Monday, September 30, 2024

A01776 - Eleonora Duse, Italian Actress Who Was the Greatest Actress of Her Time

  Duse, Eleonora

"If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive."

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Eleonora Duse.
Eleonora Duse.

Eleonora Duse







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Eleonora Duse (born Oct. 3, 1858, near or in Vigevano, Lombardy, Austrian Empire [now in Italy]—died April 21, 1924, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.) was an Italian actress who found her great interpretive roles in the heroines of the Italian playwright Gabriele D’Annunzio and of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.

Most of Duse’s family were actors who played in the same touring troupe, and she made her first stage appearance at the age of four in a dramatization of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. By the age of 14, when she played Juliet at Verona, her talents were already being recognized by critics; but after her family died she moved from one company to another, without a great deal of success, until her appearance at Naples in 1878. This marked the turning point of her career. Her performance there of the title role in Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin won great acclaim, with audiences and critics united in the opinion that a woman’s anguish had never before been played with such truth.


In 1882 Duse took an opportunity to watch Sarah Bernhardt perform. The French actress’s success in modern roles gave Duse the idea also of appearing in plays by contemporary French dramatists (for she had discovered that Italian audiences were bored by the stale pieces that formed the traditional repertory), and so for three years she acted in a number of plays by the younger Alexandre Dumas. The first of these was Lionette in La Princesse de Bagdad, in which she scored a triumph. She followed it up with Cesarine in La Femme de Claude. In 1884 she created the title role of Dumas’s latest play, Denise, and also the part of Santuzza in Giovanni Verga’s Cavalleria rusticana. With Cesare Rossi, a prominent actor-manager, she toured South America in 1885, but after her return to Italy she formed her own company, the Drama Company of the City of Rome, and with it toured throughout Europe as well as the United States.


In 1894 she met and fell in love with a rising young poet, Gabriele D’Annunzio; she financed his career, and he wrote for her a number of plays. D’Annunzio told the story of their love in his novel Il fuoco (1900; The Flame of Life). Aside from D’Annunzio’s plays, Duse found an inexhaustible source of self-expression in the dramas of Ibsen. She never tired of playing Nora in A Doll’s House, Rebecca West in Rosmersholm, Ella Rentheim in John Gabriel Borkman, and, above all, Ellida in The Lady from the Sea. To the title role in Hedda Gabler she brought a demonic quality, a touch of the fantastic—deeply troubling to Ibsen when he saw her perform it—as though she had gone beyond the frontiers of realism.

The British playwright George Bernard Shaw was one of the many critics fascinated by Duse’s ability to produce an illusion “of being infinite in variety of beautiful pose and motion.” He confessed that “in an apparent million of changes and inflexions” he had never seen her at an “awkward angle” (Dramatic Opinions and Essays, 1907). She had a thousand faces; her physical command, range, and choice of gesture were superb; and she had a different way of walking for each part. Yet the total effect was of more than “naturalistic” acting: Duse acted not only the reality, she also commented on the characters she played—she “knew” far more about Nora, for instance, than Ibsen’s heroine could possibly have known about herself. One of her critics wrote that Duse played what was between the lines; she played the transitions. A tremor of her lips could reveal exactly what went on in her mind; and, where the character’s inner life was lacking, because the dramatist had failed his task, she supplied motivation herself. To watch her was to read a psychological novel.


In 1909 Duse quit the stage, mainly for reasons of health. Financial losses incurred during World War I, however, obliged her to emerge from retirement in 1921. Her acting powers were undiminished, but her health was still not good and interfered with her late career. In 1923 she appeared in London and Vienna before she embarked upon her last tour of the United States. The tour ended in Pittsburgh, where she collapsed. Her body was taken back to Italy, and, in compliance with her request, she was buried there in the small cemetery of Asolo.


The most fluent and expressive actress of her day, Eleonora Duse created afresh every role she played and was different in each of them. Her gift was in marked contrast to the talented contemporary star of the French theatre, Sarah Bernhardt, a great technician who always strove to project her own personality from the stage, whatever character she might be playing.

