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Death of Gormas, Le Cid
Credit: Auguste Tilly for L'Illustration, 5 December 1885The climactic event in the first half of Jules Massenet's Le Cid: Rodrigue's father has obliged his son to defend his honour, but Rodrigue only afterwards learns that the person he has to duel is his beloved Chimène's father, the Comte de Gormas. He is honour-bound to go through with it, and wins the duel, but Chimène now both loves and hates him, and this internal conflict powers the drama of the rest of the opera. From L'Illustration's coverage of the opera's première.