Cyrano de Bergerac
Encyclopedia
Hercule-Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French
dramatist and duel
ist. He is now best remembered for the works of fiction which have been woven, often very loosely, around his life story, most notably the 1897 play
by Edmond Rostand
. In these fictional works he is featured with an overly large nose, which people would travel from miles around to see. Portraits suggest that he did have a big nose, though not nearly as large as described in Rostand's play and the subsequent works about him. His work furnished models and ideas for subsequent writers.
to the college de Beauvais, where he had for master Jean Grangier, whom he afterwards ridiculed in his comedy Le Pédant joué (The Pedant Tricked) of 1654. At the age of nineteen, he entered a corps of the guards, serving in the campaigns of 1639 and 1640.
Research indicates that around 1640 he became the lover of Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy
, a writer and musician, until around 1653, when they became engaged in a bitter rivalry. This led to Bergerac sending d'Assoucy death threat
s that compelled him to leave Paris
. The quarrel extended to a series of satirical texts by both men. Bergerac wrote Contre Soucidas (an anagram
of his enemy's name) and Contre un ingrat ("Against an Ingrate"), while D’Assoucy counterattacked with Le Combat de Cyrano de Bergerac avec le singe de Brioché, au bout du Pont-Neuf.
He is said to have fought more than 1000 duels, mostly on account of his nose. The story of his adventure single-handed against a hundred enemies was vouched for by Lebret as the simple truth. After two years in the guards, Cyrano left the service and returned to Paris
to pursue literature, producing tragedies cast in the orthodox classical mode.
The model for the Roxane character of the Rostand play was Bergerac's cousin, who lived with his sister, Catherine de Cyrano, at the Convent of the Daughter of the Cross As in the play, Bergerac did fight at the siege of Arras (1640), a battle of the Thirty Years' War
between French and Spanish forces in France (though this was not the more famous final Battle of Arras
, fought fourteen years later). One of his confreres in the battle was the Baron Christian of Neuvillette, who married Cyrano's cousin. However, the plotline of the play, Cyrano de Bergerac
, involving Roxane and Christian is entirely fictional.
Cyrano was a freethinker
and a pupil of Pierre Gassendi
, a canon
of the Catholic Church who tried to reconcile Epicurean atomism
with Christianity
. Cyrano's insistence on reason
was rare in his time. His tragedy Mort d'Agrippine (1654) was regarded at the time as the vehicle of atheistic teaching.
He was injured by a falling wooden beam in 1654 while entering the house of his patron, the Duc D'Arpajon. Whether it was a deliberate attempt on his life or merely an accident is unknown. It is also inconclusive as to whether or not his death was a result of the injury, or an unspecified disease. He died over a year later on July 28, 1655 aged 36. His place of death was the house of his cousin, Pierre De Cyrano, in Sannois
. He was buried in a church in Sannois.
Cyrano de Bergerac's works L'Autre Monde: où les États et Empires de la Lune (The Other World: The States and Empires of the Moon) (published posthumously, 1657) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun) (1662) are classics of early modern science fiction
. In the former, Cyrano travels to the moon using rockets powered by firecrackers and meets the inhabitants. The moon-men have four legs, musical voices, and firearms that shoot game and cook it.
His mixture of science and romance in the last two works furnished a model for many subsequent writers, among them Jonathan Swift
, Edgar Alan Poe and probably Voltaire
. Corneille
and Molière
freely borrowed ideas from Le Pédant joué.
Edmond Rostand
published a play, Cyrano de Bergerac
, on the subject of Cyrano's life. This play, by far Rostand's most successful work, 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.
