Event Comment: The
King's Company. The date of the premiere is not known, but a licensing date of 28 March 1678 suggests a first performance not later than February 1678. One song,
One night while all the village slept, with music by
Louis Grabu and words by
Sir Car Scroop, is in
Choice Ayres and Songs, The Third Book, 1681.
Downes (
Roscius Anglicanus, p. 17):
Major Mohun...[in]
Mithridates, &c. An Eminent Poet seeing him Act this last, vented suddenly this Saying: Oh Mohun, Mohun! Thou little Man of Mettle, if I should write a 100 Plays, I'd Write a Part for thy Mouth; in short, in all his Parts, he was most Accurate and Correct. [Downes, p. 12, gives an identical cast except for omissions.]
Princess Anne apparently played
Ziphares and
Frances Apsley played
Semandra in a production of this drama, probably at
St James's Palace or at
Sir Allen Apsley's house in
St James's Square, between January 1677@8 and August 1679. See
Benjamin Bathurst,
Letters of Two Queens (
London, 1924), p. 61
Performances
Mainpiece Title: Mithridates, King Of Pontus