The Bald Soprano

The Bald Soprano
Written byEugène Ionesco
Characters
  • Mr. Smith
  • Mrs. Smith
  • Mr. Martin
  • Mrs. Martin
  • Mary, the maid
  • The Fire Chief
Date premiered11 May 1950 (1950-05-11)
Place premieredThéâtre des Noctambules
Paris, France
Original languageFrench
GenreTheatre of the Absurd
SettingA middle-class English home. An English evening.
A first-ever performance of the play at the Théâtre des Noctambules, 1950

La Cantatrice chauve – translated from French as The Bald Soprano or The Bald Prima Donna – is the first play written by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco.

Nicolas Bataille directed the premiere on 11 May 1950 at the Théâtre des Noctambules, Paris. Since 1957, it has been in permanent showing at the Théâtre de la Huchette, which received a Molière d'honneur for its performances. It holds the world record for the play that has been staged continuously in the same theatre for the longest time.[1][2] Although it went unnoticed at first, the play was eventually championed by a few established writers and critics and, in the end, won critical acclaim. By the 1960s, The Bald Soprano had already been recognized as a modern classic and an important seminal work in the Theatre of the Absurd. With a record number of interpretations, it has become one of the most performed plays in France.[3]

  1. ^ Theatre de la Huchette. Retrieved 28 May 2016
  2. ^ Playbill, 7 August 2007. Retrieved 28 May 2016
  3. ^ Rosette C. Lamont. Ionesco's imperatives: the politics of culture. University of Michigan Press, 1993. ISBN 0-472-10310-5. pg. 3.