The play has been adapted for cinema several times
, most recently in 1990
with Gerard Depardieu
in the title role
. That 1990 version's dialogue is in French with subtitles written by Anthony Burgess
in rhymed couplets, mirroring the form of the dialogue in the original play. The most famous film version in English is the 1950 film
, with José Ferrer
in the title role, a performance for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor
. In 1959, Hiroshi Inagaki
wrote and directed a Japanese version, Aru kengo no shogai (Samurai Saga
AKA Life of a Expert Swordsman), setting the story in 17th century Shogunate Japan and starring Toshirō Mifune
as the Cyrano character "Heihachiro Komaki" and Yoko Tsukasa as the Roxanne character "Lady Ochii". Ferrer reprised the role in the 1960 French film Cyrano et d'Artagnan, directed by Abel Gance
, opposite Jean-Pierre Cassel
as D'Artagnan
. Much later, Cassel made a cameo appearance
as Cyrano de Bergerac in The Return of the Musketeers
: the character was depicted as fifty-something and attempting to travel to the Moon with the aid of a balloon
.
, was published in English by Jarrolds Publishers (London) in 1900. This is a swashbuckling tale of adventure and romance bearing no resemblance to Rostand's play, other than the outstanding physical characteristics of the De Bergerac character.
Other film interpretations of Rostand include the romantic comedies
Roxanne
, and The Truth About Cats & Dogs
, respectively starring Steve Martin
and Janeane Garofalo
in the Cyrano-like roles. Cyrano Fernández (2007) is a retelling from Venezuela
, set in contemporary times, in which Cyrano is disfigured but lacks the large nose.
Geraldine McCaughrean
rewrote the play as a novel entitled Cyrano, which was longlisted for the Carnegie Award in 2007. In 1936, Franco Alfano
composed his opera, Cyrano de Bergerac, to a libretto based on the play. David Bintley
, Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet
, created a ballet of the story in 2007. Most recently, David DiChiera
rewrote the play as another opera entitled Cyrano
, which was produced first by Michigan Opera Theater and then by the Opera Company of Philadelphia
(February 2008).
The character of Cyrano also inspired a song, "Cyrano," by Italian performer Francesco Guccini
about the hypocrisy, servitude to conventions, and superficialities of modern show business and political society. Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac is one of the main characters in Philip José Farmer
's Riverworld
novels.
A couple of characters in modern works are based on Cyrano, although not named as such. Robert Heinlein
's Glory Road
features a cameo appearance
by such a figure. The Swordmaster in Alain Ayrole's and Jean-Luc Masbou's French comic book
De cape et de crocs
portrays a colorful gentleman living on the Moon, at ease either with a sword or with a sonnet
, and using both to silence those foolish enough to mock his prominent nose.
"Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk
" is a character with a Pinocchio
-like nose, whose moniker is a play on the name "Cyrano de Bergerac." Sir Nose is an antagonist within P-Funk mythology
, and first appears on the album Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome
by Parliament
.
In 1995, the award-winning Scottish novelist A. L. (Alison) Kennedy featured a newly-revived Cyrano in her novel 'So I am glad'. The heroine finds him entering her life where she is under stress as a radio 'voice'. We are left unsure whether Cyrano has returned to live with her as her lover for a time or is a figment of her imagination. In any case, she is engaged by the vitality of his character, his revisiting the events of his life and his unorthodoxy and adventures in modern Glasgow.
In 1998, James L. Carcioppolo wrote and published The Lost Sonnets of Cyrano de Bergerac. The book fictionalizes a dying Cyrano writing a sequence of sonnets in an attempt to come to terms with his conflicted life. It portrays a Cyrano very close to the historical personage without diminishing his love for freedom and individuality.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
dramatist and duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
ist. He is now best remembered for the works of fiction which have been woven, often very loosely, around his life story, most notably the 1897 play
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....
by Edmond Rostand
Edmond Rostand
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...
. In these fictional works he is featured with an overly large nose, which people would travel from miles around to see. Portraits suggest that he did have a big nose, though not nearly as large as described in Rostand's play and the subsequent works about him. His work furnished models and ideas for subsequent writers.
Life and works
He was the son of Abel de Cyrano, lord of Mauvières and Bergerac. He received his first education from a country priest, and had for a fellow pupil his friend and future biographer, Hennnri Lebret. He then proceeded to ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to the college de Beauvais, where he had for master Jean Grangier, whom he afterwards ridiculed in his comedy Le Pédant joué (The Pedant Tricked) of 1654. At the age of nineteen, he entered a corps of the guards, serving in the campaigns of 1639 and 1640.
