View source for Eugène Scribe

{{Short description|French dramatist and librettist (1791–1861)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}
[[File:Eugène-Scribe-Atelier-Nadar.jpg|thumb|alt= Photograph of middle aged white man in 19th century clothes; he is clean shaven apart from short side whiskers; his hair is short and white|Scribe by [[Nadar]]]]

'''Augustin Eugène Scribe''' ({{IPA|fr|oɡystɛ̃ øʒɛn skʁib|lang}}; 24 December 1791{{snd}}20 February 1861) was a French dramatist and [[librettist]]. He is known for writing "[[well-made play]]s" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of many of the most successful [[grand opera]]s and [[opéras-comiques]].

Born to a middle-class Parisian family, Scribe was intended for a legal career, but was drawn to the theatre, and began writing plays while still in his teens. His early years as a playwright were unsuccessful, but from 1815 onwards he prospered. Writing, usually with one or more collaborators, he produced several hundred stage works. He wrote to entertain the public rather than educate it. Many of his plays were written in a formulaic manner which aimed at neatness of plot and focus on dramatic incident rather than naturalism, depth of characterisation or intellectual substance. For this he was much criticised by intellectuals, but the "well-made play" remained established in the theatre in France and elsewhere long after his death.

In 1813 Scribe wrote his first opera libretto. From 1822 until his death he was closely associated with the composer [[Daniel Auber]] for whom he wrote or co-wrote 39 librettos, among them that for the first French [[grand opera]], ''[[La muette de Portici|La Muette de Portici]]'' (1828). His second most frequent musical partner was [[Giacomo Meyerbeer]], who took grand opera further and made it a dominant feature of French musical life. Among the other composers with whom Scribe worked were [[Adolphe Adam]], [[Adrien Boieldieu]], [[Gaetano Donizetti]], [[Fromental Halévy]], [[Jacques Offenbach]] and [[Giuseppe Verdi]].

Scribe's librettos are still performed in opera houses around the world, and although few of his non-musical plays have been revived frequently in the 20th or 21st centuries, his influence on subsequent generations of playwrights in France and elsewhere was profound and lasting.

==Life and career==
===Early years===
Scribe was born in Paris on 24 December 1791, at the family house in the [[Rue Saint-Denis (Paris)|Rue Saint-Denis]] near [[Les Halles]]. His father, a silk merchant, died while the boy was an infant, but left his widow comfortably off. Scribe was educated at the prestigious [[Collège Sainte-Barbe]], where he was an outstanding pupil, winning the college's top prize in his final year and being ceremonially crowned with a laurel wreath at the [[Académie Française]].<ref>Koon and Switzer, p. 11</ref> His mother intended him to pursue a career in the legal profession, and sent him to study with Louis-Ferdinand Bonnet, a leading Parisian lawyer.<ref>Larousse, p. 423</ref>
[[File:Eugène-Scribe-anonymous-c1820.png|thumb|left|upright|Scribe as a young man|alt=dark-haired, clean-shaven young white man in early 19th-century costume]]
Although he was conscientious in his studies, Scribe's ambition was to write for the theatre, and when his mother died in 1807 he turned from the law, and together with his former classmate [[Germain Delavigne]] he set his sights on a theatrical career.<ref>Koon and Switzer, pp. 12–13</ref> His first piece, a one-act vaudeville{{refn|The vaudeville, a genre that originated in the middle ages as a satirical song, had evolved by the early 19th century into a play in verse with music, often popular songs borrowed for the purpose. Thereafter it split into two branches: [[opérette]]s, such as those by [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]], and, in the words of the historian Peter Meyer, "the vaudeville itself&nbsp;... akin to what we would call slapstick farce, where movement was more important than character".<ref name=meyer>Meyer, p. 10</ref>|group=n}} ''Le Prétendu par hasard'', was produced anonymously at the [[Théâtre des Variétés]] in January 1810 and was a failure. Numerous other plays, written in collaboration with Delavigne and others, followed; but for the next five years Scribe earned little from the theatre and was reliant on his inheritance.<ref name=l424>Larousse, p. 424</ref> He had modest successes with ''Les Derviches'' (1811) and ''L'Auberge'', (1812), both written with Delavigne for the [[Théâtre du Vaudeville]]. In 1813 he wrote the first of three [[melodrama]]s, of which the third, ''Les Frères invisibles'', did reasonably well at the [[Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin]]. In the same year he wrote his first opera libretto, for Luc Guénée's opéra comique ''La Chambre à coucher''.<ref name=grove>Schneider, Herbert. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000025268 "Scribe, (Auguste) Eugène"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603035641/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000025268 |date=3 June 2021 }}</ref> 

