Émile Fabre
Émile Fabre (24 March 1869 in Metz, France – 25 September 1955 in Paris) was a French playwright and general administrator of the Comédie-Française from 1915 to
Émile Fabre | |
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Émile Fabre in 1917 | |
Born | 24 March 1869 Metz, France |
Died | 25 September 1955 Paris, France |
1936.[1]:227 He was greatly influenced by Balzac as a young man, and most of his best-known plays deal with the sacrifice of personal happiness to the pursuit of wealth.[2] He also wrote the libretto for Xavier Leroux's opera Les cadeaux de Noël (The Christmas Gifts) which was a great success when it premiered in Paris in 1915.[3]
Career at the Comédie-Française
Fabre was appointed general administrator of the Comédie-Française on 2 December 1915.[1]:227 According to Susan McCready,
During Fabre's tenure, the Comédie-Française moved from the center of the theatre scene, where theatrical creation and innovation are paramount, to its periphery, where [ . . . ] its role was increasingly limited to the preservation of the past.[1]:2
In 1922 he organised the Cycle Moliere, in which all of Moliere's plays were performed in chronological order.[1]:231
The success of this event, encouraged him to organise the Centennial of Romanticism in 1927, the 100-year anniversary of Victor Hugo's Preface de Cromwell (Qe Waleffe).[1]:232 Over the course of the Centennial the theatre staged twenty-one Romantic plays.
He resigned from the position 15 October 1936.[1]:227
Plays
Fabre's plays include:[2]
- L'Argent (Money), 1895
- La Vie publique (Public Life), 1901
- Les Ventres dorés (Gilded Stomachs), 1905
- Les Sauterelles (The Locusts), 1911
References
- McCready, Susan (2003). "The Compromise of Commemoration: The 1927 Centennial of Romanticism at the Comédie-Française". Modern Drama. 46 (2): 227–240. doi:10.1353/mdr.2003.0058. ISSN 1712-5286.
- Garreau, Joseph E. (1984). "Fabre, Émile" in Stanley Hochman (ed.) McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, Vol. 1, p. 136. ISBN 0070791694
- Le Figaro (13 April 1917). "Courrier des Théâtres", p. 4 (in French)