The Bald Soprano (French La Cantatrice Chauve) is the first play by the Franco-Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco.

The play was written in 1948 and was first staged by Nicolas Bataille at the Théâtre des Noctambules (The Night Owl Theatre) in Paris; premiered on May 11, 1950.

The play was not a success - until famous writers and critics, including Jean Anouilh and Raymond Quenot, supported it. Since 1957, she has been constantly going to the Théâtre de la Huchette (The Theater on rue Huchette). The play became one of the most frequently played in France.^[1]

The idea for the play came to Ionesco while he was trying to learn English with the Assimil method. Impressed by the contents of the dialogues, often very sober and strange, he decided to write an absurd play named L'anglais sans peine ("English without toil").