WTI Magazine #68    2015 September, 18
Author : Giovanni Verde      Translation by:

Eleonora Duse has been one of the most important actresses of the Italian theater scene of the nineteenth century. Her style marked the era of modern theater and her love affairs linked her forever to one of the greatest contemporary poets: Gabriele D'Annunzio. Eleonora Duse was born in Vigevano, in Lombardy, on October 3, 1858.

She spends her childhood with her parents, Vincenzo and Angelica, and at age 4 she plays the part of Cosette in a stage version of Les Miserables. In 1879 she becomes part of Cesare Rossi's Compagnia Semistabile di Torino, where she grows her poetic made of gathering the legacy of the past while breaking with the tradition of the first mid-nineteenth century.

In the 80s of the nineteenth century Eleonora Duse makes choices that will be decisive for her career. Given the absence of a defined dramaturgy in Italy, Eleonora Duse almost always chooses plays that come from the so called French pièce bien faite: modern, worldly, with a strong appeal for the changed tastes of the renewed public in the second part of the XIX century.

Duse would undermine bourgeois values, representing them as they truely are. In Duse's hands, the drama of Sardou and Dumas become plays ready to be dismantled and rebuilt, following her idea of the world. These are the most difficult issues, the ones that the great actress loves to face, complex issues that characterize and put in crisis the Western society the late XIX century: money, sex, family, the role of women. From Eleonora Duse's re-readings comes out the portrait of a society which is respectable but actually hypocritical, gleaming in the window but rotten in substance, hegemony by money, god controller of each human relationship; a world where it is impossible to prove sincere emotions.

Besides, the inner female spirit emerges as Duse lives hers: alienated and neurotic. Her repertoire is modern and highly attractive: from the verismo of Giovanni Verga's Cavalleria rusticana, where she plays the role of Santuzza, to the dramas that were part of the French repertoire of the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt. Between her and Duse a great rivalry starts soon.

In 1881 Eleonora Duse marries Tebaldo Checchi, an actor of her company; the union, that gives life to a daughter, Henrietta, soon proves to be unhappy, and ends with a final separation. In 1884 Duse binds with Arrigo Boito, who adapt for her Antony and Cleopatra. The relationship with always remains secret and lasts, between ups and downs, for several years.

The key moment in the life and the career of Eleonora Duse is the final meeting in Venice, in 1894, with Gabriele D'Annunzio, then in his early thirties. The stormy artistic and sentimental bond that is established between the actress and the young poet lasts ten years, and significantly contributes to D'Annunzio's reputationf. Eleonora Duse, already famous and acclaimed in Europe and overseas, brings on the scene his dramas, including "The Dream of a spring morning", "La Gioconda", "Francesca da Rimini", "The Dead City", "The daughter of Iorio". In 1919 Eleonora Duse acts in her one and only movie: "Ash", based on Grazia Deledda's novel.

Eleonora Duse dies during her last American tour, in Pittsburgh, on April 21 1924. After the separation with Eleonora, Gabriele D'Annunzio will live the rest of his life in the poignant memory of his great love for her. When she dies, his comment will be: "The one I didn't deserve has died".