(Credit: Patric Leo) John Frederick Lampe’s “The Dragon of Wantley” (1737), with libretto by Henry Carey, is one of the sharpest English burlesques of the 18th century. By dressing up absurd English verse in the grand musical gestures associated with Handel, it gleefully mocked the Italian operas that had dominated London. The parody was so effective—and so popular—that it undercut {…}