The Siege of Rhodes is anopera written to a text by theimpresarioWilliam Davenant.[1] The score is by five composers, the vocal music byHenry Lawes,Matthew Locke, and CaptainHenry Cooke, and the instrumental music by Charles Coleman andGeorge Hudson.[2] It is considered to be the firstEnglish opera.
Part 1 ofThe Siege of Rhodes was first performed in a small private theatre constructed at Davenant's home,Rutland House, in 1656. Special permission had to be obtained from thePuritan government ofOliver Cromwell, as dramatic performances were outlawed and all public theatres closed. Davenant managed to obtain this by calling the production "recitative music", music being still permissible within the law. When published in 1656, it was under the equivocating titleThe siege of Rhodes made a representation by the art of prospective in scenes, and the story sung in recitative musick, at the back part of Rutland-House in the upper end of Aldersgate-Street, London. The 1659 reprinting gives the locationat theCock-pit inDrury Lane, a well-known theatre frequented bySamuel Pepys after the Restoration (1660). Pepys himself later read the text and commented in his Diary that it was "certainly (the more I read it the more I think so) the best poem that ever was wrote."[3]
The Rutland House production includedEngland's first professionalactress, Mrs Coleman.[a][6] Part 2 ofThe Siege of Rhodes followed in the 1657–1659 season and was first published in 1663.
In 1661, the piece was rewritten to take advantage of the skills of the young actresses now in Davenant's Company, and this revival introducedHester Davenport as Roxalana.
The plot was based on the1522 siege of Rhodes, when the island was besieged by theOttomanfleet ofSuleiman the Magnificent. The score of the opera is believed to be lost. However, the original sketches byJohn Webb for the stage sets, themselves an innovation of the day, are extant.