Theatre
The Great Galeoto
El gran Galeoto
José de Echegaray · 1881
Opening lines
Teodora
¡Hermosa puesta de sol!
¡Qué nubes, qué luz, qué cielo!
Beautiful sunset!
What clouds, what light, what sky!
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from textos.info
Synopsis
In Madrid, Ernesto, a young author whose father, a friend of don Julián, has died, lives with him and his young wife Teodora, who took him in like a son. He struggles to write the play he has in mind. Don Severo and his wife Mercedes report what is whispered in town: Ernesto and Teodora are said to be having an affair that does not exist. Hurt by the rumour and weary of living on his protector's kindness, Ernesto decides to leave the house, while the talk keeps spreading.
Context
First staged in 1881, the play consists of a prose dialogue, which serves as a prologue, and three acts in verse. Its title refers to Dante: in the episode of Paolo and Francesca, Galeotto, the Galehaut of the Arthurian romances, is the go-between in the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and the book that tells of it is the one the two lovers were reading. In France, it was staged at the Théâtre des poètes de Paris in April 1896, with Lugné-Poe in the role of Ernesto.
Who it is for
A drama in three acts and in verse, opened by a scene in prose, in the manner of nineteenth-century melodrama.
Prizes and reception
Its author's most famous play; adapted in New York in 1908 under the title The World and His Wife, then several times for the cinema.