Marengo's Tragedy of Pia De Tolomei: As Represented by Madame Ristori and her Dramatic Company, under the management of J. Grau.
The English Translation by Isaac C. Pray. New York: John A. Gray & Green, Printers, 1866. First edition. 8vo, original printed gray wrappers, 30 pages. Printed in two columns, in Italian and English. Wrappers spotted and a bit gnawed; a little insect damage to the corners of a few leaves (not touching text); a good, sound copy.
Dating from the first American tour of the great Italian tragedienne Adelaide Ristori, whose thespian charms were such that she had on her first tour of Paris inspired fisticuffs between those partisans who flocked to her banner and those of the French actress Rachel. Ristori's debut in New York in September, 1866 (as Medea) had been relentlessly promoted by her American manager Jacob Grau, who had whipped the theatre-going crowds of New York into such a frenzy at Ristori's approach that even at $3 a ticket, prospective audience members had begun to congregate outside his box office the afternoon before seats went on sale (and set off near-riots after the seats had sold out). As Jacob's nephew Robert Grau wrote in his memoir of the Ristori craze, "Notable Stage Figures of the Sixties and Seventies,” in The Theatre Magazine in 1913, "The spectacle of West Fourteenth Street lined with prospective seat holders, eating their meals seated on camp stools was truly inspiring." Grau also notes "it should be stated that the profits from the sale of librettos alone were in excess of $500 a week”—of which latter avenue of profit this, of course, is a prime example.
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