The Stage 3 Volume Set: Both before and behind the Curtain, from Observations Taken on the Spot

The librettist and theatre manager Alfred Bunn (1796-1860) published these memoirs of his career, giving a view ‘both before and behind the curtain’, in 1840. He professes not to be fond of autobiographies, is clearly irritated at the not always flattering walk-on role he is given in the memoirs of some of the greatest contemporary performers, and regards this three-volume work as a way of settling a number of scores. His account cannot therefore be said to be unprejudiced, but it is written with a verve which makes it very readable, and - allowing for bias and exaggeration - provides a fascinating account of the period when Bunn was running both the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane and the Opera House at Covent Garden, providing libretti for some of the best known British composers of the period, and quarrelling with almost everyone he worked with in the course of his career.