ref> One exception was the Scottish tune "Oh, whistle and I'll come to you, my lad", used for the song "Since love is the plan, I'll love if I can".<ref>{{Cite book|first=Alexander|last=Whitelaw|author-link=Alexander Whitelaw (editor)|title=The Book of Scottish Song|date=1843|page=334|publisher=Blackie and Son|location=London}}</ref> The song "How Happy the Soldier" also featured in the opera.
In 1786, O'Keeffe wrote a sequel ''Love in a Camp'', when the characters have joined the Prussian army.
==References== <references/>
==Bibliography== * Brasmer, William & Osborne, William (eds.): ''The Poor Soldier (1783)'' (Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 1978) * Hager, Alan: ''Encyclopedia of British Writers: 16th, 17th & 18th Centuries'' (New York: Book Builders, 2005) * McLucas, Anne Dhu: ''The Musical Ear: Oral Traditions in the USA'' (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010) * Richards, Jeffrey H.: ''Drama, Theatre and Identity in the American New Republic'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) * Shaffer, Jason: ''Performing Patriotism: National Identity in the Colonial and Revolutionary American Theater'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)
==External links== * {{FadedPage|id=20130737|name=The Poor Soldier}}
{{John O'Keeffe}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Poor Soldier}} Category:1783 operas Category:English comic operas Category:Operas set in the British Isles Category:Plays by John O'Keeffe