Polyeucte
Encyclopedia
- "Polyeucte" is also the name of an overtureOvertureOverture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
by Paul DukasPaul DukasPaul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...
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Polyeucte martyr is a drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
in five act
Act (theater)
An act is a division or unit of a drama. The number of acts in a production can range from one to five or more, depending on how a writer structures the outline of the story...
s by French
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...
writer Pierre 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...
. It was finished in December 1642 and debuted in October 1643. It is based on the life of the martyr Saint Polyeuctus (Polyeucte).
In 1878 it was adapted into an opera
Polyeucte (opera)
Polyeucte is an opéra by Charles Gounod based on the play about Saint Polyeuctus by Pierre Corneille. The libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré is more faithful to its source than Les martyrs, Scribe's adaptation for Donizetti, and Gounod hoped to express "the unknown and irresistable...
by Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
, with the assistance of the librettist Jules Barbier
Jules Barbier
Paul Jules Barbier was a French poet, writer and opera librettist who often wrote in collaboration with Michel Carré...
. Other works based on the play include a ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
(1679), the opera Poliuto
Poliuto
Poliuto is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera, by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Pierre Corneille's play Polyeucte . It was composed in 1838 and first performed on 30 November 1848 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples...
(1838) by Donizetti (adapted into French by Scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
as Les Martyrs), an overture by Paul Dukas (1891) and a composition by Edgar Tinel
Edgar Tinel
Edgar Tinel was a Belgian composer and pianist.He was born in Sinaai, today part of Sint-Niklaas in East Flanders, Belgium, and died in Brussels. After studies at the Brussels Conservatory with Louis Brassin and François-Auguste Gevaert , he began a career as a virtuoso, but soon abandoned this...
.
The drama is set in Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
during a time when Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s were persecuted there under the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. Polyeucte, an Armenian nobleman, converts to Christianity to the great despair of his wife, Pauline, and of his father-in-law, Felix. Despite them, Polyeucte becomes a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
, causing Pauline and Felix to finally convert as well.
There is also a romantic subplot: the Roman Severus is in love with Pauline and hopes she will be his after the conversion of Polyeucte. However, she chooses to stay at the side of her husband. Before dying, Polyeucte entrusts Severus with Pauline.
Polyeucte is one of the last 17th-century French dramas with a religious subject—Corneille did also write Théodore in 1645 and Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
wrote Esther
Esther
Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...
(1689) and Athalie
Athalie
Athalie is the final tragedy of Jean Racine, and has been described as the masterpiece of 'one of the greatest literary artists known' and the 'ripest work' of Racine's genius...
(1691), but these were not meant for public performance. Later playwrights were not as willing to mix religious and worldly themes.