Scribe's first substantial success came in 1815, with the comedy ''Une Nuit de la garde nationale'' (''A Night at the [[National Guard (France)|National Guard]]''), a collaboration with his friend [[Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson |Charles Delestre-Poirson]]. Over the next five years Scribe built a position as a dramatist, writing under his own name or pseudonyms, usually in collaboration with others.<ref name=l424/> In 1820 Delestre-Poirson established the [[Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell|Théâtre du Gymnase]], and opened on 23 December with ''Le Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle'' by Scribe and two friends who had also abandoned law for the theatre, Baron Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier, who wrote under the pen name [[Mélesville]], and Charles Moreau. Delestre-Poirson gave Scribe a remunerative contract that made him, in effect, the theatre's resident playwright, with the Gymnase having first call on his services.<ref>Koon and Switzer, p. 17</ref>

===1820s===
Between 1820 and 1830 Scribe wrote more than a hundred plays for the Gymnase, and librettos and plays for the [[Comédie-Française]], the [[Paris Opéra|Opéra]], the [[Opéra-Comique]] and seven other theatres.<ref>Koon and Switzer, pp. 17–18</ref> In 1822 he began a collaboration with the composer [[Daniel Auber]] that lasted for 41 years and produced 39 operas.<ref>Hueffer ''et al'', pp. 253–254</ref> Auber's biographer [[Robert Letellier]] writes that the names of Scribe and Auber became as linked in French minds as those of [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] later were in British ones.<ref>Letellier, p. 5</ref> The partners' first collaboration was ''Leicester, ou Le château de Kenilworth'', a three-act [[opéra comique]], with a plot that Scribe, in collaboration with Mélesville, derived from [[Walter Scott]]'s [[historical romance]] ''[[Kenilworth (novel)|Kenilworth]]''. As with his plays, Scribe customarily wrote his librettos in collaboration with other writers. For Auber he worked with, among others, [[X. B. Saintine]], [[Édouard-Joseph-Ennemond Mazères|E.-J.-E. Mazères]] and [[Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges]] as well as Mélesville and Delavigne.<ref>Malherbe, pp. 42, 47 and 51</ref> Letellier writes that "part of Scribe's genius lay in his careful selection of his collaborators". A story grew that Scribe would hire one man to write the narrative, a different one for the dialogue, a third for the jokes, a fourth for the lyrics, and so on. The story was apocryphal,{{refn|Letellier explains that the story had its origins in a favourite game played at Scribe's dinner table where one person would think of an idea, another would plot it, a third create the dialogue, all with the aim of finishing the piece by the end of dinner.<ref name=l10/>|group=n}} but literary collaboration was a French tradition in which Scribe was thoroughly at home:
[[File:Le comte Ory - Dubois & chez Martinet - Final scene.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|alt=stage scene with five characters in 16th-century costume - three women, one man and one "boy" (played by a woman)|''[[Le Comte Ory]]'', 1828]]
{{blockindent|His pleasure in cooperation was genuine, and evident in his generosity to co-authors, sharing not only revenues but glory with them. He was scrupulously honest in his dealings. Many unknown writers received cheques from him as "Payment for copyright in ideas" though they themselves were quite unaware of the part they had played in this creative process.<ref name=l10/>|}}
During his career Scribe worked with more than 60 co-authors, in addition to writing more than 130 stage works on his own. He wrote or co-wrote librettos for 48 composers.<ref>Larousse, pp. 424–427</ref> During the 1820s Scribe collaborated with [[Adrien Boieldieu]] on ''[[La dame blanche|La Dame blanche]]'' (1825), a Romantic opera based on stories by Walter Scott. Scribe's libretto was one of the first to introduce the supernatural into an operatic plot. The piece was enormously popular, and reached its thousandth performance at the Opéra-Comique shortly after Scribe's death.<ref>Forbes, Elizabeth. [https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O003616 "Dame blanche, La"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 7 June 2021 {{subscription required}} {{Cite book |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000003616 |title=Dame blanche, la &#124; Grove Music |year=2002 |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O003616 |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 |access-date=12 June 2021 |archive-date=12 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612171438/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000003616 |url-status=bot: unknown |last1=Forbes |first1=Elizabeth }}</ref> In 1827 Scribe wrote the scenario for ''[[La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur|La Somnambule]]'', a ballet with music by [[Ferdinand Hérold]], for the Paris Opéra. It was a landmark – the first time the Opéra had presented a ballet with a scenario by a leading dramatist. Until then the storyline and staging of a ballet had been left to the in-house ''chef de danse''.<ref>Conway (2021), p. 61</ref>  This was the precursor of the fusion of opera and ballet in the first French [[grand opera]], given the following year – ''[[La muette de Portici|La Muette de Portici]]'', with music by Auber and libretto by Scribe and Delavigne.<ref name=grove/>

