Event Comment: Rich's Company. There is no certainly as to whether this performance is the premiere. Because the play was not published until 1715, the cast for the first performance is not known. Lady Morley attended this performance. Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377: Lady Morley and one in the Box att Country House 8s

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance. Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377: Lady Morley and two in the Box at King Arthur 18s. [In The Female Wits--see September 1696--in Act I is a reference to the enlivening of King Arthur created by the Pudding and Dumbling Song.

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance. Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377: Lady Morley and one in the Box att King Arthur 10s

Event Comment: Rich's Company. The date of the premiere is not known, but the fact that the play was advertised in the Flying Post, 29-31 March 1698, suggests that the first performance probably occurred in late February or very early in March. One song, Though over all mankind, the music by Leveridge and sung by Mrs Lindsey, was published in A Second Book of Songs with a Through Bass, 1699

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance. Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377: Lady Morley and one in the Box att King Arthur 10s

Event Comment: Rich's Company. The date of the first production is not known, but A Comparison between the Two Stages (1702) (pp. 21-23) implies that this work preceded Rinaldo and Armida (performed at lif probably in November 1698). The Island Princess was not published until 1699 (the Masque being advertised in the Post Boy, 7-9 Feb. 1698@9, and the Opera in the Flying Post, 7-9 March 1698@9). A Comparison between the Two Stages (1702), pp. 21-22: Sullen: The old House have a Bawble offer'd 'em, made out of Fletcher's Island Princess, sometime after alter'd by Mr Tate, and now erected into an Opera by Motteux: The Actors labour at this like so many Galley Slaves at an Oar, they call in the Fiddle, the Voice, the Painter, and the Carpenter to help 'em; and what neither the Poet nor the Player cou'd do, the Mechanick must do for him:...but as I was saying-the Opera now possesses the Stage, and after a hard struggle, at length it prevail'd, and something more than Charges came in every Night: The Quality, who are always Lovers of good Musick, flock hither, and by almost a total revolt from the other House, give this new Life, and set it in some eminency above the New; this was a sad mortification to the old Stagers in Lincolns-Inn-fields. For a poem, The Confederates; or the first Happy Day of the Island Princess, see Poem on Affairs of State, 1703, II, 248-50

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance: Lady Morley and two in the Box at Oedipus. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance: Lady Morley and two in the Box att Little Theife. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance: Lady Morley and nne in the Box att Bonduca. 8s. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377. When this play was revived at Drury Lane on 12 Feb. 1705, the bill bore the heading: Not Acted these Six Years

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance: Lady Morley and one in the Box att the Island Princess. 10s. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 377

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance: Lady Morley and two in the Box att the Island Princesse. 15s

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Post Boy, 27-29 April 1699: Her Royal Highness is this day pleased to see the Opera, call'd The Island Princess, Performed at the Theatre Royal by her own Command

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance: Lady Morley and one in the Box at ye Relapse. 8s. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 378

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Morley attended this performance: Lady Morley and one in the Box at the Grove an Opera. 10s. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Drama, p. 378. It is not known whether this performance was the premiere, but the publication of this work on 16 March 1699@1700 (Post Man, 14-16 March 1699@1700) suggests that if the usual month between premiere and publication intervened for this work, the premiere may have been in mid-February. On the other hand, a letter-see 20 Jan. 1699@1700-may refer to this work. The music was composed by Daniel Purcell. In Songs in the New Opera Called The Grove or Love's Paradice (1700) the following singers are listed: Mrs Irwin, Freeman, The Boy, Hughes, Mrs Lindsey, Pate, and Mrs Shaw. The Preface implies that the opera was a failure: As for the Persons who were not so generous...who thought the Catastrophe was not enough prepar'd, and that the discovery in the last Act was huddled and in confusion, they will now see if what he had writ had been spoken, every thing would have appear's clear and natural, which, to shorten the Entertainment had been before broken and disorder'd

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Lady Marow to Arthur Kay, 12 March 1699@1700: I have been at a play. The Island Princess which is mighty fine (HMC, 15th Report, Appendix, Dartmouth MSS., Part I, 1896, p. 145)

Event Comment: Rich's Company. Post Boy, 28-30 May 1700: This Day at the King's Play-house, will be Acted the Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, with some Additional Entertainments, at the Request of several Seafaring Men

Event Comment: Rich's Register lists The Emperor Of The Moon as the mainpiece. Receipts: #22 6s. 6d