Research indicates that around 1640 he became the lover of Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy
Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy
Charles Coypeau was a French musician and burlesque poet. In the mid-1630s he began using the nom de plume "D'Assouci" or "Dassoucy".-Life:...
, a writer and musician, until around 1653, when they became engaged in a bitter rivalry. This led to Bergerac sending d'Assoucy death threat
Death threat
A death threat is a threat of death, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion...
s that compelled him to leave Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The quarrel extended to a series of satirical texts by both men. Bergerac wrote Contre Soucidas (an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
of his enemy's name) and Contre un ingrat ("Against an Ingrate"), while D’Assoucy counterattacked with Le Combat de Cyrano de Bergerac avec le singe de Brioché, au bout du Pont-Neuf.
He is said to have fought more than 1000 duels, mostly on account of his nose. The story of his adventure single-handed against a hundred enemies was vouched for by Lebret as the simple truth. After two years in the guards, Cyrano left the service and returned to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to pursue literature, producing tragedies cast in the orthodox classical mode.
The model for the Roxane character of the Rostand play was Bergerac's cousin, who lived with his sister, Catherine de Cyrano, at the Convent of the Daughter of the Cross As in the play, Bergerac did fight at the siege of Arras (1640), a battle of the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
between French and Spanish forces in France (though this was not the more famous final Battle of Arras
Battle of Arras (1654)
The Battle of Arras, fought on August 25, 1654, was a victory of a French army under Turenne against a Spanish army commanded by Don Fernidand de Salis and Condé....
, fought fourteen years later). One of his confreres in the battle was the Baron Christian of Neuvillette, who married Cyrano's cousin. However, the plotline of the play, Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....
, involving Roxane and Christian is entirely fictional.
Cyrano was a freethinker
Freethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
and a pupil of Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the...
, a canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
of the Catholic Church who tried to reconcile Epicurean atomism
Atomism
Atomism is a natural philosophy that developed in several ancient traditions. The atomists theorized that the natural world consists of two fundamental parts: indivisible atoms and empty void.According to Aristotle, atoms are indestructible and immutable and there are an infinite variety of shapes...
with Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. Cyrano's insistence on reason
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
was rare in his time. His tragedy Mort d'Agrippine (1654) was regarded at the time as the vehicle of atheistic teaching.
He was injured by a falling wooden beam in 1654 while entering the house of his patron, the Duc D'Arpajon. Whether it was a deliberate attempt on his life or merely an accident is unknown. It is also inconclusive as to whether or not his death was a result of the injury, or an unspecified disease. He died over a year later on July 28, 1655 aged 36. His place of death was the house of his cousin, Pierre De Cyrano, in Sannois
Sannois
Sannois is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France.-Public transport:Sannois is served by Sannois station on the Transilien Paris – Saint-Lazare suburban rail line.-Roads:...
. He was buried in a church in Sannois.
Cyrano de Bergerac's works L'Autre Monde: où les États et Empires de la Lune (The Other World: The States and Empires of the Moon) (published posthumously, 1657) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun) (1662) are classics of early modern science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. In the former, Cyrano travels to the moon using rockets powered by firecrackers and meets the inhabitants. The moon-men have four legs, musical voices, and firearms that shoot game and cook it.
His mixture of science and romance in the last two works furnished a model for many subsequent writers, among them Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
, Edgar Alan Poe and probably Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
. Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
and Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
freely borrowed ideas from Le Pédant joué.
Rostand
In 1897, the French poetPoet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Edmond Rostand
Edmond Rostand
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...
published a play, Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....
, on the subject of Cyrano's life. This play, by far Rostand's most successful work, 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.
The play has been adapted for cinema several times
Cyrano de Bergerac (film)
There are several film adaptations of Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac:* Cyrano de Bergerac , starring Benoît-Constant Coquelin* Cyrano de Bergerac , starring Pierre Magnier...