In 1828 Scribe collaborated with [[Gioachino Rossini]] on ''[[Le Comte Ory]]'', an unusual undertaking as the words for about half the numbers had to be written to fit existing music, repurposed by Rossini from ''[[Il viaggio a Reims]]'', a ''[[pièce d'occasion]]'' composed three years earlier.<ref name=o18>Osborne, p. 18</ref>{{refn|Although reusing operatic music was not uncommon – Rossini did it many times – Scribe and Delestre-Poirson had the particular problem of fitting French words to tunes written to be sung in Italian.<ref name=o18/><ref>Gossett & Brauner, p. 34</ref> Scribe had earlier provided French words for music written to be sung in German when he co-wrote the libretto for ''Robin des Bois'' (Robin Hood, 1824), very loosely based on [[Carl Maria von Weber|Weber's]] ''[[Der Freischütz]].<ref>Lacombe, pp. 26–28</ref>|group=n}} The opera was a success, and was seen in London within six months of the Paris premiere, and in New York in 1831.<ref>Gossett & Brauner, p. 347</ref>{{refn|Scribe co-wrote the libretto with [[Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson|Delestre-Poirson]], expanding a one-act vaudeville they had written in 1817 about the exploits of the libertine Count Ory, a real-life Don Juan.<ref>Osborne, Richard. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000008258 "Comte Ory, Le"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 7 June 2021 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607075441/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000008258 |date=7 June 2021 }}</ref>|group=n}}

===1830s===
In the 1830s Scribe's works were twice adapted by others for new operas that became well known. His scenario for ''La Somnambule'' was used by [[Felice Romani]] as the basis of [[Vincenzo Bellini]]'s 1831 opera ''[[La sonnambula]]''; his libretto for Auber's ''Le Philtre'' (1831) was adapted by Romani for [[Gaetano Donizetti]]'s ''[[L'elisir d'amore]]'' (1832). The Opéra-Comique commissioned a grand opera, ''[[Robert le diable]]'', from Scribe, Delavigne and [[Giacomo Meyerbeer]]. For reasons of musical politics the work was premiered by the Paris Opéra, at the [[Salle Le Peletier]] in 1831, after extensive re-writing. Within three years it reached 100 performances on the stage of the Opéra, and by 1835 it had been seen at 77 houses in ten different countries.<ref>Huebner, Steven. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000009613 "Robert le diable"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 7 June 2021 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607081309/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000009613 |date=7 June 2021 }}</ref>

