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 nei
ther
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 hi
ther, and by almost a total revolt from
the o
ther 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