The Siege of Rhodes

A view of Rhodes, designed by Inigo Jones' pupil John Webb, to be painted on a backshutter for the first performance of Davenant's opera The Siege of Rhodes "in recitative music" in May 1656, at Rutland House.

The Siege of Rhodes is an opera written to a text by the impresario William Davenant.[1] The score is by five composers, the vocal music by Henry Lawes, Matthew Locke, and Captain Henry Cooke, and the instrumental music by Charles Coleman and George Hudson.[2] It is considered to be the first English opera.

  1. ^ Sir William Davenant (1606–1668)
  2. ^ Roger Parker, The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994; pp. 39–40.