For the non-musical theatre, Scribe wrote ''Bertrand et Raton ou l'art de conspirer'' (The School for Politicians, 1830) a "serious" five-act comedy for the Comedie-Française. This began a series of historical or political comedies, which, as [[Pierre Larousse]] comments, have little to do with real politics and history, but which became the models of a new genre.<ref name=l424>Larousse, p. 424</ref> The series continued with ''L'Ambitieux'' (1834), ''La Camaraderie'' (1836), ''Les Indépendants'' (1837), ''La  Calomnie'' (1840) and ''[[The Glass of Water|Le Verre d'eau]]'' (1840),{{refn|Respectively ''The Ambitious Person, Comradeship, The Independent People, Slander'', and ''The Glass of Water''.|group=n}} all comedies in five acts, developing a more or less original theme.<ref name=l424/> In 1836 Scribe was elected to the Académie Française, and in 1839, at the age of 48 he married.{{refn|Little is known about Scribe's private life before his marriage. It is believed that by a liaison with a dancer he fathered an illegitimate son in 1838, [[Georges Coulon]], later a prominent politician. In his will, Scribe left Coulon money – "un certaine fortune" – and some unfinished works.<ref>Debré: Kindle section "Enfants célèbres dans les lycées de la République".</ref>|group=n}} His wife, whom he had known for several years, was the widow of a wine merchant. She worried about his tendency to overwork, and attempted, with only limited success, to get him to slow down.<ref>Koon and Switzer, pp. 25–28</ref> His working habits varied little throughout his life. He began work at five in the morning during the summer and at six in the winter, writing until noon. He spent the rest of the day planning new work, attending rehearsals of his plays or operas, and in the evening visiting friends or going to the theatre.<ref name=l10>Letellier, p. 10</ref>
[[File:Scribe's-château-Séricourt.png|Scribe's country house at [[Séricourt]]|thumb|upright=1.5|alt=Exterior of large country house in extensive grounds]]
During the 1830s Scribe introduced social questions into his plays, although never losing sight of his principal purpose, which was to entertain. By this point in his career he had honed his skills as a dramatist and developed what became known as the "[[well-made play]]" – ''la pièce bien faite'' – characterised by concise plotting, compelling narrative and a largely standardised structure, with little emphasis on characterisation and intellectual ideas. In the words of one literary critic:
{{blockindent|A Scribe play, long or short, is a masterpiece of plot construction. It is as artistically put together as a master watch; the smallest piece is perfectly in place, and the removal of any part would ruin the whole. Such a "well-made" play always displays fertility of invention, dexterity in the selection and arrangement of incidents, and careful planning. Everything is done with the greatest economy. Every character is essential to the action, every speech develops it. There is no time for verbal wit, no matter how clever, or for philosophical musing, no matter how enlightening. The action is all-important.<ref>Tolles, pp. 22–23</ref>|}}
One of Scribe's key devices was the ''quiproquo'', in which two or more characters interpret a word, a situation or a person's identity in different ways, all the time assuming that their interpretations are the same.<ref>[https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A9Q0296 "quiproquo"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200821124030/https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A9Q0296 |date=21 August 2020 }}, ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française''. Retrieved 5 June 2021</ref> This important feature of Scribe's "well-made plays" was raised to its greatest heights by [[Georges Feydeau]] later in the 19th century.<ref>Gidel, pp. 57, 66, 89, 113 and 188</ref>

Scribe's earnings from his plays and librettos were considerable and he amassed a large fortune. He was a good businessman: commenting on a dispute over payment with [[Léon Pillet]], the director of the Opéra, in 1841, he said he wanted to be paid for his librettos "according to what they bring in, that is to say, a great deal. The present director only wants to pay for them according to what they are worth, that is to say, very little".<ref>''Quoted'' in Roberts, p. 211</ref> He bought a mansion in the fashionable Rue Olivier-Saint-Georges and two country houses. He was unobtrusively generous to deserving causes; among his benefactions was a fund for impoverished musicians and theatre people, into which he paid 13,000 francs (roughly €125,000 in 2015 values) a year.<ref name=grove/>