, most recently in 1990
Cyrano de Bergerac (1990 film)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a 1990 French-language film based on the 1897 play of the same name by Edmond Rostand. It was directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau and adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière and Jean-Paul Rappeneau. The English subtitles use Anthony Burgess's translation of the text, which preserves the...
with Gerard Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu is a French actor and filmmaker. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and has twice won the César Award for Best Actor...
in the title role
Title role
The title role in the performing arts is the performance part that gives the title to the piece, as in Aida, Giselle, Michael Collins or Othello. The actor, singer or dancer who performs that part is also said to have the title role....
. That 1990 version's dialogue is in French with subtitles written by Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
in rhymed couplets, mirroring the form of the dialogue in the original play. The most famous film version in English is the 1950 film
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950 film)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a 1950 black-and-white feature film based on the 1897 French Alexandrine verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. It uses poet Brian Hooker's 1923 English blank verse translation as the basis for its screenplay...
, with José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
in the title role, a performance for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. In 1959, Hiroshi Inagaki
Hiroshi Inagaki
was a Japanese filmmaker most known for the Academy Award-winning Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, which he directed in 1954.-Career:Born in Tokyo as the son of a shinpa actor, Inagaki appeared on stage in his childhood before joining the Nikkatsu studio as an actor in 1922...
wrote and directed a Japanese version, Aru kengo no shogai (Samurai Saga
Life of an Expert Swordsman
Life of an Expert Swordsman is a 1959 samurai film directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and starring Toshirô Mifune. Its story is an adaptation of the Edmond Rostand play Cyrano de Bergerac, and its basic plot faithfully follows that of the play...
AKA Life of a Expert Swordsman), setting the story in 17th century Shogunate Japan and starring Toshirō Mifune
Toshiro Mifune
Toshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from 1948 to 1965, in works such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo...
as the Cyrano character "Heihachiro Komaki" and Yoko Tsukasa as the Roxanne character "Lady Ochii". Ferrer reprised the role in the 1960 French film Cyrano et d'Artagnan, directed by Abel Gance
Abel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
, opposite Jean-Pierre Cassel
Jean-Pierre Cassel
Jean-Pierre Cassel was a French actor.-Life and career:Cassel was born Jean-Pierre Crochon in Paris, the son of Louise-Marguerite , an opera singer, and Georges Crochon, a doctor. Cassel was discovered by Gene Kelly as he tap danced on stage, and later cast in the 1957 film The Happy Road...
as D'Artagnan
D'Artagnan
Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard and died at the Siege of Maastricht in the Franco-Dutch War. A fictionalized account of his life by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras formed the basis for the d'Artagnan Romances of...
. Much later, Cassel made a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as Cyrano de Bergerac in The Return of the Musketeers
The Return of the Musketeers
The Return of the Musketeers is a 1989 film adaptation loosely based on the novel Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is the third Musketeers film directed by Richard Lester, following 1973's The Three Musketeers and 1974's The Four Musketeers...
: the character was depicted as fifty-something and attempting to travel to the Moon with the aid of a balloon
Balloon (aircraft)
A balloon is a type of aircraft that remains aloft due to its buoyancy. A balloon travels by moving with the wind. It is distinct from an airship, which is a buoyant aircraft that can be propelled through the air in a controlled manner....
.
Other works
"The Adventures of Cyrano De Bergerac", by Louis GalletLouis Gallet
Louis Gallet was an inexhaustible French writer of operatic libretti, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable articles, who is remembered above all for his adaptations of fiction—and Scripture— to provide librettos of cantatas and opera, notably by composers Georges...
, was published in English by Jarrolds Publishers (London) in 1900. This is a swashbuckling tale of adventure and romance bearing no resemblance to Rostand's play, other than the outstanding physical characteristics of the De Bergerac character.
Other film interpretations of Rostand include the romantic comedies
Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...
Roxanne
Roxanne (film)
Roxanne is a 1987 comedy film directed by Fred Schepisi. It is a modern retelling of the 1897 verse play Cyrano de Bergerac, written by French author Edmond Rostand, and stars Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah.-Plot summary:...
, and The Truth About Cats & Dogs
The Truth About Cats & Dogs
The Truth About Cats & Dogs is a 1996 American romantic comedy film, starring Janeane Garofalo, Uma Thurman, Ben Chaplin, and Jamie Foxx. It was directed by Michael Lehmann and written by Audrey Wells...
