page_title: Charles Bannister
section_title: Shield opera premieres
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Bannister / His career in opera / Shield opera premieres
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Charles Bannister (1738-1804), English actor and singer, en travesti as Polly Peachum in the Beggar's Opera.
context_page_description: Charles Bannister was an English actor, comedian and singer.
context_section_description: Bannister played in the first productions of several of his friend William Shield's operas, from his early success The Flitch of Bacon at the Little Theatre, Haymarket (as Captain Wilson) in 1778, through many of his later Covent Garden successes. He was the first Mr Belville in Shield's Rosina (text by Mrs Brooke) in 1782–83, in which Mrs Bannister also appeared: his song "Her mouth, when a smile" stuck in his personal repertoire. In 1783 he was Captain Fitzroy in Shield's The Poor Soldier. In 1784 Robin Hood (text: MacNally) gave Mrs Bannister an air "The Nightingale" with oboe obbligato for Parke jnr., and to Charles Bannister the song "As burns the charger" with trumpet accompaniment. Bannister and 'Jack' Johnstone's duet "How sweet in the woodlands" was richly encored. Parke recalled Bannister singing in Shield's Fontainbleau, or, Our Way in France in 1784, and how he and Johnstone sang duets at a dinner held by Shield soon afterwards. Bannister was also in first performances of Shield's The Farmer (1787), The Highland Reel (1788) The Crusade and The Czar (both 1790), and The Woodman (1791), in the latter with both Johnstone and Incledon.
  
  At Covent Garden a new comic opera by Hook, The Fair Peruvian, in March 1786, featured Bannister opposite the excellent Mrs Billington, who became suddenly ill during the performance. A different play being offered, Bannister, by winning a laugh, managed to placate a turbulent audience. Bannister was identified with many songs which were never bettered than in his performance of them. 'Among them may be named: "Her mouth which a smile", in Rosina; "While happy in my native land", in The Election; "Brave Admiral Benbow"; "To Anacreon in Heaven"; "When Bibo went down to the regions below"; and above all, and never to be equalled or forgotten, "Stand to your guns, my Hearts of Oak!" In this song, his diminuendo while giving the command, "Reserve your fire" – and, "not yet, nor yet," followed by the tremendous burst of his powerful voice, in the word "Fire!" produced an electrifying and appalling effect.'
caption: Charles Bannister as Polly Peachum
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