===Later years===
{{multiple image
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| image1 = Bataille-de-dames.png| width1 =250
|caption1=''Bataille de dames'', 1851
|alt1=sketch of stage scene with characters in early 19th-century costume. A young woman kneels to a standing man; an older woman and a young man look on
|image2= Les-Diamants-de-la-couronne.jpg
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|alt2= Drawing of stage scene with woman in queenly medieval costume, a man kneeling to her and a man on horseback behind them
|caption2=[[Les diamants de la couronne|''Les Diamants de la couronne'']], 1851
}}

In Larousse's view the latter part of Scribe's career, from 1840 to 1861, was "just as full and as glorious as the first". Larousse singled out from the long list of Scribe's plays for the Théâtre Français: ''Une chaîne'' (1841), ''Le Puff'' (1848), ''Adrienne Lecouvreur'' (1849), ''Les Contes de la reine de Navarre'' (1850), ''Bataille de dames'' (1851) and ''La Czarine'' (1855). Of these, ''Bataille de dames'' – battle of the ladies – has been seen by literary critics including [[Brander Matthews]] and Stephen Stanton as among the best and most characteristic of Scribe's plays.<ref>Koon and Switzer, p. 32</ref><ref name=gilbert>Stanton, Stephen. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3204923 "Ibsen, Gilbert, and Scribe's 'Bataille de Dames'"], ''Educational Theatre Journal'', March 1965, pp. 24–30 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210605162928/https://www.jstor.org/stable/320492 |date=5 June 2021 }}</ref> It combines a story of a young man's successful attempts to escape official attempts to arrest him on a political charge with the depiction of the love two women have for him. It combines action, romance and a happy, albeit bitter-sweet, ending. [[Henrik Ibsen]] thought highly of the work, and drew on it in his own early writing; [[George Bernard Shaw|Bernard Shaw]] also drew on it, in his ''[[Arms and the Man]]''.<ref name=gilbert/>

Of Scribe's later librettos for the Opéra or the Opéra-comique, Larousse listed as among the most notable: ''[[Les diamants de la couronne|Les Diamants de la couronne]]'', ''[[La part du diable|La Part du diable]]'' and ''[[Haydée]]'' (with Auber, 1841, 1843 and 1847) and ''[[Le prophète|Le Prophète]]'' and ''[[L'étoile du nord|L'Etoile du Nord]]'' (with Meyerbeer, 1849 and 1854).<ref name=l424/> In 1855 Scribe had his only direct collaboration with [[Giuseppe Verdi]]. (The libretto for the latter's ''[[Un ballo in maschera]]'' (1859) was translated from Scribe's libretto for Auber's ''[[Gustave III (Auber)|Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué]]'' (1833), but Scribe was not involved with the adaptation.)<ref>Koon and Switzer, p. 147</ref> Scribe and Charles Duveyrier provided Verdi with the libretto for ''[[Les vêpres siciliennes|Les Vêpres siciliennes]]'', premiered at the Opéra in June. It was well received; [[Hector Berlioz]] judged it a perfect mixture of French and Italian sensibilities, but it did not become a core part of the Verdian operatic repertoire.<ref>Koon and Switzer, pp. 147–148</ref>

Scribe was the subject of continual criticism from highbrow writers. [[Théophile Gautier]] and [[Théodore de Banville]] accused him of being "the ultimate in bourgeois art and philistinism, pleasing the masses and writing ''théâtre vide''" – empty plays.<ref name=grove/> Gautier asked, "How is it that an author devoid of poetry, lyricism, style, philosophy, truth and naturalness could have become the most fashionable dramatic writer of an era?"<ref name=card/> Scribe's answer to the question was: {{blockindent|The theatre-goer loves me because I take care always to win his trust; he is in on the secrets of the comedy; he has in his hands the threads that pull my characters along; he knows the surprises that I am going to spring, and he thinks he is managing them himself; in short, I take him for a collaborator; he feels he created the play with me, and naturally he applauds.<ref name=card>Cardwell Douglas. [http://www.jstor.com/stable/392365 "The Well-Made Play of Eugène Scribe"], ''The French Review'' , May 1983, pp. 876–884 {{subscription required}} {{Cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/392365 |jstor=392365 |access-date=12 June 2021 |archive-date=12 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612171250/https://www.jstor.org/stable/392365 |url-status=bot: unknown |title=The Well-Made Play of Eugène Scribe |last1=Cardwell |first1=Douglas |journal=The French Review |year=1983 |volume=56 |issue=6 |pages=876–884 }}</ref>|}}

