There is no clear explanation why the Storaces abandoned
Vienna at the height of their success there. The reasons are suggested to be more personal than professional. Certainly the Emperor spoke of her with great admiration, even using her abilities as an arbitrary unit of currency – "I'd not give you a Storace for it!". Quite possibly Nancy was under pressure from Elizabeth, who was not at all happy in Vienna, and wished to return to England with both of her children in tow. Nancy left Vienna in February 1787, along with her "entourage" of
Michael Kelly, her brother, and
Thomas Attwood. Buoyed-up by their success on the Viennese stage, the coach-party which left for London could not have imagined they would find themselves rejected and unwanted in London, where their names were quite forgotten after such a long absence. Stephen was remembered – if at all – as an infant prodigy violinist at
Vauxhall Gardens, and found it very hard to secure paying work without the cherubic charm of youth behind him, and moreover as an unknown composer. Both Nancy and Stephen imagined they might find work at the
King's Theatre, which was – at that time – the home of the Royal Italian Opera, a troupe which enjoyed a Royal monopoly on the presentation of Italian opera, and in fact of any musical works which were through-composed without dialogue. Kelly succeeded in getting a few roles there (on the basis of his wider professional experience, knowing roles the King's Theatre already had in repertoire, and his legendary charm), but both Storaces found themselves excluded by the group of native Italian musicians already well-established there. Stephen too worked at the King's Theatre as music director for some operas, including his own
La Cameriera Astuta, before moving in 1789 to the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which at this time was under the management of
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Sheridan's personal interest in the theatre had largely dried-up by this point in his career, and he was more interested in politics – his theatrical interests were primarily financial, and he had established a successful format of lavish musical spectaculars, more remarkable for their visual than musical content. To evade the Royal monopoly on opera at the King's Theatre, Sheridan presented a mixture of
Singspiel-type works specially written in English in the ballad-opera style, with "English'd" versions of popular operas playing in continental Europe in which he saw some commercial opportunity. Stephen Storace's first job at Drury Lane was to make an "English" version of
Dittersdorf's German Singspiel
Doktor und Apotheker, which appeared in English as
Doctor & Apothecary in 1787 in Storace's version. The work of making "English" versions was not just a question of translation – all complicated musical numbers (especially trios, quartets etc.) had to be "cut" to make them performable by English casts who were primarily pantomime comedians without any great musical talent. This also meant transposition of some numbers, making a fresh English text, cutting whole numbers and replacing them with dialogue, and sometimes inserting new comic songs and "patter-songs" which the public greatly enjoyed. Stephen quickly established his credentials with Sheridan as a young man who could quickly and competently produce good results. He also had an impresario's skill for judging what would make good box-office and bring in good receipts, and he took to adding famous numbers from the Vienna stage to "spice-up" works which needed it. Seeing that the repertoire of the
King's Theatre was still largely made-up of
opera seria works about ancient gods or monarchs of antiquity, Storace spotted a niche in the market for the new "romantic" style of ghost-stories, gothic horror, and romance, and his first purpose-written work for Drury Lane employed all these elements.
The Haunted Tower (1789) was a box-office sensation, selling out for 50 nights in succession. No little part of the success was the performance of Michael Kelly in the male lead role. Up to this time, high notes in the male parts in the theatre had been crooned falsetto by performers who were more actors than singers. Kelly's aria to the ghost of the Haunted Tower – "Spirit of My Sainted Sire!" included a top B which he took in full voice in the Italian style, and proved such a success that at most performances it was encored in full. This aria outlived the rest of Storace's output by decades, and was still being reprinted in parlour songbook anthologies for the amateur tenor a century later. However,
The Haunted Tower still included "borrowings" from other composers on whose reputations tickets might be sold, and Sheridan remained adamant – despite the success of the piece – that he did not want Storace composing fresh work as a regular occurrence. Storace was put to work producing an "English" version of
André Grétry's
Richard Cœur-de-Lion, with the unfortunate difficulty that
John Bannister – the famous tragedian – was cast in the main role, and was tone-deaf. No amount of re-writing could get around the problem that Richard was supposed to sing his famous ballad so that Blondin would hear it outside the castle walls. As so often in Storace's life, he was saved by his friends. Michael Kelly was now established as the audience's favourite star after Bannister, and was given a Benefit Night in 1790 – by tradition, he could choose whatever piece he believed would bring in the best receipts at the box-office. At this period a "programme" at Drury Lane would always be a double-bill – a main work, and a one-act "afterpiece" which was usually a comedy. Kelly broke with tradition and risked his income by announcing – to Sheridan's disapproval – that instead of a popular favourite, he would premiere a new afterpiece by Storace, called
No song, no supper.
