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Next April 21st will be the hundredth anniversary of the death of Eleonora Duse. Born in Vigevano on 3 October 1858 into a family of actors from Clodino, Duse was the greatest theater actress of the last century. And that this is an important anniversary is demonstrated by the many initiatives created to celebrate his career, starting with the inclusion of this anniversary by UNESCO in the list of events with which the organization will be associated in the two-year period 2024-2025.
Eleonora Duse, the myth persists one hundred years after her death
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The Pope
Extraordinary prima donna of Italian theatre, of which she was the undisputed ambassador in the world, Eleonora Duse has inextricably linked her life to that of the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio with whom she lived a tormented love that fascinated Italians at the beginning of the twentieth century. A story lived between Rome – where they met for the first time in 1882 – and Settignano, near Florence, where the two artists built their love nest. And while the actress triumphed in the theaters of Italy and Europe, the future poet – then a young nineteen year old – was all the rage in the capital’s living rooms. It was only thirteen years after their first meeting that their troubled love story began, which ended in 1904. Eleonora Duse, already famous and acclaimed in Europe and around the world, brought D’Annunzio’s dramas to the stage (The Dream of a Spring Morning, La Gioconda, Francesca da Rimini, The Dead City, Iorio’s Daughter) making them known around the world, financing their production as well as impersonating the female protagonist. But the actress was also immortalized by the poet with her work who, among others, was inspired by her to compose “Alcyone”, her most famous collection of poems.
The divine due
At least as famous as the love one is the chapter of the bitter rivalry that Duse experienced with the other great actress of the time, the French Sara Bernarht who D’Annunzio preferred over her as the leading actress to stage the premiere of “The Dead City” in Paris ”.A competition made up of subtle blows, with words sometimes used with irony and very often with sarcasm, which D’Annunzio fuels, increasing the conflict between these two divines who have made the theater their very existence. Both will revolutionize the theatricality of the subject-character by always telling themselves. The great George Bernard Show will resolve the dispute, somehow decreeing the greater greatness of the Italian actress. And not only. One of Duse’s great merits was that of modernizing the theater also from a “managerial” point of view, developing innovative artistic strategies and directing her own theater company with a managerial attitude, also assuming the role of director and artistic director. So much so that she became a point of reference for the most eminent personalities of the time in the theatre, from Stanislavskij to Meyerhold, from Gordon Craig to Isadora Duncan.