Scribe elaborated on his views in a speech to the Académie Française: "I do not think the comic author should be a historian: that is not his mission. I do not believe that even in Molière himself you can recover the history of our country".<ref name=k26/> In a 2012 study, [[David Conway (music historian)|David Conway]] writes of Scribe's historical operas:
{{blockindent|They exist in a parallel universe, in which colourful historical or geographical milieu display a handful of stereotypes who, as a consequence of some secret manoeuvrings in their own pasts and coincidences in the present, are forced to face some implausible crisis of choice or conscience, preferably accompanied by a simultaneous natural disaster or violent death (or both).<ref>Conway (2012), p. 217</ref>|}}
At the Académie, Scribe went on to give his views on the purpose of the theatre of his own time, maintaining that the public no longer went to the theatre to be instructed – as had been the theory in the 18th century – but to be diverted and entertained.<ref name=k26>Koon and Switzer, p. 26</ref> 

Scribe never retired. He was working on the libretto for Meyerbeer's last opera, ''[[L'Africaine]]'',{{refn|''L'Africaine'' had the working title ''Vasco de Gama'' while Scribe was working on it.<ref>Huebner, Steven. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000900281"Africaine, L'"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 25 June 2021 {{subscription required}}</ref>|group=n}} when he died suddenly of a stroke on 20 February 1861, in his carriage on the way home from a meeting of the Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques.<ref>Koon and Switzer, p. 33</ref>{{refn|Meyerbeer continued to work on the piece until shortly before his own death in May 1864 and it was given at the Opéra in April 1865.<ref>Huebner, Steven. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000900281 "Africaine, L'"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 1992. Retrieved 7 June 2021 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607184712/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000900281 |date=7 June 2021 }}</ref>|group=n}} He was buried in the [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]].<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20210610200830/https://paristoric.com/index.php/musees-et-religions/pere-lachaise/109-transports-et-voirie/passages/3594-paris-3eme-le-quartier-arts-et-metiers "Aide à la recherche: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise"]}}, Paristoric. Retrieved 10 June 2021</ref>

==Works==
{{main|List of stage works by Eugène Scribe}}
:''See also [[Well-made play]], [[:Category: Libretti by Eugène Scribe]] and [[:Category: Plays by Eugène Scribe]]''

Estimates differ considerably of the number of stage works Scribe wrote or co-wrote. The published edition of his known works ran to 76 volumes, but it is inevitably incomplete, as he is known to have written pseudonymously and even anonymously. His total output of stage works is variously reckoned as between 300<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199574193.001.0001/acref-9780199574193-e-3569 "Scribe, Augustin-Eugène"], ''The Companion to Theatre and Performance''. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 June 2021 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606075850/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199574193.001.0001/acref-9780199574193-e-3569 |date=6 June 2021 }}</ref> and nearly 500.<ref>Beynon John, S. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198661252.001.0001/acref-9780198661252-e-4272"Scribe, Eugène"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609180454/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198661252.001.0001/acref-9780198661252-e-4272 |date=9 June 2021 }}, ''The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French'', Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 June 2021 {{subscription required}}</ref> The known works include more than 120 librettos for 48 composers, collaborations in musical and non-musical theatre with more than 60 co-authors, and over 130 stage works written solo.<ref name=larousse>Larousse, pp. 424–427</ref>

