Bianca is a one act opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer Henry Kimball Hadley

Henry Kimball Hadley

Henry Kimball Hadley was an American composer and conductor.-Life:Hadley was born into a musical family in Somerville, Massachusetts...

. The opera's libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 was an English-language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 adaptation of Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...

's comedy The Mistress of the Inn

The Mistress of the Inn

The Mistress of the Inn , also translated as The Innkeeper Woman or Mirandolina , is a 1753 three-act comedy by the Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni about a coquette. The play has been regarded as his masterpiece...

by Grant Stewart. Hadley finished the score in January, 1917, and entered it in a competition for the best American opera without chorus, for which William Wade Hinshaw offered a $1000 prize and a promise to produce the opera in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 by the American Society of Singers. It won, and was produced on October 19, 1918 at the Park Theater in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, with the composer conducting, and soprano Maggie Teyte

Maggie Teyte

Dame Maggie Teyte DBE was an English operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song.-Early years:Margaret Tate was born in Wolverhampton, England, one of ten children of Jacob James Tate, a successful wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of public houses and later lodgings. Her parents...

in the title role.