Georges de Porto-Riche (20 May 1849,
Bordeaux, Gironde – 5 September 1930, Paris) was a French dramatist and novelist.
Biography
Georges was born into a Jewish-Italian assimilated family.[1]
At the age of twenty, his pieces in verse began to be produced at the Parisian theatres; he also wrote some books of verse which met with a favorable reception, but these early works were not reprinted. In Germaine, the passionate and exacting heroine of Amoureuse,
Mme Réjane found one of her best parts.[2]
In 1898 he published Théâtre d'amour, which contained four of his most celebrated pieces: La Chance de Françoise, L'Infidèle, Amoureuse, and Le Passé. The title given to this collection indicates the difference between the plays of Porto-Riche, which focus on human emotion and psychological drama, and the political or sociological pieces of many of his contemporaries. Even in Les Malefilâtres (Odéon, 1904), whose characters are drawn from the working class, love remains the central focus.[2]
He was elected to the 6th seat of the
Académie française in 1923. However, he was never officially received to the Académie, because the reading committee found the eulogy he wrote for his predecessor unsatisfactory, and he refused to rewrite it. Porto-Riche was also named a Grand officier in the
Légion d'honneur.[citation needed]
1911: Le Vieil homme, five-act play, Paris, Renaissance, 12 January
1912: Zubiri, fantasy in 1 act drawn from a story by
Victor Hugo in Choses vues, Paris, Comédie royale, 1 February
1915: Quelques vers d'autrefois
1918: Le Marchand d'estampes, three-act drama
1920: Anatomie sentimentale, pages préférées
1923: Veux-tu que je sois ta femme ?, short story
1927: Sous mes yeux
1929: Les Vrais Dieux, fantaisie antique in 2 parts, Paris,
Théâtre Albert Ier, 22 November
Bibliography
Henry Marx : Georges de Porto-Riche, son œuvre, La Nouvelle Revue Critique, Paris, 1924
Wolfgang Asholt: Gesellschaftskritisches Theater im Frankreich der Belle epoque (1887–1914) (Studia Romanica; 59). Verlag, Winter, Heidelberg 1984.
ISBN3-533-03548-4 (zugl. Habilitationsschrift, Universität Münster 1983).
Hermann Bahr: Glossen zum Wiener Thewater (1903–1906). S. Fischer, Berlin 1907.
Hendrik Brugmans: Georges de Porto-Riche. Sa vie, son oeuvre. Droz, Paris 1934.
Arthur Eloesser: Literarische Portraits aus dem modernen Frankreich. S. Fischer, Berlin 1904.
W. Müller: Georges de Porto-Riche. Vrin Paris 1934.