Eleonora Duse

" The Duse " one next to Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs Patrick Campbell to the great theater actresses of her time. Your game was subtle and slightly theatrical and is considered groundbreaking for the Modern Theater. She played mostly suffering, but strong-willed female characters.

• 2.1 veneration during his lifetime
• 2.2 aftermath

Life and work

Childhood and early years

Eleonora Duse Giulia Amalia was born into a family of actors. The parents Vincenzo ( called Alessandro ) Duse and Angelica Cappelletto had a traveling comedian troupe that moved from place to place. Even her grandfather Luigo Duse was an actor and appeared in Padua in a self-built theater set up; each of his sons in turn founded his own ensemble.

Already at the age of four small Eleonora happen onstage and played children's roles as Cosette in a dramatization of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. At twelve, she jumped for their ill with tuberculosis Mother Angelica a; at fifteen she was already playing the lead role in Romeo and Juliet at the Arena of Verona. 1876 ​​her mother died years of lung disease.

To 1878, Eleonora Duse of the theater company of Enrico Belli Blanes and Francesco Ciotti joined. The following year, she was discovered by Giovanni Emanuel for the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples. Their first major success she had in two Shakespearean tragedies: as Desdemona in Othello and Ophelia in Hamlet. Inspired by the young talent, Emanuel hired her for another guest tours of the theater. Her breakthrough as an actress she was on the side of Giacinta Pezzana Thérèse Raquin as Émile Zola's stage adaptation in ( 1873), his novel of the same name.

Back in Naples she met the journalist and bon vivant Cafiero Martino, with whom she had a brief but intense love relationship. Only a year later the now pregnant 21 -year-old from Cafiero was abandoned; the child died at birth and a short time later Cafiero.

In 1880 she joined the troupe of Cesare Rossi, who happened to be on one of her many concert tours through Italy. On September 7, 1881 married Eleonora Duse their fellow actors Tebaldo Marchetti, called " Checchi ". Exactly four months later, on January 7, 1882, the daughter Enrichetta was born.

Soon after the actress suffered a hemorrhage, the seriously impaired her health and she tied temporarily to the bed; her little daughter had to be placed with a foster family, meanwhile. Still, it managed to Eleonora Duse to witness a performance of the already world famous actress Sarah Bernhardt in Turin. Bernhardt impressed by her exalted temperament on stage and polarized the public through their amoral private life. Despite a certain admiration saw the ambitious Duse in the fourteen years her senior Frenchwoman a rival and sought further ado then to transfer the roles of Bernhardt into Italian:

"I'm going to study Adrienne. I was wrong when I did not want to agree to perform them. But if we are to succeed, I need the French original, as I have in, frou frou, 'and' Baghdad 'and the' Lady of the Camellias made ​​it '... "

The development of her own style

As Eleonora Duse finally insisted to take over the starring role of Bernhardt as Camille in the eponymous drama by Alexandre Dumas the Younger, Acting Head of Cesare Rossi refused at first, because he feared the possibilities of comparison with the great French tragedian. Nevertheless, Eleonora deliberately set across all reservations and managed to give their interpretation of the Lady of the Camellias a remarkably modern figure, by avoiding the figure reduced docked as her rival and the coated frivolous acting gestures of Bernhardt. So they celebrated on January 10, 1883 in Turin with her ​​first appearance in the controversial role of a moderate success.

