La Tosca

La Tosca is a French melodramatic play by Victorien Sardou (1831-1908) [1].

The play is sometimes referred to simply as Tosca, but that title is more famously used for the opera by Giacomo Puccini (1900), based on the play.

This entry refers specifically to Sardou's play. For information on the opera, see the entry on Tosca

The original text

La Tosca, is set in Rome in 1800, and was first performed in 1887. La Tosca is a five-act drama by the 19th-century French playwright Victorien Sardou. It was first performed on 24 November 1887 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role. Despite negative reviews from the Paris critics at the opening night, it became one of Sardou's most successful plays and was toured by Bernhardt throughout the world in the years following its premiere. The play itself had dropped from the standard theatrical repertoire by the mid-1920s , but its operatic adaptation, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, has achieved enduring popularity. There have been several other adaptations of the play including two for the Japanese theatre and an English burlesque, Tra-La-La Tosca (all of which premiered in the 1890s) as well as several film versions.

Translations and adaptations

The libretto for Giacomo Puccini's famous opera Tosca (1900) is based on Sardou's French play.

(For more on the opera, see the entry on Tosca)

Performance history in South Africa

1901: Produced (and billed as Tosca) in the Good Hope Theatre, Cape Town, during September by the Wheeler Theatre Company with American actress Nance O'Neill in the leading role.

1902: Produced in the Good Hope Theatre by the Wheeler Theatre Company during February, once more with Nance O'Neill in the lead.

Sources

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

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

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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