I Tre Gemelli Veneziani

I Tre Gemelli Veneziani ("The three Venetian twins") is a comic drama in three acts by Antonio Collalto (also known as Antonio Collalto Mattiuzzi - 1717?-1778[1].

The original text

Originally written in Italian when Mattiuzzi was at the Theatre Italien in Paris (1759-1778).

According to the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani[2], the play was an adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s 1747 play I Due Gemelli Veneziani ("The two Venetian twins", based on Menaechmi by Plautus.

Translations and adaptations

Matiuzzi’s original was translated into French by P.-A. Lefèvre de Marcouville as Les Trois Jumeaux Vénitiens; performed for the King at Versailles on 31 December 1773, and in Paris at the Theatre Italienne in 1774. Published in Paris 1777, also in 1792.

Apparently translated into Spanish by an unknown author, as Los Tres Mellizos, and performed in Madrid under that title.

A Dutch version of I Tre Gemelli Veneziani, called De Venetiaanse Drielingen ("The Venetian triplets"), was published by Henrikus Spruit, Utrecht, in 1781, possibly based on the published French version.

Translated and adapted into English as Three and the Deuce! by Prince Hoare and Stephen Storace.

Performance history in South Africa

For performances of the adapted versions, see the plays in question.

Performances of the play by Collalto :

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menaechmi.

World Drama by Allardyce Nicoll. 120.

Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani[http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/antonio-mattiuzzi_(Dizionario_Biografico)/

A programme, flyers and photographs held by NELM: [Collection: Rhodes University. Drama Department]: 2006. 6. 5. 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Hoare_(younger)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Storace

"Mattuizzi, Antonio" in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Volume 72 (2008)[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venetian_Twins

Facsimile of the 1806 text of The Three and the Deuce! (Google eBook)[4]

https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999798814702121

Facsimile text of the 1781 Dutch version, Europeana: Think Culture[5]

http://thesaurus.cerl.org/record/cnp00925693

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3751572

F.C.L. Bosman. 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [6]: pp. 184,

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