Manteaux Noirs

Manteaux Noirs ("The black mantles") is a comic opera in three acts by Walter Parke and Harry Paulton, with music by Procida Bucalossi (1832-1918)[].

Also known as The Black Mantles

The original text

First performed at the Avenue Theatre, London on 3 June 1882.

The vocal score published as Manteaux Noirs in London by Cramer and Company, 1882, and as The Black Mantles in Boston and Chicago by White-Smith and Company, ca.1886.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1882-3: Performed for the first time in South Africa in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, by Mabel Hayes and her company, with vocal work supervised by Henry Harper, as part of a season that not only included the premieres of two more comic operas - Iolanthe (Gilbert and Sullivan) and Olivette (Farnie) - but also a range of plays.

Sources

Copy of the programme for the first London production[1]

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1583955

Facsimile version of the vocal score for The Black Mantles, Hathi Trust Digital Library [2]

D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 375, 389-390, 410-411,

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