In the conviction that acting was not learned, but innate, developed " the Duse ", as it was now called by critics to increasingly operate their very own methodology. The rather petite dark-haired woman left solely to her expressive face, her descriptive power and gesture and did not expand on artificial intonation, masks, props and makeup. The then common " manual stage poses " a stereotypical guide on how each emotion was theatrically implement, however, completely ignored. The Duse met so initially baffling for the spectators. This new "modern" type of display irritated their critics and so they justify their way of playing in numerous letters. In a letter to the theater critic Icilio Polese Santarnecchi she complained:

" Is it art, about which I shall speak to you? I think so ... if I have clouded the mind not the success in Rome. - I think so ... but you think that you can talk about art? It would be the same as if you wanted to explain love. [ ... ] There are so many ways to love and there are as many manifestations of art. There is the love that rises and leads to good: and there is the love that paralyzes every desire, every power, every movement of the mind. It seems to me this is the truest, but certainly the most disastrous [ ... ] Those who claim to teach art, understands nothing of her [ ... ] Tear that silly letter; but do not think I'm stupid. "

The first international successes

Towards the end of 1883, the Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga Cesare Rossi offered to the staging of the popular play Cavalleria rusticana; Vergas amendment later served as a template for Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana opera of the same name ( 1890). In contrast to the conservative Rossi, the progressive Eleonora Duse was excited by this and took over the role of spontaneous peasant girl Santuzza. The premiere on January 14, 1884 in Turin was a great success for the theater company and the nozzle. On 11 May 1884, the group has performed in Milan.

At a dinner with the mayor of the city of Eleonora Duse first met the famous playwright, composer and theater critic Arrigo Boito. 1885 joined the actress her first foreign tour to South America. Although the actress played only in their native language, it was perceived by the public thanks to their expressive game outside of Italy. In Rio de Janeiro, she noted this:

" The newspapers noted only that I a I - don't-know - what would they have impressed, but that they had heard of my voice, only a weak poor half - apart from the difficulty of the language ( my soft Italian and that hard Portuguese with the Brazilian even harder ). "

In South America they fell in love with her ​​stage partner Flavio Andò and parted unceremoniously by her husband Tebaldo Checchi. At the same time she said Cesare Rossi dropped out of the ensemble in 1886 to start with her new life partner own theater group called Compagnia della Città di Roma. In letters to Rossi tried to mitigate their self- doubts about this decision:

"I ask you to forgive me if I send you a piece of paper in the form of a letter; might be quite inappropriate, but her words have done me so much good! They have taken me a great scruples, something that has wracked my brain [ ... ] there is a certain quality that does not save as such weaklings me! I like you like to Rossi, I like you much. "

A few years later she would ask Rossi in another letter to be playing under his ensemble again: "Please, Rossi, you misunderstand me, that it is not presumptuous of me to offer me so; might not be interested in the thing the audience, but I would love to put me back in the ranks under the old flag. "

The liaison with Andò did not last long: on February 11, 1887 joined the nozzle with her new ensemble in a comedy by Carlo Goldoni Theater Manzoni in Milan on. In the audience sat Giuseppe Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito. Boito, the Duse " the saints" called later translated for them, among other things, the works of Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth into Italian. The 28 -year-old and sixteen years older poet soon fell in love. This should be a long and complicated affair begin, because both the Duse as Boito were married and a divorce was in the devout Italy disregarded: The Duse had custody of her daughter to her estranged husband Tebaldo Checchi, who refused to divorce lost, and the reputation of the honorable writer Boito would have been ruined. So the meeting of the two has hosted secret. For Eleonora, this former artist child who had grown up without regular education, presented the erudite and eloquent Arrigo Boito is a fatherly lover who mediated their literary knowledge. Artistically it was for the Duse Up: In the following years further guest appearances it to Egypt, Spain, the USA, England, Austria and Germany; they were the start of their international career.

On February 9, 1891, the Duse resulted in the title role of Nora for the first time a play by Henrik Ibsen in Italy and thus reaped great success. It was followed by the role of Mirandolina in Goldoni's La Locandiera.

