Modern Versions
The legend of Blondel did not achieve great popularity in the Middle Ages, but was taken up in the late eighteenth century. It was the basis of André Ernest Modeste Grétry's opera Richard Coeur-de-lion (1784). In 1822, Eleanor Anne Porden used the legend in her epic poem Cœur De Lion: in her version, Blondel is really Richard's wife, Berengaria of Navarre, in disguise.
A poem by Johann Gabriel Seidl titled Blondel's Lied was set to music by Robert Schumann.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the legend became a key component in the mythology surrounding Richard. Some later twentieth century novelists, such as Norah Lofts in The Lute Player (1951), placed a homosexual interpretation on his supposed relationship with the king.
In the 1962-63 ITV serial Richard the Lionheart, Blondel was a semi-regular character, played by Iain Gregory.
The English acoustic band of the early 1970s, Amazing Blondel, was named after Blondel.
The legend inspired Blondel, a 1983 musical by Stephen Oliver and Tim Rice. The play, a comedic rock opera, is set during the period of the Third Crusade. Blondel is portrayed as a frustrated artist, seeking fame as a composer and performer, even as he searches for his imprisoned monarch. Rice collaborated with director Patrick Wilde to revive the show at the Pleasance Theatre in London in 2006.
Read more about this topic: Blondel De Nesle
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or versions:
“It is obvious that rationality has been utterly lost in modern marriage: which is no objection to marriage, however, but rather to modernity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)