In a heroic, dazzling medieval Spain, two young people are torn apart and adore each other. To wash away an insult, Rodrigue kills Chimène's father. Honor and duty demand vengeance and hatred, but she loves this assassin madly. A comedy, a tragedy? Everyone senses that this play is the most beautiful, the most alive, the youngest of romantic dramas. It is a love poem where feelings prevail over conventions and the law, a song of despair and revolt. At the creation of Le Cid, the success was such that it was necessary to add chairs on the stage. For more than three centuries, it has been playing to full houses. Corneille's theater is made of tenderness, unexpectedness, madness. We are only just beginning to understand it today.
In a heroic, dazzling medieval Spain, two young people are torn apart and adore each other. To wash away an insult, Rodrigue kills Chimène's father. Honor and duty demand vengeance and hatred, but she loves this assassin madly. A comedy, a tragedy? Everyone senses that this play is the most beautiful, the most alive, the youngest of romantic dramas. It is a love poem where feelings prevail over conventions and the law, a song of despair and revolt. At the creation of Le Cid, the success was such that it was necessary to add chairs on the stage. For more than three centuries, it has been playing to full houses. Corneille's theater is made of tenderness, unexpectedness, madness. We are only just beginning to understand it today.