Collége Dramatique et Lyrique. Amsterdam.

[Manuscript caption title:] Souscription pour l’année Mille Sept Cent Quatre Vingt douze du Collége Dramatique & Lyrique.

Amsterdam, 20 March 1792-20 February 1793.

Folio (357 x 268 mm.). Letterpress folded broadside, [15], [65 blank]p. Manuscript on vellum in French in a single large cursive hand, partly tabular, ruled in ink, signed by subscribers in various hands, letterpress theater Réglements broadside on paper bound before the manuscript.

Contemporary blind-tooled sheep (slightly scuffed, spine chipped), floral roll frame, blind-ruled spine and turn-ins.

            This register contains the names and contributions of more than six hundred French, Italian, German and English patrons of an Amsterdam theater company for its season running March 1792 through February 1793. The Collége dramatique et lyrique (est. 1781) offered eighty to a hundred annual performances in French. Supporters paid from twenty to sixty ducats for the season and received tickets by mail. They were entertained by a company of twenty-six actors, twenty-three opéra-comique singers and a large orchestra directed by Ignaz Vitzthumb, quondam Lorraine court musician and founder of the Opéra Flamand.
           The letterpress rules detail seat assignment and theater etiquette (hats off, no feet warmers…).    In good condition (the leaves for the 1793-94 season are blank). Two contemporary bookplates of Daniel Grand d’Hauteville (1761-1818), the French banker based in Amsterdam and one of the theater’s four Commissaires, and himself a patron.
¶See Fransen’s Les Comédiens Français en Hollande au XVII^e et au XVIII^e siècles 355-77.

Item #11765

Price: $7,500.00