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) (or simply The Bal Masqué) 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.
See The Bal Masqué (Sloppy Sam)
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.260,
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