The Castle of Andalusia

The Castle of Andalusia is a 1782 comic opera by Samuel Arnold and a libretto by John O'Keeffe. It was a heavily rewritten version of the 1781 work The Banditti, which had been a failure.^[1]

After its first performance on 2 November 1782,^[2] the original run saw the work performed thirty-nine times, and it was revived on several occasions until 1817.^[3] It became a popular play for amateur dramatics and was performed by the Kilkenny players, including many of the elite, with the writer Thomas Moore appearing several times in the role of Spado.^[4]

References

1. Fenner (1994), p. 388.
2. White (1983), p. 48.
3. Fenner (1994), p. 388.
4. Kelly (2009), p. 173.

Bibliography

• Fenner, Theodore: Opera in London: Views of the Press, 1785-1830 (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994)
• Kelly, Ronan: Bard of Erin: The Life of Thomas Moore (London: Penguin Books, 2009)
• White, Eric Walter: A Register of First Performances of English Operas (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1983)