Event Comment: The
Duke's Company. This apparently was not the first performance, but the time of premiere is not known.
Pepys, Diary: My wife and I and
Mercer to the Duke's house, and there saw
The Rivalls, which is no excellent play, but good acting in it; especially
Gosnell comes and sings and dances finely, but, for all that, fell out of the key, so that the musique could not play to her afterwards, and so did
Harris also go out of the tune to agree with her.
Downes (p. 23): The Rivals, A Play, Wrote by
Sir William Davenant; having a very Fine Interlude in it, of Vocal and Instrumental Musick, mixt with very Diverting Dances:
M Price introducing the Dancing, by a short
Comical Prologue, gain'd him an Universal Applause of the Town....And all the Womens Parts admirably Acted; chiefly
Celia, a Shepherdess being Mad for Love; especially in Singing several Wild and Mad Songs