Duse, Eleonora

Duse, Eleonora (d`zə, Ital. ālāōnô`rä d`zā), 1859–1924, Italian actress. From a theatrical family, she made a successful appearance at 14 as Juliet and in 1879 gained recognition in Emilé Zola's Thérèse Raquin. In 1893, in New York and London, her portrayal of Dumas's La Dame aux camélias was extraordinarily sensitive and deep. With her portrayal in 1895, in Paris, of Magda in Hermann Sudermann's Heimat, she became the only rival of Sarah Bernhardt. For some years a romantic attachment existed between Duse and the Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose plays she was often the first to present and champion. She appeared in the film Cenere (1916), which she also directed. A great interpreter of Ibsen, she made her farewell appearance (1923) in his Lady from the Sea in New York. Duse's acting was characterized by simplicity, subtlety, and a lack of theatrical artifice. She excelled in emotional parts, and her dramatic power, however restrained, was tremendous in its effect. A slender woman of melancholy appearance, she was an independent and enigmatic personality who disdained publicity.

Bibliography

See biographies by J. Stubbs (1971), E. Le Gallienne (1966), W. Weaver (1984), and H. Sheehy (2003).

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Duse, Eleonora

Eleonora Duse.

(credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Oct. 3, 1858, near or in Vigevano, Lombardy, Austrian Empire—died April 21, 1924, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.) Italian actress. Born into a family of touring actors, she appeared on stage from age four. She acted in several French plays to great acclaim from 1878 and toured with her own company in Europe and the U.S. after 1885. She fell in love with the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio in the 1890s and acted in several plays he wrote for her. Unlike her contemporary Sarah Bernhardt, she did not try to project her own personality but instead sought to lose herself in her characters. The most fluent and expressive actress of her day, she was especially noted for her roles in Henrik Ibsen's plays. She retired in 1909 but returned to the stage in 1921 and was touring the U.S. when she died.

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Duse, Eleonora 

Born Oct. 3, 1858, in Vigevano; died Apr. 21, 1924, in Pittsburgh, USA. Italian actress.

Duse was born into a family of actors. Beginning at the age of four, she performed with touring companies. She played the parts of Desdemona and Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Othello and Hamlet and Therese Raquin in Zola’s play of the same name, among others. She became Italy’s most popular actress in the late 1880’s, performing also with great success in most West European countries as well as in the USA, Latin America, and Egypt. In 1891-92 and in 1908 she toured Russia. Her creative work drew on contemporary Italian and foreign drama. She was the first in Italy to perform roles in Ibsen’s plays (for example, Nora in A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler in the play of the same name). The roles performed in the plays of G. D’Annunzio (Anna in La città morta, Francesca inFrancesca da Rimini, and others), M. Maeterlinck (the title role in Monna Vanna), A. Dumas fils (Marguerite Gautier in La Dame aux camélias, one of her best roles), and V. Sardou occupied an important place in her work. Duse proved particularly adept at portraying nervous, passionate women, dissatisfied with the present and terrified of the future. A special quality of humaneness and a charming femininity characterized her portrayals. Her art, developed in the mold of psychological realism, was imbued with the desire to express the important thoughts and true feelings of people. Duse left the stage in 1909 but returned to it in 1921.

REFERENCES

Kugel’, A. R. Teatral’nye portrety. Petrograd-Moscow, 1923.
Stanislavskii, K. S. “Moia zhizn’ v iskusstve.” Sobr. soch., vol. 1. Moscow, 1954.
Signorelli, O. Eleonora Duse. Milan, 1959.