The Taming of the Shrew steps forward and speaks directly to the audience as herself; "Well, I must own, it wounds me to the Heart/To play, unwomanly, so mean a Part./What – to submit, so tamely – so contented,/Thank Heav'n! I'm not the Thing I represented." Cole Porter's musical "Kiss Me, Kate" is an adaptation of "Taming of the Shrew". The music and lyrics are by Porter and the book is by Samuel and Bella Spewack. It is at least partially based on the 1935/1936 Theatre Guild production of "Taming of the Shrew", which starred husband and wife Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, whose backstage
The Taming of the Shrew Wallack, the opera premiered at Drury Lane, but it was not successful, and closed after only a few performances. Hermann Goetz' "Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung" (1874), with libretto by Joseph Viktor Widmann, is a comic opera, which focuses on the Bianca subplot, and cuts back the taming story. It was first performed at the original National Theatre Mannheim. John Kendrick Bangs' "Katherine: A Travesty" (1888) is a Gilbert and Sullivan-style parody operetta which premiered in the Metropolitan Opera. Spyridon Samaras' "La furia domata: commedia musicale in tre atti" (1895) is a now lost lyric comedy with libretto by Enrico Annibale Butti