A certain, presumably small, percentage of actual ploughboys, farmers, sailors, milliners, miners, maidservants, printer's devils, dairy maidsm etc., etc. (fill in with your favorite quaint occupation) would undoubtedly have enjoyed some of those operatic/classical performances, as are a small percentage of non-ploughboys. If nothing else, they'd have experienced them as strange and somehow fascinating.

Not all of the pre-nineteenth-century "folk" conformed to the stereotype. Few could ever have heard an art-song recital, except perhaps if they were domestics at Downton Abbey. Of those that did, some might have thought it was great for some of the same reasons that more sophisticated people do: the performer's skill and control, the clarity and purity of the voice and the instrument. Others, of course, being quite as intolerant or unimaginative as most people, would have found it all quite laughable.

I don't care for the style myself. So what?