Event Comment: The
King's Company. For the identification of this play
and details of its performance, see
W. J. Lawrence, "
Foreign Singers and Musicians at the Court of Charles II,"
Musical Quarterly, IX (1923), 217-25,
and James G. McManaway, "
Entertainment for the Grand Duke of Tuscany,"
Theatre Notebook, XVI (1961), 20-21.
The Travels of Cosmo the Third [Monday 3 June 1669 NS; Monday 24 May 1669 OS]: In the afternoon his highness left home earlier than usual to make his visits, that he might be at the King's Theatre in time for the comedy,
and a ballet set on foot
and got up in honor of his highness by my
Lord Stafford, uncle of the
Duke of Norfolk. On arriving at the theatre, which was sufficiently lighted on the stage
and on the walls to enable the spectators to see the scenes
and the performances, his highness seated himself in a front box, where, besides enjoying the pleasure of the spectacle, he passed the evening in conversation with the
Venetian ambassador, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Stafford,
and other noblemen. To the story of
Psyche, the daughter of
Apollo, which abounded with beautiful incidents, all of them adapted to the performers
and calculated to express the force of love, was joined a well-arranged ballet, regulated by the sound of various instruments, with new
and fanciful dances after the
English manner, in which different actions were counterfeited, the performers passing gracefully from one to another, so as to render intelligible, by their movements, the acts they were representing. This spectacle was highly agreeable to
his highness from its novelty
and ingenuity;
and all parts of it were likewise equally praised by the ladies
and gentlemen, who crouded in great numbers to the theatre, to fill the boxes, with which it is entirely surrounded,
and the pit,
and to enjoy the performance, which was protracted to a late hour of the night (pp. 347-48). In
BM Add. Mss. 10117, folio 230,
Rugge's Diurnall states that towards the end of May 1669
Cosmo, Prince of Tuscany had several plays acted for him