The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco

Eugène Ionesco, a Romanian-French playwright, wrote his debut play, La Cantatrice chauve, often known as The Bald Soprano or The Bald Prima Donna. This French classic simultaneously blew the roof off the homes where drawing-room comedies had historically been performed, putting the life of the complacent bourgeois—and by extension, the worlds of many theatergoers—through an absurdist prism. In this drama about two couples and the two evenings they spend visiting one another, language, narrative, and character all get zanily and sharply fragmented. Nobody had ever seen anything quite like it when the play made its debut in 1950.

The play with the longest continuous run in the same theater is The Bald Soprano, which currently holds the record. Although it initially received little attention, the play later gained the support of some renowned authors and reviewers and ultimately received praise from the critics. The Bald Soprano was acknowledged as a modern classic and a significant formative piece in the Theatre of the Absurd by the 1960s. It has received a record number of interpretations and has risen to the top of the list of plays performed in France.

Written by: Eugene Ionesco
Created: 1950