Edmond Rostand

Edmond Rostand (Marseille, 1868 – Paris, 1918) was a French poet and dramatist associated with neo-romanticism, a movement that offered an alternative to the naturalistic theatre dominant in the late nineteenth century. He is remembered above all for Cyrano de Bergerac, a verse play that remains one of the most performed French plays in the world.

Born into a wealthy and cultivated Provençal family, he studied literature, history and philosophy in Paris, though he never practised law. His first play, Le Gant rouge, passed almost unnoticed in 1888. His real breakthrough came with Les Romanesques (1894), a verse comedy staged at the Théâtre-Français. That same year he married the poet Rosemonde Gérard, with whom he had two sons, Maurice and Jean. They later divorced, and in 1915 he married the actress Mary Marquet.

Rostand wrote in verse by conviction and thought of himself first as a poet, even when writing for the stage. His heroes tend to be idealistic and brave, and his plots blend fantasy with history. He wrote for Sarah Bernhardt, who starred in La Princesse Lointaine and La Samaritaine, but his great success came with Cyrano de Bergerac, first staged in December 1897 with Benoît-Constant Coquelin in the title role. The production ran for more than three hundred consecutive nights and was quickly translated into many languages. In 1901 he entered the Académie française, becoming the youngest writer ever elected to it.

His later years were shaped by ill health. In 1903 he moved to Cambo-les-Bains in the Basque Pyrenees, where he built the Villa Arnaga, now a museum devoted to him. There he wrote Chantecler, which premiered in 1910 to a cool reception, partly because of production delays and partly because of its satire of salon life in the third act. He died in 1918 during the influenza pandemic and was buried in Marseille.

His legacy rests almost entirely on Cyrano de Bergerac, which has been adapted for film, opera and stage around the world. Neo-romanticism lost ground after the First World War, but Rostand's work is still read as an example of verse theatre that sought emotion and heroism in an age dominated by realism.