| Cyrano De Bergerac (play) |
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THE PLAY In the play, Cyrano is a soldier and also an excellent poet and writer, and he is also the possessor of an extremely large nose. He has also become an exceptional duelist, as a result of having to defend his honour following insults directed against his nose. Early in the play we see him responding to just such an insult by simultaneously Duel ling his denigrator and composing a poem describing the duel, winning the duel exactly as the poem comes to its last line (the famous ''Ballade de duel'', in act 1). The entire play is in five acts, each consisting of one scene. The sets for the original production were in the elaborately detailed and highly realistic tradition of stage design favored at the time, so they could not be changed quickly. The play concentrates on Cyrano's love for the beautiful Roxane, whom he is obliged to woo on behalf of a more conventionally handsome, but less articulate, friend, Christian de Neuvillette, with whom she is already in love. The entire play is written in verse, in the classic rhymed couplets with 12 syllables per line called ''alexendrins''. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Académie Française and the ''dames précieuses'' glimpsed before the performance in the first scene. It takes place during the reign of Louis XIII , when Cardinal Richelieu was waging war against the Spanish in the north of France and Flanders during the Thirty Years' War . The siege of Arras , in which Christian de Neuvillette dies, is a historical event, which took place in 1640 and in which the real Cyrano took part at the age of 20. The final fifth act takes place 15 years later, in 1655 . Novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand called it the "greatest play in world literature." It has been translated and performed many times, and is responsible for introducing the word Panache into the English language. MOVIES AND OTHER ADAPTIONS Rostand's play has been the subject of several Film s, including a 1950 Film starring José Ferrer (for which he won an Academy Award ), a 1990 French-language Version starring Gérard Depardieu , and a comedic Hollywood version, '' Roxanne '', starring Steve Martin . An Opera in French, ''Cyrano De Bergerac'' , whose libretto by Henri Cain is based on Rostand's words, was composed by the Italian Franco Alfano and has recently been revived by the Metropolitan Opera , New York , starring Plácido Domingo in the title role. Walter Damrosch wrote another operatic adaptation of ''Cyrano de Bergerac'', which premiered in 1913 at the Metropolitan Opera . In 1964, ''The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo '' presented a cartoon adaptation of ''Cyrano''. In the early 1970s, a musical adapation, called ''Cyrano'', starring Christopher Plummer , appeared in Boston and then on Broadway . On the PBS show '' Wishbone '', it was the story featured in the episode "Cyranose". EXTERNAL LINKS |
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