The legend

According to the legend (apparently based on the real history of Marie of Brabant, wife of Louis II, Duke of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine), she was the wife of the palatine Siegfried of Treves, falsely accused of infidelity by the head of the household and sentenced to death, However, she was spared by the executioner to lived for six years with her son in a cave in the Ardennes, where Siegfried discovered her and reinstated her in her former honour.[1]

Stage versions of the legend

Among the many dramatized versions of the story are:

Leben und Tod der heiligen Genoveva a dramatic poem by Ludwig Tieck (1799)

Genoveva a play by Christian Friedrich Hebbel (1843)

Genoveva an opera by Robert Schumann (1850, inspired by Hebbel's play)

Geneviève de Brabant an opéra bouffe by Jacques Offenbach (1859)

Genoveva a play by Mathilde Wesendonck (1866)

Geneviève de Brabant a stage work by Erik Satie (1899/1900)

Genoveva a Dutch play by Frans Demers and Jan Melis (1912).

Suor Angelica an opera by Giacomo Puccini (1918 opera, inspired by Hebbel's play)

Performance history in South Africa

The

1866: Performed as Lucretia Borgia by the Le Roy-Duret Company in the Harrington Street Theatre, Cape Town, on

Sources

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 1932. (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.203-205

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Genoveva (also written Genovefa) is a story by the German writer of children's stories Christoph von Schmid [2] (1768-1854).

The original text

Translations and adaptations

Adapted by Frans Demers and Jan Melis with musical adaptions by Arthur Meulemans into a sentimental three act Dutch play. Published in Amsterdam by De Bussy, circa 1912.

Translated into Afrikaans by Mrs Carinus-Holzhausen. Published by DALRO, 1969.