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Eleonora Giulia Amalia Duse (/ˈdjuːzeɪ/ DEW-zay, Italian: [eleoˈnɔːra ˈduːze]; 3 October 1858 – 21 April 1924), often known simply as Duse, was an Italian actress, rated by many as the greatest of her time. She performed in many countries, notably in the plays of Gabriele D'Annunzio and Henrik Ibsen. Duse achieved a unique power of conviction and verity on the stage through intense absorption in the character, "eliminating the self" as she put it, and letting the qualities emerge from within, not imposed through artifice.

Life and career

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Early life

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Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, Austrian Empire, in 1858 to Alessandro Vincenzo Duse (1820–1892) and Angelica Cappelletto (1833–1906).[1] Lombardy would be taken from Austrian control the year after her birth by forces under the Kingdom of Sardinia, and would form part of the new Kingdom of Italy when she was about 3. Venice and some surrounding areas would remain part of the Austrian Empire until she was about 8.

Both her father and her grandfather, Luigi, were actors from Chioggia, near Venice, and she joined the troupe at age four.[2] Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently engaged. She came to fame in Italian versions of roles made famous by Sarah Bernhardt, such as La Dame aux camélias.[2][3]

Career

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She gained her first major success in Europe, then toured South America, Russia and the United States in 1893; beginning the tours as a virtual unknown but leaving in her wake a general recognition of her genius. While she made her career and fame performing in the theatrical "warhorses" of her day, she is remembered for her association with the plays of Gabriele D'Annunzio[4] and Henrik Ibsen.

In 1879, while in Naples, she met journalist Martino Cafiero, and became involved in a love affair with him. However, less than a year later, while she was in mid-pregnancy, he left her. The baby did not survive birth, and shortly thereafter Cafiero died as well. Duse then joined Cesare Rossi's theater company, and met actor Tebaldo Checchi (pseudonym of Tebaldo Marchetti). The two married in 1881. By 1882, the couple had one daughter, Enrichetta Angelica, but separated after Duse became involved with another actor, Flavio Andò.

Eleonora Duse portrayed by Franz von Lenbach

By this time, her career was in full swing and her popularity was high in 1885.[4] She travelled on tour to South America, and upon her return a year later she formed her own company, meaning that she would assume the additional responsibilities of both manager and director.

Between 1887 and 1894, she had an affair with the Italian poet Arrigo Boito, perhaps best remembered as Verdi's librettist. Their relationship was carried out in a highly clandestine manner, presumably because of Boito's many aristocratic friends and acquaintances. (Despite this, their voluminous correspondence over the years survives.) In later years the two remained on good terms until his death in 1918.

In 1895 she met Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938), who was five years her junior, and the two became involved romantically as well as collaborating professionally. Gabriele d'Annunzio wrote four plays for her. In contrast to her relations with Boito, her association with d'Annunzio was widely recognized. When d'Annunzio gave the lead for the premiere of the play La città morta  [it] to Sarah Bernhardt instead of Duse, there was a furious fight, and Duse ended her affair with him.

In contrast to Bernhardt's outgoing personality, which thrived on publicity, Duse was introverted and private, rarely giving interviews. She found public appearances to be a distraction, and once remarked to a journalist that away from the stage, "I do not exist". Bernhardt and Duse were unspoken rivals for many years. Comparisons of Duse to Bernhardt with regard to their acting talent were common, with warring factions arguing over their relative merits. Those who thought Duse the greater artist included George Bernard Shaw, who saw both actresses in London within the span of a few days, in the same play. Shaw gave his nod to Duse and defended his choice in an adamant oratory quoted by biographer Frances Winwar. Dame Ellen Terry, who knew them both, observed, "How futile it is to make comparisons! Better far to thank heaven for both these women."

In 1896, Duse completed a triumphant tour of the United States; in Washington President Grover Cleveland and his wife attended every performance. Mrs. Cleveland shocked Washington society by giving, in Duse's honor, the first-ever White House tea held for an actress. In 1909, Duse retired from acting.

