Olivette

Manteaux Noirs ("The black mantles") is a comic opera in three acts by Farnie, with music by .

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 Manteaux Noirs (Paulton) - 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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