Assassinations in Fiction - Plays and Operas

Plays and Operas

• William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3 (1590) — play about English King Henry VI
• Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (1592) — play about English King Edward II
• William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (probably 1599) — play about Julius Caesar
• William Shakespeare, Hamlet (between 1600 and summer 1602) — play about Hamlet
• William Shakespeare, Macbeth (between 1603 and 1606) — play about King Duncan
• Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovejuna (between 1612 and 1614) — play about the village of Fuente Ovejuna
• Pierre Corneille, Cinna (1639) — play about Augustus and Cinna
• Jean Racine, Britannicus (1669) — play about Britannicus
• Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shōraku, and Namiki Senryū, Kanadehon Chūshingura (1748) — puppet play about the Forty-seven Ronin
• Friedrich Schiller, Mary Stuart (1800) — play about Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I
• Zacharias Werner, Attila, König der Hunnen (1809) — tragedy about Attila the Hun
• Victor Hugo, Le roi s'amuse (1832) — scathing, banned play about French King Francis I (and, indirectly, King Louis-Philippe)
• Eugène Scribe and Daniel Auber, Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué (1833) — opera about Swedish King Gustav III
• In Polish poet Juliusz Słowacki's 1833 play Kordian, the teen title hero plots to assassinate Russian Tsar Nicholas I—but fails to carry through.
• Giuseppe Bardari and Gaetano Donizetti, Maria Stuarda (1835) — opera based on Schiller's play
• Lőrinc Tóth, Die beiden Lászlós (aka Két László, Both Laszlos) (1839) — play about Ulrich of Celje and László Hunyadi
• Antonio García Gutiérrez, Simón Bocanegra (1843) — play about Simone Boccanegra
• Béni Egressy and Ferenc Erkel, Hunyadi László (1844) — opera about Ulrich of Celje and László Hunyadi, based on Lőrinc Tóth's play
• Temistocle Solera (and Francesco Maria Piave) and Giuseppe Verdi, Attila (1846) — opera based on Werner's tragedy
• Francesco Maria Piave and Giuseppe Verdi, Macbeth (1847) — opera based on Shakespeare's tragedy
• Francesco Maria Piave and Giuseppe Verdi, Rigoletto (1851) — opera based on Hugo's Le roi s'amuse, with a fictional Duke of Mantua replacing French King Francis I
• Francesco Maria Piave and Giuseppe Verdi, Simon Boccanegra (1857) — opera based on García Gutiérrez's play
• Antonio Somma and Giuseppe Verdi, Un ballo in maschera (1859) — opera about Swedish King Gustav III
• Michel Carré and Ambroise Thomas, Hamlet (1868) — opera based on Shakespeare's tragedy
• Henrik Ibsen, Emperor and Galilean (1873) — play about Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate
• Richard Wagner, Götterdämmerung (1876) — opera about the hero Siegfried
• Alfred Lord Tennyson, Becket (188?) — play about Thomas à Becket
• Modest Mussorgsky, Khovanshchina (1880) — opera about Ivan Khovansky
• Oscar Wilde, Salomé (1891) — tragedy about John the Baptist and Salome
• Abraham Goldfaden, Judith and Holofernes (1892)
• August Strindberg, Gustaf III (1902) — play about Swedish King Gustav III
• Richard Strauss, Salome (1905) — opera based on Wilde's tragedy
• Eugene O'Neill, The Emperor Jones (1920) — play about a Caribbean dictator
• Bertolt Brecht, The Life of Edward II of England (1924) — play about English King Edward II
• Kathleen de Jaffa and Louis Gruenberg, The Emperor Jones (1933) — opera based on O'Neill's play
• Oscar Ryan et al., Eight Men Speak (1933) — play about Tim Buck
• Albert Camus, The Just Assassins (1949) — play about Russian Grand Duke Sergei
• T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral (1935) — play about Thomas à Becket
• Ildebrando Pizzetti, Assassinio nella cattedrale (1958) — opera about Thomas à Becket
• Jean Anouilh, Becket or The Honour of God (1959) — play about Thomas à Becket
• Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade (1963) — musical play about Jean-Paul Marat
• Peter Shaffer, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964) — play about Atahualpa
• Felix Lützkendorf, Dallas, 22. November (1965) — play about John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald
• Manuel Mujica Laínez and Alberto Ginastera, Bomarzo (1967) — opera based on Mujica Laínez's novel
• James Prideaux, The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1972) — play about Abraham Lincoln
• Carlisle Floyd, Willie Stark (1981) — opera based on Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men, in turn inspired by the life of the Louisiana governor Huey Long.
• Rolf Hochhuth, Soldiers (1967) — play about Władysław Sikorski
• Eric Schlosser, Americans (1985) — play about William McKinley and Leon Czolgosz
• John Weidman and Stephen Sondheim, Assassins (1990) — musical
• Alice Goodman and John Adams, The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) — opera about Leon Klinghoffer
• Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay, Elisabeth (1992) — musical about "Sissi", Queen Empress of Austro-Hungary
• David Ives, Variations on the Death of Trotsky (1993) — comedy about Leon Trotsky
• Emily Mann, Execution of Justice (199?) — play about George Moscone and Harvey Milk
• Pierre Brault, Blood on the Moon (2000) — play about D'Arcy McGee
• Pradeep Dalavi, Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy (2000?) — play about Mahatma Gandhi
• Lee Blessing, Whores (2002) — play about Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clarke, and Jean Donovan
• Henning Mankell, Politik (2010) — play about Olof Palme