La Fille du Régiment

La Fille du Régiment[1] is a two act opéra comique [2] by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)[3].

The original opera

La fille du régiment, the 1840 opéra comique by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)[4].

The original text

Composed by Donizetti, with a French libretto was by Jules Henry Vernoy de Saint-Georges and ‎Jean François Alfred Bayard, the work was first performed in French on 11 February 1840 by the Paris Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse).

Translations

The original French libretto was translated into La Figlia del Reggimento in the Italian version and The Daughter of the Regiment in English version, performed in London as a full opera on 21 December 1847.

Adaptations

Four English stage adaptations from the 19th century also appear to have been based on the opera. See the entries below:

The Daughter of the Regiment by Fitzball (1844)

The Daughter of the Regiment is a musical comedy in two acts by Edward Fitzball (1792-1873)[].

Based on La Fille du Régiment (1840), Fitzball's play, using Donizetti's music, was first performed at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London, in May 28th 1844. Published by J. Dicks in the series Dicks' standard plays (no. 761) in 1883(?)

Performance history in South Africa

Disney Roebuck did his first performances of a comic opera he called The Daughter of the Regiment in 1875, with another performance in 1878. No author is given for the first performances of of 1875, so the text in question could really have been any one of the three English stage plays from the 19th century based on the opera. Bosman (1980, p.509) confuses the matter somewhat by suggesting that it was the text by Fitzball, but at the same time he refers the reader to the Stirling text called Madeleine, or The Daughter of the Regiment. In his later productions from 1878, however, Roebuck did credit Fitzball and Donizetti specifically - which seems to suggest that he probably used Fitzball's version of the French comic opera for all his productions. (However, in view of the confusion, the 1875 performances are also mentioned in the entry on Stirling's text.)

1875: A "musical comedietta" called The Daughter of the Regiment was performed on 23 June, by Disney Roebuck and company in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, with the The Day after the Wedding (Kemble) and "the new South African burlesque" Princess Pocahontas (Anon).

1875: Performed again as The Daughter of the Regiment by Disney Roebuck and company in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, on 26 June, with a recital of The Charge of the Light Brigade (Tennyson) by Miss Berenger and the two act drama Ben Bolt (Johnstone).

1875: Performed again as The Daughter of the Regiment by Disney Roebuck and company in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, on 9 September, with a dance by Miss Duggan and Lost in London (Phillips).

1878: Performed on 19 and 28 June, as The Daughter of the Regiment (and now rather interestingly mentioned as a musical comedy in three acts, specifically ascribed to Fitzball, with music by Donizetti) by Disney Roebuck and company in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, with the The Day after the Wedding (Kemble) and Princess Pocahontas (Anon).

1899: Performed and taken on a tour the South African cities and towns by the visiting Arthur Rousbey Grand English Opera Company, under the management of Frank de Jong and Herbert Flemming, appearing in Cape Town's Opera House in the second half of the year. As this was part of a repertoire of operas, the chances are that this was the Fitzball version, though not specified as such.

Madeleine, or The Daughter of the Regiment by Edward Stirling (ca.1860)

Madeleine, or The Daughter of the Regiment is a play by Edward Stirling (1809-1894)[5].

Also referred to simply as The Daughter of the Regiment at times.

Possibly written circa 1860, it is clearly one of a number of works based (directly or indirectly) on La fille du régiment. Het Volksblad's anonymous reviewer of the 1862 Cape Town performances, for example, refers to the play as La fille du régiment and laments the lack of Donizetti's music in the performance. (Het Volksblad, 19 June 1862)

Performance history in South Africa

1862: Performed in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town by the Clara Tellett and her company on 16th June, with Hunting a Turtle, or Trust a Woman's Wit (Selby ). Tellet (or the Cape press at the time) refers to the author as "E. Sterling". The cast included Tellett herself, James Leffler, T. Brazier, Mr Raymond and Mrs Arlington

1862: Performed in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town by the Clara Tellett and her company on 23rd June, with My American Cousin, or A Slight Misunderstanding ("A Gentleman of Cape Town").

1875: A "musical comedietta" called The Daughter of the Regiment was performed on 23 June, by Disney Roebuck and company in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, and repeated twice in the same season (on the 26th June and 9th September). As no author is given for these first performances of the play by Roebuck, the text in question could really have been any one of the three English stage plays from the 19th century based on the opera. Bosman (1980, p.509) confuses the matter further by suggesting that it was the text by Fitzball, but at the same time referring the reader to the Stirling text called Madeleine, or The Daughter of the Regiment. In his later productions from 1878, however, Roebuck did credit Fitzball and Donizetti specifically - which seems to suggest that he used Fitzball's version of the French comic opera for all his productions, rather than Stirling's. (For details of the Roebuck productions of Fitzball's play, go to the entry on The Daughter of the Regiment (Fitzball).)

Josephine, the Child of the Regiment, or The Fortune of War by Buckstone (1856)

Josephine, the Child of the Regiment, or The Fortune of War is a musical comedy, in two acts, by John Baldwin Buckstone (1802-1879)[6]

Also found with the titles Josephine, the Child of the Regiment ; The Child of the Regiment and The Daughter of the Regiment.

The original text

Buckstone is said to have based his work on the French version of La Fille du Regiment, but he may in fact have seen it in the English version at the Surrey Theatre, London, on 21 December, 1847. (The Italian version had been played at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, on 27 May, 1847). As Fitzball's English version of the storyline, called The Daughter of the Regiment, had already been performed in London in 1844, it is even possible that the rival play may have been Buckstone's initial source.

The Buckstone own play was first performed as Josephine, the Child of the Regiment at Theatre Royal, Haymarket and first published in London by Thomas Hailes Lacy in 1856.

Buckstone's Josephine was apparently - and somewhat confusingly - at times called The Daughter of the Regiment by some companies. (For example the production of The Daughter of the Regiment, which was played on August 19, 1872, by the Rotunda Vaudeville Company in Liverpool, and the one in South Africa during the 1880s, are both ascribed to Buckstone).

Performance history in South Africa

1860: Performed as The Child of the Regiment in the Cabinet Theatre, Cape Town, on 5 March by the company brought together by Charles Fraser, with Annie Rowlands as one of the cast. Also performed was The Initials () and A Pair of Pigeons ().

1860: Performed again by Charles Fraser and company in the Cabinet Theatre, Cape Town, on 10 March , with My Friend from Leatherhead (Yates and Harrington).

1885: The Daughter of the Regiment (ascribed to Buckstone) performed in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, during the course of the year, produced by Mr H.C. Sidney and partner Mr H.J. Fiedler.

Sources

Facsimile version of Lacy's 1856 text, The Internet Archive[7]

Leonard R.N. Ashley. 1983. "Buckstone, John Baldwin" in The Victorian Period: Excluding the Novel. Macmillan International Higher Education: pp.62-5[8]

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

The London Illustrated News, 9 March 1844, p. 155[9]

Gaetano Donizetti. Donizetti's Opera, "La Fille du Regiment", Italian and English texts, O. Ditson & Company, 1859 [10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_fille_du_r%C3%A9giment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ra_comique

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10352199

Facsimile version of the "Monthly Critic and Miscellany" (p.52) in The Court magazine and belle assemblée [afterw.] and monthly critic and the Lady's magazine and museum, (Volume 24), Google E-book[11]

R.J. Broadbent. 1969. Annals of the Liverpool Stage, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. B. Blom: p.295 [12]

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, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 127-8, 130-1, 134-5, 381, 406-7.

http://www.victorianweb.org/mt/adaptations/stirling.html

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175035136228&view=1up&seq=3

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

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

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