, respectively starring Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
and Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...
in the Cyrano-like roles. Cyrano Fernández (2007) is a retelling from Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, set in contemporary times, in which Cyrano is disfigured but lacks the large nose.
Geraldine McCaughrean
Geraldine McCaughrean
Geraldine McCaughrean is a British children's novelist.The youngest of three children, McCaughrean studied teaching but did not like it, and found her true vocation in writing. She claims that what makes her love writing is the desire to escape from an unsatisfactory world...
rewrote the play as a novel entitled Cyrano, which was longlisted for the Carnegie Award in 2007. In 1936, Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano was an Italian composer and pianist. Best known today for his opera Risurrezione and above all for having completed Puccini's opera Turandot in 1926. He had considerable success with several of his own works during his lifetime.- Biography :He was born in Posillipo, Naples...
composed his opera, Cyrano de Bergerac, to a libretto based on the play. David Bintley
David Bintley
David Bintley, CBE, is a former English ballet dancer, the current artistic director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet and co-artistic director of the New National Theatre Tokyo ballet company.- About :...
, Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Birmingham Royal Ballet is one of the three major ballet companies of the United Kingdom, alongside the Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet....
, created a ballet of the story in 2007. Most recently, David DiChiera
David DiChiera
David DiChiera is an American composer and founding general director of Michigan Opera Theatre.-Career:...
rewrote the play as another opera entitled Cyrano
Cyrano (opera)
Cyrano is an opera in three acts by David DiChiera to a libretto in French by Bernard Uzan, based on the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. The opera premiered on 13 October 2007 at the Michigan Opera Theatre. It was then given February 8–17, 2008 at the Opera Company of Philadelphia...
, which was produced first by Michigan Opera Theater and then by the Opera Company of Philadelphia
Opera Company of Philadelphia
The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...
(February 2008).
The character of Cyrano also inspired a song, "Cyrano," by Italian performer Francesco Guccini
Francesco Guccini
Francesco Guccini is an Italian singer-songwriter, considered one of the most important Cantautori. During the five decades of his music career he has recorded 16 studio albums and collections, and 6 live albums. He is also a writer, having published autobiographic and noir novels, and a comics...
about the hypocrisy, servitude to conventions, and superficialities of modern show business and political society. Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac is one of the main characters in Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....
's Riverworld
Riverworld
Riverworld is a fictional planet and the setting for a series of science fiction books written by Philip José Farmer . Riverworld is an artificial environment where all humans are reconstructed. The books explore interactions of individuals from many different cultures and time periods...
novels.
A couple of characters in modern works are based on Cyrano, although not named as such. Robert Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
's Glory Road
Glory Road
Glory Road is a fantasy novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published in hardcover later the same year...
features a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
by such a figure. The Swordmaster in Alain Ayrole's and Jean-Luc Masbou's French comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
De cape et de crocs
De cape et de crocs
De cape et de crocs is an ongoing French comic book swashbuckling series, created by writer Alain Ayroles and artist Jean-Luc Masbou. It is notable for its many references to classical culture and occasional nods to modern references.- Synopsis :...
portrays a colorful gentleman living on the Moon, at ease either with a sword or with a sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
, and using both to silence those foolish enough to mock his prominent nose.
"Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk
The Pinocchio Theory
The Pinocchio Theory is a 1977 single by the American Funk band Bootsy's Rubber Band. It was released by Warner Bros. Records on February 9, 1977. The single first charted in Billboard magazine's Hot Soul Singles chart in March 1977 where it peaked at number six...
" is a character with a Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...
-like nose, whose moniker is a play on the name "Cyrano de Bergerac." Sir Nose is an antagonist within P-Funk mythology
P-Funk mythology
The P-Funk mythology is a group of recurring fictional characters, themes and ideas related in a series of concept albums and live shows, primarily from George Clinton and his founded bands Parliament and Funkadelic....
, and first appears on the album Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome
Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome
Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome is a funk album by Parliament, released in 1977 .The album is considered to be one of the best in Parliament's catalog...
by Parliament
Parliament (band)
Parliament was a funk band most prominent during the 1970s. It and its sister act Funkadelic, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
.
