Rostand redeemed

Edmond is a work by the French-British actor, writer and director Alexis Michalik, which premiered as a stage play in 2016. It concerns Rostand, of course, and recounts his rebound from the disaster of La Princesse Lointaine with the feverish creation of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Edmond was nominated for seven Molieres, of which it won five. It then became a graphic novel illustrated by Léonard Chemineau, and was released as a feature film (directed by Michalik) in January 2019.

Cyrano, needless to say, was Rostand’s high-water-mark; the Rudel connection obliges me to concentrate on the low-water-mark. Somehow, that suits the Rudel legend: PG Wodehouse used him as a comic peg, Angela Thirkell had some fun at his expense - and yes, there’s a bit of a stench of failure emanating from Jaufre’s story.
 
If you’re waiting for a ‘But...’ I don’t really have one. Rudel’s sad end - as emphasised in Edmond - is a kind of punchline, a low point from which Rostand must recover in order to fulfill his destiny. But the legend of Rudel remains, as a marker that writers and artists can’t help touching upon now and then.
 
Oh look, I had a ‘But...’ after all.

Rambaldo aka Rudel

Nino Berrini (1880-1962) was an Italian journalist, playwright and director.

His play Rambaldo di Vaqueiras (1921) ('poema drammatico cavalleresco', or 'a chivalric dramatic poem') is a fanciful take on the titular troubadour poet, who falls in love with his patron's daughter Beatrice. It is said to owe much to Edmond Rostand's work, in particular his Rudel play, La Princesse Lointaine (of which plenty elsewhere on this blog) - for example, Berrini's Rambaldo is mortally wounded and dies in Beatrice's arms. If your Italian is up to it, you can compare and contrast at the Internet Archive, which has the full text of Rambaldo di Vaqueiras. 

Berrini's obscurity these days may simply be down to the mediocrity of his work or to the whims of posterity; but it might have been assisted by the story of an incident during World War Two that, if true (or even if not), can't have done much for his reputation. While living in the Piedmont town of Boves, Berrini became caught up in an operation by the German SS to burn the town to the ground. A terrified Berrini scoured his library for  a German newspaper cutting that quoted Hitler's appreciation of the writer's work, and took the article to show to the SS commander. Berrini's house was saved, but the other townfolk never forgave him. That, at least, is the story told on Berrini's Italian wikipedia page.