Dance on the eighteenth-century London stage was a strictly commercial enterprise with no maintained company supported by royal patronage, as in Paris and other European cities. For today's scholars, uncovering the identity, performances, and nature of dance practice in Handel's operas is challenged by a shifting scene and variable records. McCleave marshals the documentary evidence in scores and libretti to investigate the occurrence and rationale of dance in Handel's operas and to make proposals concerning the nature of the dance entries. In the absence of choreographic records of those dances in verbal or notated form, the music can provide several insights. Contextual evidence for dance in France, Italy, Germany, and England is explored in order to characterize Handel's expectations in composing dance music.

The introduction traces Handel's career before arrival in London, in which the complexity of influences running between France, Italy, and Germany is made clear. The lyric theater of post-Restoration London is also presented in all its richness and diversity, as dance was appreciated within plays, masques, operas, pantomimes, and in its own right as entr'acte entertainments and John Weaver's mute danced dramas. Drawing on a number of resources, the main styles of dance are also introduced. The noble style derived from social dance (still regarded as the higher form) is contrasted with the theatrical forms of demi-caractère for lively depiction of humble types and the comic and grotesque typified by acrobatic skills and fleet footwork. The existence of a genre of expressive dance, designated “imitative” by Weaver, dancing master and theorist, made London a fruitful environment for more radical experimentation than was possible in Paris. This was the context for the innovations in dramatic dance achieved by Handel in partnership with the famous French dancer Marie Sallé.

The first half of the book examines Handel's practice from his arrival in 1710 through to his last season in 1735. The evidence presented for the dance entries in each opera ranges through its source, the extant scores with variants, the libretti, the theatrical context, likely personnel, and any previous experience that Handel could have drawn on. McCleave handles a range of evidence with great skill and clarity, illustrating her arguments with musical analysis. Charting the caprice of the London audiences and the changing fortunes of theater managers and artists, including the noble directors of the Royal Academy of Music, is a challenge, but it also demonstrates the perseverance of the composer under trying circumstances. The second half discusses the influence of Handel and Sallé on theatrical dance in London during the two decades after their departure. A chapter on French influence in London surveys the use of dance forms, such as the bourrée, passacaille, and rigaudon, supported by three tables. The presence of French dancers in London and French precursors to Handel's operas are discussed. A detailed analysis of Handel and Sallé's Terpsichore illustrates the play of French/English aesthetics in dance and music. The final chapter explores the tension between pastoral and heroic in opera and the function of dance within these genres. Three more analytic sections, detailed notes, and a full bibliography complete the volume.

This publication is valuable in its extensive treatment of dance within a great composer's work, because this ephemeral art leaves little trace and has often been disregarded as either trivial or impossible to retrieve. For those who study and appreciate Handel, and eighteenth-century opera in general, it will lead to better understanding of the importance of dance, both as an integral part of the action and as an incidental entertainment. The dance specialist may wish for more precision in the insights into dance as practice. This is said not to denigrate the quality of McCleave's scholarship but to draw attention to the problems of cross-disciplinary research. In contrast to music, practical study informed by documentary research into dance is a relatively new field with a limited publication profile. Access to the insights of the few specialists in English (rather than French) eighteenth-century dance can only be gained through scattered journal articles, conference papers, and dance demonstrations (ephemeral in themselves!). The notes and bibliography reveal that partial use has been made of these specialists, but one would hope for more, and indeed this publication may prompt published analysis of Handel's dance entries from a dance perspective.

Alongside analysis of the music scores, a deep knowledge of the dance forms aids understanding. For example, the passacaille in Radamisto act 2 augments the emotions of the lovers for its strong associations with eternal love and fidelity, while the following gigue would signal scorn. The inclusion of a passacaille also indicates the employment of highly trained dancers (J. Thorp, “‘To come to a resolution about the dancers’: Anthony L'Abbé and the Staging of Opera at the King's Theatre, London, 1719–1721,” Royal Musical Association Conference, 2009).

Discussion of sailors' dances serves as an illustration of the problem. For Oreste, McCleave makes reference to Lambranzi's Neue und curieuse theatrialische Tantz-Schul (Nurnberg: J. J. Wolrab, 1716), included as figure 1.3, described as “Sailors dancing in the comic style” (13). This source is a brief sketch of a dance entry for professionals to improvise with two eight-bar strains of music. As a dance for a sailor and his wife in their own characters, this throws little light on the dance in Oreste. Comic dances may not have been “ungainly” (86) but dexterous in footwork and whole body action. A dance researcher might discuss Feuillet's La Matelotte here, for which a notation exists detailing the neat footwork of that maritime character (Recueil de Danses, Paris, 1706). Furthermore, the hornpipe was not a cliché for a nautical dance until the mid-nineteenth century (138). It is hard to pin down the choreographic traits of a sailor on the London stage, as it is for other characters.

Dance specialists may add to our understanding in the future, but the research and musical analysis achieved by McCleave has resulted in a book that will enhance Handel studies for a long time.