No Song outsold even
The Haunted Tower, and proved the best-selling show at Drury Lane for the following decade. Nancy had appeared as a Guest Artist in
The Haunted Tower – the success of
No Song obliged Sheridan to take her "onto the books", and at last she secured a full-time engagement in Britain. It seems likely that Storace had been working on an "English" version of
Vicente Martín y Soler's (known as Martini) comedy
Una cosa rara – an opera which had already been cited by Mozart in the final scene of
Don Giovanni. However, presumably at around the date of the
No Song triumph, Storace abruptly discarded all of Martini's music in Acts II and III, and had librettist
James Cobb produce an entirely new libretto, creating another "romantic" hit situated in the midst of the Ottoman-Austrian war of a few years earlier,
The Siege of Belgrade (1791). From this point on Storace abandoned the ballad-opera style completely, and wrote the entire piece in the Mozartian "Singspiel" style.
The Siege is remarkable for the extended ensemble numbers such as the Act I Trio for the Seraskier, Lilla and Ghita, "Your passions thus deceiving" – divided into allegro-andante-allegro sections. Alive to what the public cheered most, Storace included a bravura coloratura aria for Mrs Crouch as the imprisoned Austrian hostage, Princess Catherine, "My plaint in no-one pity moves"; a warlike Act III aria for Kelly as the "noble Turk"; and an extraordinary "Queen of the Night"-style dramatic-coloratura Act III aria for Nancy, "Domestic Peace", with a string of double-octave fast upward scales to top c'' over French-horn fanfares that brought the house down. The printed vocal score not only includes one of the famous "scenery" engravings, but cast a glove down to the King's Theatre – avoiding all euphemism the work is clearly described as "an Opera, in three acts". The year 1792 saw Storace produce the boldest of his operatic projects,
Dido, Queen of Carthage, with a
libretto by
Prince Hoare after
Metastasio's
Didone abbandonata. This was the only all-sung opera Storace produced in English – all his other works had spoken dialogue between the musical numbers. His sister regarded it as Stephen's finest work. However, for whatever reason, the piece proved unpopular with the public, and was withdrawn after a short run. The music was not thought worth printing commercially, with the result that not a note of this opera now survives, nor were any solo numbers from it printed separately.
The Pirates, also produced in 1792, was partly adapted from
Gli Equivoci, and is remarkable as affording one of the earliest instances of the introduction of a grand finale into an English opera. These works were followed by some less successful productions; but
The Cherokee (1794) and
The Three and the Deuce (1795) were very favourably received.
The Cherokee did not, unlike
The Siege of Belgrade, attempt to add any "exotic" music for the Cherokee – their "War March" is disappointingly four-square and tonal, but the "War Whoop" is an exciting number. The work also introduced the public to the boy-treble star, "Master Walsh", whose coloratura talents must have been remarkable as his numbers are no less complex than Crouch's or Nancy Storace's. He was to figure regularly in Storace's works thereafter. Storace collaborated with Sheridan in bringing
William Godwin's controversial novel
Caleb Williams to the stage. In the light of the
French Revolution, the work – about a faithful servant whose life is ruined by a vicious master – had gained considerable notoriety, and was produced under the title
The Iron Chest, first performed on 12 March 1796. Storace's final work was
Mahmoud, Prince of Persia, but he never saw the premiere. ==Death==