Émile Fabre (24 March 1869 in

Metz, France Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand Est region. Located near the tripoi ...

– 25 September 1955 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a French playwright and general administrator of the ''

Comédie-Française The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...

'' from 1915 to 1936.^: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.Garreau, Joseph E. (1984)
"Fabre, Émile"
in Stanley Hochman (ed.) ''McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama'', Vol. 1, p. 136. He also wrote the

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

for

Xavier Leroux Xavier Henry Napoleón Leroux (; 11 October 1863 – 2 February 1919) was a French composer and a teacher at the Paris Conservatory. He was married to the famous soprano Meyrianne Héglon (1867–1942). Life Born in Italy at Velletri, 30 ...

's opera '' Les cadeaux de Noël'' (The Christmas Gifts) which was a great success when it premiered in Paris in 1915.''

Le Figaro () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It was named after Figaro, a character in several plays by polymath Pierre Beaumarchais, Beaumarchais (1732–1799): ''Le Barbier de Séville'', ''The Guilty Mother, La Mère coupable'', ...

'' (13 April 1917)
"Courrier des Théâtres"
p. 4

Career at the Comédie-Française

Fabre was appointed general administrator of the ''

'' on 2 December 1915.^: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.^:2

In 1922 he organised the Cycle Moliere, in which all of Moliere's plays were performed in chronological order.^:231 The success of this event, encouraged him to organise the Centennial of

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

in 1927, the 100-year anniversary of Victor Hugo's '' Preface de Cromwell'' (Qe Waleffe).^:232 Over the course of the Centennial the theatre staged twenty-one Romantic plays. He resigned from the position 15 October 1936.^:227

Plays

Fabre's plays include: * ''L'Argent'' (''Money''), 1895 * ''La Vie publique'' (''Public Life''), 1901 * ''Les Ventres dorés'' (''Gilded Stomachs''), 1905 * ''Les Sauterelles'' (''The Locusts''), 1911

References

1869 births 1955 deaths Administrators of the Comédie-Française 19th-century French dramatists and playwrights 20th-century French dramatists and playwrights {{France-writer-stub