International breakthrough

A few weeks later Eleonora Duse has performed in St. Petersburg, more gigs followed from November 1891 to 1892 Anton Chekhov's The playwright was reflected in letters to his sister enthusiastic about the diva and wrote. " What a wonderful actress! I have never seen something similar. "

Also, the Viennese writer Hermann Bahr saw together with the two actors Friedrich Mitterwurzer and Josef Kainz in St. Petersburg a performance of the play La femme de Claude. He was so impressed that he counted the experience " one of the strongest impressions " of his life for years to come. Bahr sent as review a hymn of praise to the Frankfurter Zeitung and made Duse so only really known in Central Europe. Even before she had appeared in the German language, he already wrote a guide by the guest appearance of Eleanor Duse, to allow the German public " the full understanding and the full benefit " of the Italian performed pieces.

Then hired a Viennese theater agent Duse to Vienna. Kainz also gave her an engagement at the Lessing- Theater in Berlin. Shortly after the Russia - tour, she received an invitation to Vienna and was there on 20 February 1892, at Carl theater with Dumas ' La Dame aux Camelias their first gig in Austria: " ... on the first night they played to an empty house, the next day was it world famous. " in 1893 followed by performances in London and Berlin.

In 1894, she met five years younger poet and writer Gabriele d'Annunzio in Venice know and love. From this point on Duse turned on their strength and their capital for d' Annunzio, trying to make his works known in which she spent a fortune on the productions. You now played almost exclusively his pieces, though you do not lay the roles and these were also poorly received by the audience.

1896 undertook Eleonora Duse their second trip to the U.S.; in Philadelphia, she began a formal first, later rain friendly correspondence with the poet and translator Adolfo de Bosis, a fraternal friend of d' Annunzio. Adolfo de Bosis and his wife Liliana should remain the nozzle close friendship verbungen until the day she died. In the same year Arrigo Boito died wife and the relationship between Boito and Duse kindled anew on.

The narcissistic d' Annunzio was soon unfaithful and cheated on the actress; he chatted from private details and compromised later mercilessly in his work Il Fuoco (Eng. The Fire, 1900), which is about an aging diva who adorns himself with younger lover. Moreover, he transferred his tragedy La città morta their longtime rival Sarah Bernhardt. Nevertheless, she followed in 1897 an invitation Bernhardt to debut at the Paris " Renaissance Theatre " with d' Annunzio piece Il sogno d'un Mattino di primavera. In the same year her daughter Enrichetta contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a sanatorium.

Around the turn of the century devoted Gabriele d'Annunzio Duse additional pieces, including the tragedies La Gioconda (1898 ) and Francesca da Rimini ( 1901) about the unhappy love of Francesca da Rimini, with a clear allusion to their own failed love. Eleonora Duse slumped over the hopeless conjunction with d' Annunzio increasingly severe depression:

"You have those days, the spirit so heavy forgotten. I regret it so! So much. Been I 'm so happy [ ... ] and the person who receives my soul was so generous and good, that really is my grief is just to forgive for -. The too great bliss that seems lost to me today "

Gabriele d'Annunzio played in later years as a political activist for Benito Mussolini an important role in Italian fascism.

Later years and death

After her separation from Gabriele d'Annunzio, the Duse concentrated increasingly on the stage plays of Henrik Ibsen, whom she greatly admired. During a Scandinavian tour in spring 1906, she intended to take the seriously ill Norwegian writer, but it never came. Ibsen died on May 23

1907 made ​​the American dancer Isadora Duncan, the Eleonora Duse was a friend, the theater star with the English stage designer and theater theorist Edward Gordon Craig known. The market characterized by Symbolist concept of style stage designer was known for his modern architectural stage decors and paid some of Ibsen productions from the nozzle. The collaboration was short lived: it came to artistic differences and immediately fracture between the two eccentric artists, because the Duse Craig's stage images without consultation constantly changed.

In the years 1908/ 09, the Duse embarked on a world tour and guested once more at the stations of her long career. At the age of fifty years, the prima donna had arrived at the summit of her success. Even more surprising was the news of her departure from the theater stage, she announced after a performance of Ibsen's Rosmersholm in Berlin on 25 January 1909. You made ​​this decision both for health reasons as well as out of a desire to renew itself internally.

