Rostand's play was first produced, October, 1898, by Richard Mansfield, and repeated in subsequent seasons. In 1900 it was given in French by Bernhardt and Coquelin. The libretto of the opera follows the play closely. Mr. Henderson retained and successfully remodelled the main incidents of the drama. The operatic version begins at the Hôtel de Bourgogne where "La Clorise" is to be played. Cyrano orders the leading actor off the stage because he has dared to cast insolent glances at his cousin Roxane, whom Cyrano loves but dares not woo because of the deformity of his hideous nose. Roxane, from a box, sees in the audience the man with whom she has fallen in love, although she has never met him. Cyrano fights a duel with De Guiche, a married suitor of Roxane, and pricks him in the arm. Elated at the prospect of a meeting with his cousin arranged through her duenna, Cyrano rushes off to disperse one hundred men who are waiting to kill one of his friends.
In Act II, Cyrano is at Ragueneau's shop waiting for his cousin. He writes an ardent love letter, intending to give it to her. His hopes are high, but they are dashed to the ground when Roxane tells him of her love for Christian, who is to join her cousin's regiment that day. Cyrano promises to watch over Christian. He bears his insults and agrees to woo Roxane for Christian by his wit and verse. He even sacrifices his own love letter.
In Act III, Christian rebels at the second-hand love-making. But when Roxane is disgusted with his commonplaces he is glad to turn again to Cyrano. Under cover of night, Cyrano courts Roxane beneath her balcony. She is delighted and rewards her lover with a kiss. De Guiche sends a priest with a letter in which he attempts to gain an interview with her. Roxane tells the priest that the letter contains an order for him to perform the marriage ceremony. While Cyrano keeps De Guiche outside the lovers are married. In revenge, De Guiche orders the Gascon regiment of which Cyrano and Christian are both members to the war.
In the last act, Roxane visits the entrenchment at the siege of Arras. Her carriage is driven by the faithful Ragueneau. Cyrano's love letters, ostensibly from Christian, have prompted her coming. Her husband realizes that the man she really loves is Cyrano, although she believes it to be Christian. He leaves the cousins alone, urging Cyrano to tell the truth. He is soon brought back, mortally wounded. Cyrano assures him that he has told Roxane of the deception and that Christian is the man she loves.
The second scene takes place in a convent. Cyrano, wounded and dying, visits Roxane. He begs to see her husband's last letter. Forgetting himself, he recites it in the dusk. Thus he betrays his love. But when Roxane realizes the truth he denies it, "dying," as he declares, "without a stain upon his soldier's snow-white plume."
THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS
Opera in four acts by Reginald de Koven. Book by Percy Mackaye. Produced for the first time on any stage at the Metropolitan Opera House, March 8, 1917, with the following cast:
Conductor, Bodanzky.
The time is April, 1387; the place, England. Chaucer, first poet-laureate of England, travelling incognito with pilgrims from London to Canterbury, encounters Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, a woman of the lower middle class, buxom, canny, and full of fun, who has had five husbands, and is looking for a sixth. She promptly falls in love with Chaucer who, instead of returning her sprightly attentions, conceives a high, serious, poetic affection for the Prioress. She is a gentlewoman, who, according to the custom of the time, is both ecclesiastical and secular, having taken no vows.