Fazio, or The Italian Wife

Fazio, or The Italian Wife is a tragedy, in five acts, by Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868)[1].

Also found as Fazio, The Italian Wife and Fazio, or The Italian Wife's Revenge.

The original text

First published, as Fazio, A Tragedy in Oxford by Samuel Collingwood, 1815 (2nd edition 1816, 3rd edition 1818). According to the author's "Advertisement", the play was broadly based on an (uncredited) tale said to have been "quoted in the Annual Register of 1795 from the Varieties of Literature".

Published as Fazio, or The Italian Wife in London by T.H. Lacy [1818?]

It was published before it had been performed, the first performance (as The Italian Wife) only taking place later, on 22 December, 1816, at the Surrey Theatre - seemingly without the author's permission. This was followed by performances (as Fazio, or The Italian Wife) opening at the Theatre Royal in Bath on 6 January and at the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden, London, on 5 February, both in 1818.

Performed at the Park Theatre, New York in 1832, as Fazio, or The Italian Wife, with Fanny Kemble in the lead, and was published under this title in New York in 1847 by Berford and Company.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1866: Performed as Fazio, or The Italian Wife's Revenge by the Le Roy-Duret Company in the Harrington Street Theatre, Cape Town, on 19 March.

1866: Performed as Fazio, or The Italian Wife's Revenge by the Le Roy-Duret Company in the Harrington Street Theatre, Cape Town, on 5 April, with Turn Him Out (Williams).

1866: The last act of the play performed by the Le Roy-Duret Company in the Harrington Street Theatre, Cape Town, on 16 July, along with acts 3 and 4 of Lucretia Borgia (Hugo), the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) and The Turned Head (à Beckett).