The Italian Straw Hat (play)

In the 80 years after its creation there were more than 100 productions of the play throughout France.[2] It was taken into the repertoire of the Comédie-Française in 1938, under the direction of Gaston Baty,[3] and has remained there ever since.[2] It has been revived by other companies in Paris and other French cities in more than 30 new productions, and has been presented several times in every decade from the 1930s onwards.[3]

The first version in English was given under the title A Leghorn Bonnet, at the Adelphi Theatre in 1852. That adaptation, by John Oxenford, retained Paris as the setting. It closed after 11 performances,[4] and the play became more familiar to London audiences in the original French version, which Ravel and his company played at the St James's Theatre in 1867,[5] and again in 1871.[6]

In 1873 W. S. Gilbert adapted the original as The Wedding March.[n 1] He wrote his version under the pen name of "F. Latour Tomline", moving the action to London and suppressing the adulterous aspect of the original.[7] That version was a box-office success, but Gilbert's later adaptation as a musical play, Haste to the Wedding (1892), with music by George Grossmith, achieved only a short run.[9]

An English translation by Thomas Walton was presented by the Old Vic company in 1952 with Laurence Payne as Fadinard.[10] A translation by Lynn and Theodore Hoffman entitled An Italian Straw Hat was staged by the Edinburgh Gateway Company in 1962.[11] A London West End production in 1987 starred Tom Conti; the adaptation by Ray Cooney followed the original plot but broadened the comedy somewhat.[12]

An American adaptation, titled The Straw Hat was given in New York by the American Laboratory Theatre company in 1926. The Parisian setting was retained, but the characters were given pseudo-French names like "Baroness Crème de la Crème" and "Gillette Rapide".[13] A later American adaptation, Horse Eats Hat by Edwin Denby and Orson Welles, was presented at Maxine Elliott's Theatre in 1936, with Joseph Cotten in the lead role. The Parisian setting was dropped, and the characters had English names such as "Entwistle" and "Mugglethorpe".[14] The Stratford Festival staged a production in 1971 starring Robin Gammell, Tony Van Bridge and Dinah Christie. It ran for 36 performances during the Festival's summer season.[15]

René Clair directed a silent film of the play in 1927, with Albert Préjean as Fadinard.[16] A German film adaptation, Der Florentiner Hut, was directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner in 1939, and starred Heinz Rühmann.[17] Another French version followed in 1941, starring Fernandel as Fadinard.[18] It was also made as a French TV movie directed by François Goetghebeur in 2016.[19] A Russian film was made in 1974, titled The Straw Hat (Соломенная шляпка), directed by Leonid Kvinikhidze and starring Andrei Mironov.[20]

The BBC has broadcast television and radio versions of the piece. On radio, Laurence Payne and Geraldine McEwan featured in 1960, and in 1969 John Moffatt starred as Fadinard in Glyn Dearman's translation. In 1968 BBC television showed a new version of the play, adapted by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin, with Patrick Cargill in the lead.[21]

The Paris production of the original play contained 23 songs, with new words to popular old tunes. This was a proceeding familiar to Gilbert from his burlesques of the 1860s. For his 1873 adaptation he removed all the songs; for the 1892 version he wrote 12 new song lyrics, set by Grossmith.[22] For a 1929 stage production of the play, Jacques Ibert composed incidental music later adapted as the suite Divertissement (1930).[23]

In 1955 the play was adapted by Nino Rota (music) with an Italian-language libretto by the composer and his mother, Ernesta Rota Rinaldi, as the opera The Florentine Straw Hat (Il cappello di paglia di Firenze). The work premiered at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo on 21 April 1955. It was subsequently produced by the Vienna Volksoper (1963),[24] and at the Camden Festival in London in 1980.[25] The work was recorded for the gramophone with the cast and chorus and orchestra of Rome Opera conducted by the composer.[21] A 1998 production at La Scala starred Juan Diego Flórez as Fadinard;[26] a video of that production was released in 1999.[27]

In 2005 the National Ballet of Canada presented an adaptation of the play, choreographed by James Kudelka to an original score by Michael Torke. Variety called it "an effervescent work that barely ever touches the ground".[28]

• Gilbert, W. S. (1892). The Wedding March ("Le [sic] Chapeau de Paille d'Italie") – An ecentricity, in three acts. London: Chappell. OCLC 560805358.
• Prokhorov, Alexander (2017). Film and television genres of the late Soviet era. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-5013-2408-6.
• Stedman, Jane W. (1996). W. S. Gilbert, A Classic Victorian & His Theatre. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816174-5.