Our first Drama Queen is the chart topping opera singer Jenny Lind, otherwise known as the Swedish Nightingale This figure commemorates her first performance in Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le Diable and depicts her in the role of Alice and the modelling is taken from an engraving that appeared in the London Illustrated News, 8th May, 1847.
Staffordshire Pottery figure of Jenny Lind
However before her arrival John Liston might have held an equal place in the nation’s hearts though his forte was the comic opera and here he is depicted in the role of Moll Flaggon in Burgoyne’s comic opera The Lord of the Manor which he first performed in Convent Garden in October 1812.
StaffordshirePottery Enoch Wood figure of Moll Flaggon
Bizarrely John Burgoyne was actually a decorated General and was M.P. for Midhurst and Preston who wrote the opera for his lover, the actress Susan Caulfield, thankfully he was long dead when Liston took on the role.
