For the comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

 by Reginald De Koven

Reginald de Koven

Henry Louis Reginald De Koven was an American music critic and prolific composer, particularly of comic operas.-Biography:...

, see Robin Hood (comic opera)

Robin Hood (comic opera)

Robin Hood is a comic opera by Reginald De Koven , Harry B. Smith and Clement Scott . The story is based on the Robin Hood legend, during the reign of King Richard I . The opera was composed in Chicago, Illinois during the winter of 1888-1889.Robin Hood was first performed at the Chicago Opera...

.

Robin Hood is a ballad opera

Ballad opera

The term ballad opera is used to refer to a genre of English stage entertainment originating in the 18th century and continuing to develop in the following century and later. There are many types of ballad opera...

 by Michael Tippett

Michael Tippett

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...

 based on the legend of Robin Hood

Robin Hood

Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....

. Composed in 1934, the score remains unpublished. However, Tippett later used an expanded version of the overture

Overture

Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...

 as the finale to his 1948 Suite in D major (For the Birthday of Prince Charles).

Background

During the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 of the 1930s, Tippett was hired to organize the musical life of a number of work camps for unemployed miners in North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

. As part of his work there, he revised and abridged John Gay's The Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...

 for performances in the church hall next to the Miners' Institute in Boosbeck

Boosbeck

Boosbeck is a village in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England.The name is Viking in origin and means "the stream near a cow shed".-References:-External links:...

. Encouraged by its success, he composed a ballad opera of his own, Robin Hood, with a subtext that reflected the difficulties faced by the unemployed miners. It was first performed in 1934 by the local villagers, miners, and students at the work camps. Although a success both with the participants and the audience, the work bears little resemblance to the composer's mature style, and Tippett would later not allow it to be performed.