Other relationships

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Around the time of Duse's retirement, she met and became involved in an affair with Italian feminist Lina Poletti, a former lover of writer Sibilla Aleramo. The two lived together in Florence, Italy, for two years before ending the relationship. She is reported to have had a relationship with Russian count and painter Alexander Wolkoff and lived in his palace in Venice, now known as Palazzo Barbaro Wolkoff.[5]

Later life

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Time cover, 30 July 1923

Duse suffered from ill health (largely pulmonary) throughout most of her adult life, and the many years of touring had taken their toll. She retired from acting in 1909, but returned to the stage in 1921 in a series of engagements in both Europe and America.[6]

During this interval, in 1916, she made one film, Cenere ("Ashes"), prints of which still survive. She was very disappointed in her work in the film, and later wrote to the French singer Yvette Guilbert with the request not to see "that stupid thing, because you'll find nothing, or almost nothing, of me in that film". There was also a certain amount of professional correspondence between Duse and D. W. Griffith, though ultimately nothing came of this.

On 30 July 1923, Duse became the first woman (and Italian) to be featured on the cover of the nascent magazine Time.

Death

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Duse died of pneumonia at the age of 65 in Pittsburgh in Suite 524 of the Hotel Schenley while on the eastward return leg of a tour of the United States (the Hotel Schenley is now the William Pitt Union at the University of Pittsburgh). A bronze plaque in the lobby commemorates her death. After being moved to New York City, where she lay in state for four days before her funeral service, her body was returned to Italy (where another service was performed).

She is buried in Asolo – where she had made her home for the last four years of her life – at the cemetery of Sant' Anna.[7] Her daughter Enrichetta donated some of her mother's items to the state in 1933. These items are preserved in Asolo in the Museo Civico. In 1968 her granddaughter Eleonora Ilaria Bullough (aka Mary of St Mark as a Dominican nun) donated the last items to the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice.

Acting philosophy

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Eleonora Duse, early in her acting career

Duse was cryptic regarding her acting style. She claimed not to have a technique of any sort, and scorned at efforts to put her art into a science. What is known is that she had a highly heterodox, almost religious philosophy of acting, seeking to "eliminate the self" and become the characters she portrayed. It is a common misconception that her acting was purely intuitive and spontaneous, in reality she labored over her craft.

Duse wore little makeup[4] but "made herself up morally. In other words, she allowed the inner compulsions, grief and joys of her characters to use her body as their medium for expression, often to the detriment of her health."

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "her art depended on intense naturalness rather than stage effect, sympathetic force and poignant intellectuality rather than the theatrical emotionalism of the French tradition."[4]

Over the course of her career, Duse became well-known and respected for her assistance to young actors and actresses during the early stages of their careers. Among diverse artistic geniuses who acknowledged being inspired by Duse are modern dance pioneer Martha Graham and Imagist poetry pioneer Amy Lowell. She was great friends with actress Eva Le Gallienne, who wrote her biography.

Recognition

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Duse was the subject of the 1947 biographical film Eleonora Duse. The Teatro Duse in Bologna is named for her. On the occasion of the celebrations in Asolo for the 100th anniversary of Duse's death, an entire theatrical season was dedicated.[8]

The upcoming film Duse, directed by Pietro Marcello, stars Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as Duse and Noémie Merlant as Enrichetta Checchi.[9]

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References

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Notes

  1. ^ Woodhouse, John Robert (2001). Gabriele D'Annunzio: Defiant Archangel. Oxford University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-19-818763-9. Eleonora had been born into poverty on 3 October 1858 in Vigevano, a small town in Lombardy , the daughter of strolling players , Vincenzo Duse and Angelica Cappelletto .
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b Chisholm 1911.
  3. ^ "Signora Duse at the Lyric Theatre", The West Australian, 14 August 1893, pg. 6
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b c d  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Duse, Eleanora". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 712.
  5. ^ Sheehy, Helen (2009). Eleonora Duse: A Biography. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-48422-2. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  6. ^ Spitsberg, Tija (3 June 2008) [2002]. "Duse, Eleonora (1859–1924)". In Summers, Claude J. (ed.). glbtq: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture. Chicago: glbtq, Inc. Archived from the original on 5 December 2014.
  7. ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 13458). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
  8. ^ RAI News (ed.). "Il 21 aprile di 100 anni fa moriva Eleonora Duse" (in Italian). Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  9. ^ Vivarelli, Nick; Keslassy, Elsa. "Pietro Marcello Shooting 'Duse' With Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Noémie Merlant, the Match Factory Handling Sales". Variety. Retrieved 22 July 2024.

Bibliography

Published in America as Weaver, William (1984). Duse: a biography (1st. American ed.). San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 978-0-15-126690-6. OCLC 10558161.
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