Thomas Hales (
c. 1740 – 27 December 1780) was a
British-born French dramatist and
librettist. He was from an
Irish expatriate family in
Gloucestershire and joined the
Royal Navy during the
Seven Years' War. He settled in
Jamaica for a short time and then in
Havana,
Cuba, before moving to
Europe to travel. He lived in
Switzerland and
Italy both before arriving in
Paris,
France, in 1770, where he was bankrupted (reportedly by pursuit of women and drunkenness).
He learned French quickly and became thoroughly fluent. He met the composer
Grétry in 1775 and began to work with him as a librettist. Their first collaboration was
Les fausses apparences, ou, L'amant jaloux. The opera was a hit, and Hales would write four more plays/librettos in the coming years. In
1777 he wrote a short fiction entitled
Le roman de mon oncle. In 1778, he worked with Gréty on
Le jugement de Midas, which was based on
Midas by the Irish playwright
Kane O'Hara (1762). The same year, the two produced
Les fausses apparences as a comic
opera. The play was partially based on
Susanna Centlivre's
The Wonder: a Woman Keeps a Secret of 1714. The third opera was
Les evénements imprévus in 1779, which was inspired by an unknown
Italian original. It would inspire
George Colman the Younger's
Gay Deceivers of 1804. Finally, in
prose, Hales wrote
Gilles ravisseur (published in 1781).
Hales died of a chest infection in Paris. His
mistress, Madame Bianchi, an Italian actress, had left him to...
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