In 1995, the award-winning Scottish novelist A. L. (Alison) Kennedy featured a newly-revived Cyrano in her novel 'So I am glad'. The heroine finds him entering her life where she is under stress as a radio 'voice'. We are left unsure whether Cyrano has returned to live with her as her lover for a time or is a figment of her imagination. In any case, she is engaged by the vitality of his character, his revisiting the events of his life and his unorthodoxy and adventures in modern Glasgow.
In 1998, James L. Carcioppolo wrote and published The Lost Sonnets of Cyrano de Bergerac. The book fictionalizes a dying Cyrano writing a sequence of sonnets in an attempt to come to terms with his conflicted life. It portrays a Cyrano very close to the historical personage without diminishing his love for freedom and individuality.
Influence
The ghostwritten love letters of Cyrano de Bergerac are said to have inspired Heart Raps, a modern day service that writes custom romantic hip-hop verses to be given as gifts .See also
- Asteroid 3582 Cyrano3582 Cyrano3582 Cyrano is a small main belt asteroid. It was discovered by Paul Wild in 1986. It is named after Cyrano de Bergerac, the seventeenth century French dramatist and duellist who was immortalized in Edmond Rostand's 1897 play....
, named after de Bergerac. - Cyrano (Damrosch)Cyrano (Damrosch)Cyrano is an opera in four acts composed by Walter Damrosch to an English language libretto by William James Henderson based on Edmond Rostand's play, Cyrano de Bergerac...
, a four-act opera with music by Walter Damrosch and libretto by William J. Henderson - Cyrano (opera)Cyrano (opera)Cyrano is an opera in three acts by David DiChiera to a libretto in French by Bernard Uzan, based on the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. The opera premiered on 13 October 2007 at the Michigan Opera Theatre. It was then given February 8–17, 2008 at the Opera Company of Philadelphia...
, an opera in three acts by David DiChieraDavid DiChieraDavid DiChiera is an American composer and founding general director of Michigan Opera Theatre.-Career:...
to a librettoLibrettoA libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Bernard Uzan - Cyrano de Bergerac (Alfano)Cyrano de Bergerac (Alfano)Cyrano de Bergerac is a four-act opera with music by Franco Alfano, and libretto by Henri Caïn, based on Edmond Rostand's drama Cyrano de Bergerac. The opera received its first performance in Rome on 22 January 1936, conducted by Tullio Serafin, with Maria Caniglia and José Luccioni...
, a four-act operaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
with music by Franco AlfanoFranco AlfanoFranco Alfano was an Italian composer and pianist. Best known today for his opera Risurrezione and above all for having completed Puccini's opera Turandot in 1926. He had considerable success with several of his own works during his lifetime.- Biography :He was born in Posillipo, Naples...
and libretto by Henri CaïnHenri CainHenri Caïn was a French dramatist, opera and ballet librettist. He wrote over forty librettos from 1893 to his death, for many of the most prominent composers of the Parisian Belle Epoque.... - Cyrano de Bergerac (film)Cyrano de Bergerac (film)There are several film adaptations of Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac:* Cyrano de Bergerac , starring Benoît-Constant Coquelin* Cyrano de Bergerac , starring Pierre Magnier...
- Cyrano de Bergerac (play)Cyrano de Bergerac (play)Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....
- Roxanne (film)Roxanne (film)Roxanne is a 1987 comedy film directed by Fred Schepisi. It is a modern retelling of the 1897 verse play Cyrano de Bergerac, written by French author Edmond Rostand, and stars Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah.-Plot summary:...
- Addyman, Ishbel (2008). Cyrano: The Life and Legend of Cyrano De Bergerac, Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
External links
- Brief biography at Kirjasto (Pegasos)
- Le Vrai Cyrano de Bergerac (French)—Biography
- Cyrano(s) de Bergerac (French)—Information on fictional portrayals versus real person
- The Other World: Society and Government of the Moon—annotated English language edition—English languageEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
edition.—French languageFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
edition.