La Princesse Lointaine
| Edmond Rostand | |
|---|---|
Rostand in the uniform of the Académie française, 1905
|
|
| Born |
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand 1 April 1868 Marseille, France |
| Died | 2 December 1918 (aged 50) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Poet, playwright |
| Nationality | French |
| Spouse | Rosemonde Gérard |
| Child(ren) |
Jean Rostand Maurice Rostand |
| Information | |
| Genre | Neo Romanticism |
| Magnum opus |
Cyrano de Bergerac L'Aiglon |
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand (French: [ʁɔstɑ̃]; 1 April 1868 – 2 December 1918) was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism and is known best for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays contrasted with the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century. Another of Rostand's works, Les Romanesques, was adapted to the musical comedy, The Fantasticks.
Rostand was born in Marseille, France, into a wealthy and cultured Provençal family. His father was an economist, a poet who translated and edited the works of Catullus, and a member of the Marseille Academy and the Institut de France. Rostand studied literature, history, and philosophy at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, France.
When Rostand was twenty years old, his first play, a one-act comedy, Le Gant rouge, was performed at the Cluny Theatre, 24 August 1888, but it was almost unnoticed.
In 1890, Rostand published a volume of poems called Les Musardises.
A burlesque, Les Romanesques was produced on 21 May 1894, at the Théâtre Français; it would be adapted in 1960 by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt into the long-running American musical The Fantasticks.
Another early play, La Princesse Lointaine, was based on the story of the 12th-century troubadour Jaufre Rudel and Hodierna of Jerusalem (who is the archetypal princesse lointaine character). This play opened on 5 April 1895, at the Théâtre de la Renaissance. The part of Mélissinde (based on Hodierna's daughter Melisende of Tripoli) was created by Sarah Bernhardt but the play was not particularly successful. When Berhardt performed it in London later the same year, it received a bad review from George Bernard Shaw but this was not surprising considering Shaw's bias for realism.Rambaldo di Vaqueiras: I Monferrato, 1922 1922 verse drama by Nino Berrini is based on La Princesse Lointaine.
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