The original text

Based on La Fille du Régiment[1] (La Figlia del Reggimento in the Italian version), an opera in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), with a French libretto by Jules Henry Vernoy de Saint-Georges, ‎Jean François Alfred Bayard (first performed in French on 11 February 1840 by the Paris Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse).

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(?)

Translations and adaptations

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 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 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).