Victorien Sardou in the context of "Tosca"

A wide range of movements existed in the theatrical culture of Europe and the United States in the 19th century. In the West, they include Romanticism, melodrama, the well-made plays of Scribe and Sardou, the farces of Feydeau, the problem plays of Naturalism and Realism, Wagner's operatic Gesamtkunstwerk, Gilbert and Sullivan's plays and operas, Wilde's drawing-room comedies, Symbolism, and proto-Expressionism in the late works of August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen.

Cleopatra is a 1912 American silent historical drama film starring Helen Gardner in the title role and directed by Charles L. Gaskill, based on the 1890 play written by Victorien Sardou. It was the first film to be produced by The Helen Gardner Picture Players.

Cleopatra is one of the early six-reel feature films produced in the United States. Promoted as "The most beautiful motion picture ever made", it was the first to offer a feature-length depiction of Cleopatra, although there had been a short film about Antony and Cleopatra two years earlier.

Sarah Bernhardt (French: [saʁa bɛʁnɑʁt]; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, Fédora and La Tosca by Victorien Sardou, and L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand. She played female and male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", and Hugo praised her "golden voice". She made several theatrical tours worldwide and was one of the early prominent actresses to make sound recordings and act in motion pictures.

La Tosca is a five-act drama by the 19th-century French playwright Victorien Sardou. It was first performed on 24 November 1887 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role. Despite negative reviews from the Paris critics at the opening night, it became one of Sardou's most successful plays and was toured by Bernhardt throughout the world in the years following its premiere. The play itself had dropped from the standard theatrical repertoire by the mid-1920s, but its operatic adaptation, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, has achieved enduring popularity. There have been several other adaptations of the play including two for the Japanese theatre and an English burlesque, Tra-La-La Tosca (all of which premiered in the 1890s) as well as several film versions.

La Tosca is set in Rome on 17 June 1800 following the French victory in the Battle of Marengo. The action takes place over an eighteen-hour period, ending at dawn on 18 June 1800. Its melodramatic plot centers on Floria Tosca, a celebrated opera singer; her lover, Mario Cavaradossi, an artist and Napoleon sympathiser; and Baron Scarpia, Rome's ruthless Regent of Police. By the end of the play, all three are dead. Scarpia arrests Cavaradossi and sentences him to death in the Castel Sant'Angelo. He then offers to spare her lover if Tosca will yield to his sexual advances. She appears to acquiesce, but as soon as Scarpia gives the order for the firing squad to use blanks, she stabs him to death. On discovering that Cavaradossi's execution had in fact been a real one, Tosca commits suicide by throwing herself from the castle's parapets.

Fédora is a play by the French author Victorien Sardou. It opened at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris on 11 December 1882, and ran for 135 performances. The first production starred Sarah Bernhardt. She wore a soft felt hat in that role which was soon a popular fashion for women; the hat became known as a fedora.

The premiere was headline news in Paris. Le Figaro devoted its whole front page to it in addition to further coverage inside. The Paris correspondent of The Era called Bernhardt's performance as Princess Fédora Romazoff "magnificent throughout … the most brilliant of her remarkable career". Pierre Berton played Loris Ipanoff, the only other major role, and was highly praised. The Era commented, "The other rôles are less than subsidiary. They are filled faultlessly by MM. Colombey, Tchileff; Vois, the Attaché; Boisselot, Michel; Mdlles. De Cléry and Depoix".

Madame Sans-Gêne is a historical comedy-drama by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau, concerning incidents in the life of Catherine Hübscher, an outspoken 18th-century laundress who became the Duchess of Danzig. The play is described by its authors as "three acts with a prologue" ("Comédie en trois Actes, précédée d'un prologue").

It premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville, Paris, on 27 October 1893, starring Réjane in the title role. The play was revived many times in France and toured in the English provinces in 1897. It was also adapted as an opera, in 1915, and several times for film.

Fedora is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1882 play Fédora by Victorien Sardou. Along with Andrea Chénier and Siberia, it is one of the most notable works of Giordano.

It was first performed at the Teatro Lirico in Milan on 17 November 1898 conducted by the composer; Gemma Bellincioni created the role of Fedora with Enrico Caruso as her lover, Loris Ipanov.

Madame Sans-Gêne is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano. The libretto was taken from Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau's 1893 play, and adapted for the opera by Renato Simoni.