Le Bal Masqué
Le Bal Masqué ("The masked ball") is a comic opera[1] by Arthur Henry Ward (1883–1959)[2], with music by Henry Vernon.
Contents
The original text
According to Allardyce Nicoll (1975), this was first performed at the Parkhurst Theatre on 16 May, 1898 and billed as a "new opera" done by the Battersby Juvenile Opera in Eastbourne on 25 May 1898.
Translations and adaptations
A "side-splitting entertainment" called The Bal Masqué (Sloppy Sam) was apparently well known in Cape Town in the 1860s and is ascribed to Arthur H. Ward by F.C.L. Bosman (1980: p. 260). However this is highly unlikely to be true since Ward was only born in 1883. It must have been earlier, burlesque-style work.
Performance history in South Africa
Sources
Allardyce Nicoll. 1975. A History of English Drama 1660-1900: Late 19th Century Drama 1850-1900 Cambridge University Press[3]
Eastbourne Gazette East Sussex, England, 25 May 1898[4]
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.
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