De Zwarte Kapitein ("The black captain") can refer to one of two dramatic works. There may be an - as yet unidentified - link between the two texts.

De Zwarte Kapitein the play

The original text

Written as a one act comedy by Leonard (fl. 1870s) for the Rederijkers and published by Schuitemaker in Purmerende, 1875.

If the date of publication is correct and it is not based on, or an adaptation of, the 1877 three act comic opera by Faassen, Lagye and Mertens, it could possibly have been the source for it.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1886: Performed as De Zwarte Kapitein in the Oddfellows Hall, Cape Town, by Aurora II on 10 December, with De Montfordt's (Leonard).

De Zwarte Kapitein the opera

The original text

Also known as Der Zchwarze Capitän (in German) and Le Capitaine Noir (in French), it was composed as De Zwarte Kapitein , a Dutch three act comic opera, by Rosier Faassen (Pieter Jacobus Faassen, librettist), Gustave François Lagye (1843-1908, librettist), Jozef Mertens (1834-1901, composer)

The full musical work was first performed in The Hague in 1877 and published in Dutch as De Zwarte Kapitein by W.Carpentier, 's Gravenhage in the same year.

Translations and adaptations

The opera's relationship with the one-act play is unclear, since both were created in the 1870s, though it appears the one-act play my have been the first published.

Performance history in South Africa

Sources

https://www.loc.gov/resource/musschatz.20465.0/?sp=3

http://www.medecine-des-arts.com/fr/article/zwarte-kapitein.php

Facsimile version of the text of the 3 act musical, Google E-book[1]

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 474

Ingmar Koch. 1997. Het ochtendgloren boven Kaapstad. Nederlandse rederijkers in Kaapstad, Tydskrif vir Nederlands & Afrikaans. (4de Jaargang, Nommer 2. Desember)[2]

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