Among the many later playwrights drawing on Scribe's precepts for the well-made play were [[Alexandre Dumas, fils|Alexandre Dumas ''fils'']], [[Victorien Sardou]] and [[Georges Feydeau]] in France,<ref>Carlson, p. 274; Howarth, W. D. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199574193.001.0001/acref-9780199574193-e-3501 "Sardou, Victorien"], ''The Companion to Theatre and Performance'', Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 June 2021 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606080053/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199574193.001.0001/acref-9780199574193-e-3501 |date=6 June 2021 }}; and Heyraud, Violaine. [http://www.crlc.paris-sorbonne.fr/pdf_revue/revue1/09_Heyraud.pdf "Oser la nouveauté en usant les ficelles"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210605192946/http://www.crlc.paris-sorbonne.fr/pdf_revue/revue1/09_Heyraud.pdf |date=5 June 2021 }}, Université Paris Sorbonne. Retrieved 5 June 2021</ref> [[W. S. Gilbert]], [[Oscar Wilde]], [[Noël Coward]] and [[Alan Ayckbourn]] in Britain,<ref>Taylor, pp. 52, 54, 60 and 89–90; and Saunders, Graham. [http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/31307/2/saunders.pdf "The Persistence of the 'Well-Made Play' in British Theatre of the 1990s"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210605213231/http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/31307/2/saunders.pdf |date=5 June 2021 }}, University of Reading, 2008. Retrieved 5 June 2021</ref> and [[Lillian Hellman]] and [[Arthur Miller]] in the US.<ref name=gilbert/>
===Librettos===
Among the best-known operas for which Scribe contributed to the libretto are:<ref name=grove/>
{{col-begin}}
{{col-2}}
*1825: [[François-Adrien Boieldieu|Boieldieu]]'s ''[[La Dame blanche]]''
*1828: [[Daniel Auber|Auber]]'s ''[[La Muette de Portici]]''
*1828: [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]]'s ''[[Le Comte Ory]]''
*1830: Auber's ''[[Fra Diavolo (opera)|Fra Diavolo]]''
*1831: [[Giacomo Meyerbeer|Meyerbeer]]'s ''[[Robert le diable]]''
*1831: Meyerbeer's ''[[Les Huguenots]]''
*1835: [[Fromental Halévy|Halévy]]'s ''[[La Juive]]''
{{col-break}}
*1843: [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]]'s ''[[Dom Sébastien]]''
*1849: Meyerbeer's ''[[Le prophète (opera)|Le Prophète]]''
*1855: [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi's]] ''[[Les Vêpres siciliennes]]''
*1858: [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]]'s'' [[La chatte métamorphosée en femme]]''
*1860: Offenbach's ''[[Barkouf]]
*1865: Meyerbeer's ''[[L'Africaine]]'' (posthumous)
{{col-end}}
Among the other composers with whom Scribe worked were [[Adolphe Adam]], [[Michael William Balfe|Michael Balfe]], [[Luigi Cherubini]], [[Charles Gounod]], [[Ferdinand Hérold]] and [[Ambroise Thomas]].<ref name=larousse/>

===Film adaptations===
{{Main|List of stage works by Eugène Scribe#Films}}
There have been at least 30 films based on works by Scribe, from the 1916 silent ''[[The Dumb Girl of Portici]]'', directed by [[Phillips Smalley]] and [[Lois Weber]] to ''[[A Glass of Water (1960 film)|A Glass of Water]]'' (1960), based on ''Le Verre d'eau''.

