[3] Clayton visited Italy and on his return staged a number of Italian singing and dancing interludes for the public at his house in York Buildings in 1703.
The libretto was originally written for the theatre in Bologna by Tommaso Stanzani [fr] in 1667 and performed in Venice in 1668 with music by Petronio Franceschini.
He also cut the spectacular first two scenes from Stanzani's version, as these required a male chorus, a ghost, and elaborate stage machinery that Drury Lane did not possess.
The fourth performance was staged at court as part of Queen Anne’s fortieth birthday festivities with a special prologue written and pronounced by William Congreve.
[15][11] There were three further performances in 1707, but by that time Antonio Maria Bononcini’s Camilla had appeared on the stage, and the greatly superior musical experience it offered effectively finished Arsinoe.
One described how the opening verse began in recitative and then switched to a da capo aria which ended in the middle of a line.