Eugène Cormon

Who was Eugène Cormon?

Pierre-Étienne Piestre, known as Eugène Cormon, was a French dramatist and librettist. He used his mother's name, Cormon, during his career.

Cormon wrote dramas, comedies and, from the 1840s, libretti; around 150 of his works were published. He was stage manager at the Paris Opéra from 1859 to 1870, and administrator of the Théâtre du Vaudeville from 1874.

His libretti include Les dragons de Villars, Gastibelza and Les pêcheurs de Catane for Maillart, Les pêcheurs de perles for Bizet, Robinson Crusoé for Offenbach, and Les Bleuets for Cohen.

The Fontainebleau act as well as the auto da fé scene of Verdi's opera Don Carlos is based in part on Cormon's 1846 play Philippe II, Roi d'Espagne.

At the Moscow Art Theatre in 1927 the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski staged Cormon's melodrama The Gérard Sisters, which he co-wrote with Adolphe d'Ennery.