Victor Koning (4 April 1842 – 1 October 1894) was a French playwright and librettist.[1][2]

Victor Koning
Victor Koning
Born4 April 1842
Belleville, France
Died1 October 1894(1894-10-01) (aged 52)
Suresnes, France
Occupation(s)Playwright, librettist
Spouses
(m. 1884; div. 1888)
  • Raphaële Sisos
Victor Koning by Georges Camus.

Biography edit

He authored theatre plays, mostly comedies and comédie en vaudeville and successful operettas libretti including La Fille de madame Angot (1872) by Charles Lecocq which he wrote in collaboration with Clairville and Paul Siraudin.

Victor Koning was also managing director of the Théâtre de la Gaîté from 1 April 1868 to 13 March 1869 and of the Théâtre de la Renaissance from 1875 to 1882.

On 19 June 1884 in Marylebone (England), he married [3] the actress Jane Hading, who he helped make her debut at the Théâtre du Gymnase the previous year in Le Maître de forges, a huge theatrical and literary success. They divorced in 1888.[4] On 27 May 1893, he married a second time with the actress Raphaële Sisos [5] The writers Jules Clarétie and Auguste Vacquerie, Eugène Bertrand, director of the Opéra de Paris, and Arthur Meyer, director of Le Gaulois, were witnesses at the act.

In July 1894, he suffered a stroke. Some days later, the Gil Blas informed its readers that

Mr. Victor Koning, former director of the Gymnase and the Comédie-Parisienne, who had been seriously ill, is recovering and it is hoped that soon he will not feel almost more suites of the violent dizziness that had recently hit him

[6] But his health was getting worse. In Le Temps dated 8 September,[7] it read that

Mlle Raphaële Sisos left Paris yesterday to go to Marseille where she has to give a series of performances. As for Mr. Koning, whose state is less satisfactory, he is for a few days in treatment in Suresnes in doctor Meyan's health home.

It is in this facility that he died three weeks later. He was buried on 4 October in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

Works edit

Theatre edit

Texts edit

References edit

  1. ^ Acte n° 148, registre des décès de l'année 1894 pour Suresnes sur le site des Archives départementales des Hauts-de-Seine.
  2. ^ Transcrit le 29 décembre suivant dans le registre des décès de l'année 1894 pour le 9e arrondissement, acte n° 1412, sur le site des Archives numérisées de la Ville de Paris.
  3. ^ Transcrit le 31 décembre suivant dans le registre des mariages de l'année 1884 pour le 1er arrondissement, actes n° 726-727, sur le site des Archives numérisées de la Ville de Paris.
  4. ^ Jugement rendu par le tribunal civil de la Seine le 2 mai 1888 et transcrit le 11 août suivant dans le registre des mariages de l'année 1888 pour le 1er arrondissement, acte n°421, sur le site des Archives numérisées de la Ville de Paris.
  5. ^ Acte n° 538, registre des mariages de l'année 1893 pour le 9e arrondissement sur le site des Archives numérisées de la Ville de Paris. Raphaële Sisos, born 15 April 1860 in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, was the natural daughter of a painter.
  6. ^ « Propos de coulisses », Gil Blas, 29 July 1894, p. 4, at Gallica.
  7. ^ « Théâtres », Le Temps, p. 4, at Gallica.