Event Comment: The
Duke's Company. This performance, the premiere, is on the
L. C. list, 5@141, p. 216: first Acting. See also
Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 348.
Nell Gwyn also attended this performance; see
VanLennep,
Nell Gwyn's Playgoing, p406. The title page states: The English Opera; or The Vocal Musick in
Psyche, with the Instrumental Therein Intermix'd...By
Matthew Lock.
Preface: All the Instrumental Musick (which is not mingled with the Vocal) was Composed by that Great Master,
Seignior Gio. Baptista Draghi, Master of the
Italian Musick to the
King. The Dances were made by the most famous Master of France,
Monsieur St.Andree. The Scenes were Painted by the Ingenious Artist,
Mr Stephenson. In those things that concern the Ornament or Decoration of the Play, the great industry and care of
Mr Betterton ought to be remember'd, at whose desire I wrote upon this Subject.
Roger North Upon Music: I am sure the musick in the
Psyche was composed by Mr M. Lock, of whom wee may say, as the
Greeks sayd of
Cleomenes, that he was ultimus Heroum. This masque is also in print, and begins 'Great Psyche,' &c. and the book containing the whole musick of that entertainment is not unworthy of a place in a vertuoso's cabanet (ed.
John Wilson [1959], pp. 306-7). Preface to
Settle's
Ibrahim (licensed 4 May 1676): I have often heard the Players cursing at their oversight in laying out so much on so disliked a play [
Psyche]; and swearing that they thought they had lost more by making choice of such an Opera: writer than they had gained by all his Comedies; considering how much more they might have expected, had such an Entertainment had that scence in it, that it deserved: and that for the future they expect the
Tempest, which cost not one Third of
Psyche, will be in request when the other is forgotten.
Downes (
Roscius Anglicanus, pp. 35-36): In February 1672. The long expected Opera of
Psyche, came forth in all her Ornaments; new Scenes, new Machines, new Cloaths, new
French Dances: This Opera was Splendidly set out, especially in Scenes; the Charge of which amounted to above 800l. It had a Continuance of Performance about 8 Days together it prov'd very Beneficial to the Company; yet the
Tempest got them more Money