In the following years, he has attracted the once restless diva. She retired to her estate to Asolo. Your plan to make in the newly emerging silent film career, she did not succeed; the verismo film Cenere (English ash, 1916) based on a novel by Grazia Deledda ( 1871-1936 ), with whom she had co-written the screenplay and played the lead role of Rosalia Derios, despite its reputation, success was no audience. Because Cenere is the only film with Eleonora Duse, he is considered among cinephiles as a rare piece of cinema history.

In a letter to the director of the film, Febo Mari, who also played the son's role in the movie, she wrote whether their doubts about the success of the work:

" Ask not succeed me in the shadow [ ... ] a movie in full sun, even if only to the sample, as yesterday, can contact me; I 'm sure of it. Yes the, au premier plan ' scares me. I would like to prefer to withdraw into solitude. - I have seen some movies from Griffith - I saw some partial shade, some preliminary sketches that would be my case. "

After the First World War Eleonora Duse visited in May 1919 their daughter Enrichetta in England. Enrichetta, who had grown up throughout the years with foster parents or in English, French and German boarding schools, had married in 1908 a professor of mathematics at Cambridge and was now the mother of two children. The Duse intended to stay several months in England, the residence but broke because of health problems after a few weeks and returned to Italy.

Due to financial difficulties, the Duse returned on 5 May 1921 on surprising back with the Ibsen play The Lady from the Sea to the stage of the Teatro Balbo in Turin. The crowd celebrated with flowers and gave her a standing ovation accompanied by applause. After brief guest performances in Vienna and London she appeared on 29 October 1923 in New York again a scheduled five-week tour of the USA, with stops in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit. On April 1, 1924, the severe health ailing actress met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she was diagnosed with severe pneumonia. After an appearance on April 5, she finally collapsed.

Eleonora Duse died at the age of 65 in her hotel room in Pittsburgh. Your coffin was transferred by ship to their home country of Italy. Accompanied by thousands of their compatriots, she was in the cemetery of Asolo, where she had her property, buried.

Reception

Worship during his lifetime

Because of their great skill Eleonora Duse was as named after her as the Garbo, in his own lifetime exuberant " the Divine ". Once George Bernard Shaw, himself a theater critic, had seen her interpretation of the Lady of the Camellias, he put it even more than her rival Sarah Bernhardt.

It was developed by many painters, including Franz Spranger and John Singer Sargent, and immortalized by writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke, whom she met in 1912 in Venice, and revered his friend Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

For advance notice of their American tour dedicated to her Time magazine on July 30, 1923 cover story. This made her the first woman on the cover of Time after since the first edition (March 3, 1923) 21 men had appeared on the cover of the magazine ( for example, the then U.S. President Warren G. Harding and Treasury Andrew W. Mellon or international greats such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Winston Churchill).

The then director of the Union Square Theatre in New York, Albert M. Palmer, said during the tour:

" Madame Duse is the greatest actress I've ever seen, and I do not serve to exclude the Bernhardt. [ ... ] I did not think that one could go on stage to such a naturalness. The Duse gives the perfect illusion, and it embodies the figures in stunning realism. "

Aftermath

In addition to their contemporaries Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky (1863-1938) Eleonora Duse is often referred to as the predecessor of the modern method acting. Above all, American stage actors, acting schools and theater workshops, such as the by Lee Strasberg became known Actors Studio in New York, often invoke the Duse as an early protagonist of the purist style means to express themselves only with physical exertion and waiving unnecessary props. The Duse thus sat increasingly over then- acting conventions of time and developed their own methodology of the play.

The life and work of Duse and primarily their love relationships provided, along with numerous biographies and documentaries, even material for theater productions. The Canadian actor Nick Mancuso staged the play Duse, which was performed in June 2004 in Toronto, Canada.

In various Italian cities, there are theaters that have been named after the actress, so in Bari, Bologna, Genoa and Rome.