tour-de-force performance

Would the commonly redundant phrase "tour-de-force performance" take hyphens as shown — yes or no?

Thank you.

 

I wouldn't hyphenate it, and I wouldn't add the redundant "performance".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tour+de+force

 

I wouldn't hyphenate it either (although I guess it would be okay to do so).

However, I don't think the "performance" is redundant. It may be a little clumsy. 'Her performance was a tour de force' may be more pleasing than 'She gave a tour de force performance', but out of context it's impossible to say how you would best write this.

 

Three simple French words without hyphens. The most you may want to do is italicise them.

 

Thanks, everybody.

 

I actually would use hyphens here because it's being used as a phrasal adjective. On the other hand, if you use it as a noun phrase ("The performance was a tour de force"), then I wouldn't use hyphens. This is purely a personal preference, however. You can choose to leave out the hyphens, and it would be grammatically correct.