The Cogniard brothers were two French brothers who worked as playwrights and theatre directors, producing an incalculable number of

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

reviews A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a rating to indic ...

féerie ''Féerie'', sometimes translated as "fairy play", was a French theatrical genre known for fantasy plots and spectacular visuals, including lavish scenery and mechanically worked stage effects. ''Féeries'' blended music, dancing, pantomime, and ...

s and

operettas Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...

. The elder of the two was Charles-Théodore or Théodore Cogniard (30 April 1806 - 13 May 1872) and the younger was Jean-Hippolyte or Hippolyte Cogniard (28 November 1807 – 6 February 1882) Both brothers were born and died in Paris.

Career

Nicknamed "les jumeaux siamois du vaudeville" (the

Siamese twins Conjoined twins – sometimes popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined ''in utero''. A very rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence ...

of vaudeville),Huart (1839) they headed the théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin from 1840 to 1845. In 1845 Hippolyte took sole charge of the

Théâtre du Vaudeville The Théâtre du Vaudeville was a theatre company in Paris. It opened on 12 January 1792 on rue de Chartres. Its directors, Piis and Barré, mainly put on "petites pièces mêlées de couplets sur des airs connus", including vaudevilles. Af ...

, then of the

Théâtre des Variétés The Théâtre des Variétés is a theatre and "salle de spectacles" at 7–8, boulevard Montmartre, 2nd arrondissement, in Paris. It was declared a monument historique in 1974. History It owes its creation to the theatre director Mademoiselle ...

from 1854 to 1869, where he instituted a repertoire solely consisting of operettas. It was under Hippolyte's leadership that

Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera ' ...

created his best known works : ''

La Belle Hélène ''La belle Hélène'' (, ''The Beautiful Helen'') is an opéra bouffe in three acts, with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The piece parodies the story of Helen of Troy, Helen's elopement with Paris (myt ...

'', '' Barbe-Bleue'', ''

La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein ''La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein'' (''The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein'') is an opéra bouffe (a form of operetta), in three acts and four tableaux by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The s ...

'' and ''

La Périchole ''La Périchole'' () is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy wrote the French libretto based on the 1829 one act play '' Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement'' by Prosper Mérimée, which was revived o ...

''. In 1869, on behalf of his son Léon, Hippolyte acquired the Cirque-Impérial and renamed it the Théâtre du Château d'Eau, after its proximity to the place du Château d'Eau (now

place de la République The Place de la République (known as the Place du Château d'Eau until 1879) is a square in Paris, located on the border between the 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements. The square has an area of .Warner, p. 250 Named after the First, Second an ...

). He then took it over after his son's premature death in March 1870. (After several failures, in 1904 that theatre became one of the most famous Parisian music halls, as the Alhambra.) As playwrights, the Cogniard brothers produced an impressive number of plays, fééries and reviews from 1830 onwards, collaborating with

Hector Crémieux In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

, Louis-François Clairville and Paul Siraudin. These included ''La Cocarde tricolore'', ''La Révolte des modistes'', ''Les Deux Borgnes'', ''L'Agnès de Belleville'' (with Paul de Kock), ''Bobêche et Galimafré'', ''La Fille de l'air'', ''Les Enfants du délire'', ''Le Naufrage de la Méduse'', ''Les Mille et une nuits'', ''La Biche aux bois'', ''La Cornemuse du diable'', ''Le Royaume du calembourg'', ''La Poudre de perlimpinpin'', ''Le Monde camelotte'', ''Les Bibelots du diable'', ''La Grande Marée'', ''Sans queue ni tête'' (with Crémieux), ''La Reine Crinoline ou Le royaume des femmes'', ''Les Compagnons de la truelle'' (with Clairville), ''Les Bêtises d'hier'' (with Clairville and Siraudin) and their greatest success ''La Chatte blanche'' (a féerie put on in 1852).

Notes and references

Sources

*Huart, Louis, "Frères Cogniard" in Louis Huart and Charles Philipon (eds),
Galerie de la presse, de la littérature et des beaux-arts
', Volume 1, Bureau de la Publication, et Chez Aubert, 1839 *''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''
"Theodore Cogniard, Dramatist"
May 27, 1872

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cogniard Brothers Impresarios 1806 births 1807 births Writers from Paris 1872 deaths 1882 deaths French male dramatists and playwrights 19th-century French dramatists and playwrights 19th-century French male writers Writing duos