==Notes, references and sources==
===Notes===
{{Reflist|group=n}}
===References===
{{Reflist}}
===Sources===
*{{cite book|last1=Carlson|first1=Marvin|title=Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present|url=https://archive.org/details/theoriesoftheatr00carl|url-access=registration|date=1984|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca and London|isbn=978-0-80-141678-1}}
* {{cite book | last= Conway | first= David|authorlink=David Conway (music historian)| title= Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner | year=2012 | location= Cambridge | publisher= Cambridge University Press | isbn=978-1-10-701538-8 }}
* {{cite book | last= Conway | first= David | chapter=The 'Mandatory' Ballet of the Grand Opéra: Then and Now|editor1= Isolde Schmid-Reiter|editor2=Aviel Cahn| title= Music Theatre in Motion: Reflections on Dance in Opera | year= 2021| location= Regensburg | publisher= ConBrio| isbn= 978-3-940768-96-4}}
*{{cite book | last=Debré | first=Patrice | title=Robert Debré: Une vocation française | year= 2018| location= Paris| publisher=Odile Jacob | isbn= 978-2-7381-4140-8}}
* {{cite book | last =Gidel  | first= Henry | title= Georges Feydeau | year= 1991 | location= Paris | publisher= Flammarion | isbn= 978-2-08-066280-4 |language=fr|url=https://archive.org/details/georgesfeydeau00gide/page/n5/mode/2up| ref=none }}
* {{cite book | last1=Gossett | first1=Philip | author-link=Philip Gossett | first2=Patricia | last2=Brauner | title=The Penguin Opera Guide | chapter=Rossini | year=1997 | editor=[[Amanda Holden (writer)|Holden, Amanda]] | location=London | publisher=Penguin | isbn=978-0-14-051385-1 }}
* {{cite book | last= Koon | first= Helene |author2=Richard Switzer| title= Eugène Scribe  | year= 1980 | location= Boston |url=https://archive.org/details/eugenescribe00hele/page/n5/mode/2up | publisher= Twayne | isbn= 978-0-80-576390-4 }}
* {{cite book | last= Lacombe | first= Hervé | title= The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century| year= 2001| location= Berkeley and London | publisher= University of California Press  | isbn= 978-0-52-021719-5}}
* {{cite book | last= Larousse | first= Pierre|authorlink=Pierre Larousse | title= Grand dictionnaire Universel du XIXe siècle | volume=XIV|year= 1875| location= Paris |url=https://archive.org/details/LarousGrdictionnXIX14bnf/page/n427/mode/2up  | publisher= Grand dictionnaire Universel  | oclc= 1170460660 }} 
* {{cite book | last= Meyer | first =Peter|chapter =Introduction | title=Feydeau | year= 2003| location= London | publisher= Oberon | isbn= 978-1-84943-993-0| ref=none }}
* {{cite book | last=Osborne | first=Richard |editor-last=Senici|editor-first=Emanuele|chapter=Rossini's life| title= The Cambridge Companion to Rossini| year=2004 | location=Cambridge | publisher= Cambridge University Press| isbn=978-0-521-00195-3 }}
* {{cite book | last= Roberts | first= John H. |chapter=Meyerbeer: ''Le Prophéte'' and ''L'Africaine''| title= The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera | date= 4 September 2003 | location= Cambridge | publisher= Cambridge University Press | isbn=978-0-52-164683-3}}
* {{cite book | last = Taylor | first = John Russell | authorlink=John Russell Taylor| title = The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play | year = 1967 | location = Oxford and New York | publisher = Routledge |url=https://archive.org/details/risefallofwellma0000tayl/|url-access=registration| isbn = 978-0-41-572333-6}}
* {{cite book | last = Tolles | first = Winton | title = Tom Taylor and the Victorian Drama | year = 1940 | location = New York | publisher = Columbia University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/tomtaylorvictori0000toll/|url-access=registration| oclc = 504217641 }}

==External links==
{{commons|Eugène Scribe|Eugène Scribe}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=4444| name=Eugène Scribe}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Augustin Eugène Scribe}}
* {{Librivox author |id=16351}}
* [http://www.intratext.com/Catalogo/Autori/Aut713.HTM Scribe's works at www.intratext.com]: text, concordances and frequency list
* [https://www.nytimes.com/1861/03/11/news/death-of-eugene-scribe.html Obituary: ''New York Times'' March 11, 1861]
* [https://archive.org/stream/warnerlibraryedi22warnuoft#page/13082/mode/2up/search/scribe ''The Warner library.'' Editors: John W. Cunliffe, Ashley H. Thorndike. 1917] p.&nbsp;13083ff

{{Académie française Seat 13}}
{{Adrienne Lecouvreur}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scribe, Eugene}}
[[Category:1791 births]]
[[Category:1861 deaths]]
[[Category:Writers from Paris]]
[[Category:19th-century French dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Members of the Académie Française]]
[[Category:French opera librettists]]
[[Category:French ballet librettists]]
[[Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery]]