Theatre Royal, Covent Garden . This present Tuesday, May 17, 1831, will be acted (2nd time) a New Grand Historical & Military Spectacle, (In Seven Parts) called Napoleon Buonaparte, Captain of Artillery, General and First Consul, Emperor, and Exile.

[Napoleon. Playbill.]

Published by [London:] W. Reynolds, 9, Denmark Court, Strand, [1831], 1831

About this Item

A printed playbill, approx. 420 x 350mm., printed to two adjoining sides of a bifolium; minor chipping and soiling to extremities, else very good. Napoleon Buonaparte was a dramatic spectacle composed by Michael Lacy (1795-1867). Lacy had spent the season 1830-31 in Paris, and may have seen there in January 1831 a performance of Napoleon Bonaparte, ou trente ans dans l histoire de France , a play by Dumas père. During the late 1820s and early 1830s, Lacy produced adaptions of French and Italian operas for the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres. His own Napoleon Buonaparte was conceived on a grand scale: its length of performance meant that nothing else appeared on the same bill, and the scenery, painted by Messrs. Grieve, Finley, and Thorne, carried the spectator from Toulouse to the Alps, on to Vienna, and via scenes of Napoleonic battles to Bonaparte s final years in St. Helena. The present playbill, detailing the 2nd ever performance for the evening of 17 May, 1831, describes the seven scenes that make up the spectacle, with details of the many actors, and on its second leaf gives a full list of the scenery on view that evening.

Seller Inventory # 35338

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Theatre Royal, Covent Garden . This present Tuesday, May 17, 1831, will be acted (2nd time) a New Grand Historical & Military Spectacle, (In Seven Parts) called Napoleon Buonaparte, Captain of Artillery, General and First Consul, Emperor, and Exile.
• Publisher: [London:] W. Reynolds, 9, Denmark Court, Strand, [1831]
• Publication Date: 1831
• Binding: No Binding
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Africa
  • Ephemera
  • Military