The Farmer is a two-act comic opera with music by William Shield and a libretto by the Irish writer John O'Keeffe, set in London and Kent and premiered at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden on 31 October 1787.White, Eric Walter: A Register of First Performances of English Operas (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1983), p. 51.
O'Keeffe adapted the text from his play The Plague of Riches, which had been rejected. Its songs included "A Flaxen-Headed Cow-Boy".
Sources http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20658
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