Helen Sheehy - Eleonora Duse: A Biography
Here you can read online Helen Sheehy - Eleonora Duse: A Biography full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2009, publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, genre: Non-fiction. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Romance novel
Science fiction
Adventure
Detective
Science
History
Home and family
Prose
Art
Politics
Computer
Non-fiction
Religion
Business
Children
Humor
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
- Book:Eleonora Duse: A Biography
- Author:
- Publisher:Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Genre:
- Year:2009
- Rating:4 / 5
- Favourites:Add to favourites
- Your mark:
Eleonora Duse: A Biography: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Eleonora Duse: A Biography" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
Writers loved her and wrote plays for her. She be-friended Rainer Maria Rilke and inspired the young James Joyce, who kept a portrait of her on his desk. Her greatest love, the poet dAnnunzio, made her the heroine of his novel Il fuoco (The Flame). She radically changed the art of acting: in a duel between the past and the future, she vanquished her rival, Sarah Bernhardt. Chekhov said of her, Ive never seen anything like it. Looking at Duse, I realized why the Russian theatre is such a bore. Charlie Chaplin called her the finest thing I have seen on the stage. Gloria Swanson and Lillian Gish watched her perform with adoring attention, John Barrymore with awe. Shaw said she touches you straight on the very heart.
When asked about her acting, Duse responded that, quite simply, it came from life. Except for one short film, Duses art has been lost. Despite dozens of books about her, her story is muffled by legend and myth. The sentimental image that prevails is of a misty, tragic heroine victimized by men, by life; an artist of unearthly purity, without ambition.
Now Helen Sheehy, author of the much admired biography of Eva Le Gallienne, gives us a different Dusea woman of strength and resolve, a woman who knew pain but could also inflict it. Life is hard, she said, one must wound or be wounded. She wanted to reveal on the stage the truth about womens lives and she wanted her art to endure.
Drawing on newly discovered material, including Duses own memoir, and unpublished letters and notes, Sheehy brings us to an understanding of the great actresss unique ways of working: Duse acting out of her sense of her characters inner life, Duse anticipating the bold aspects of modernism and performing with a sexual freedom that shocked and thrilled audiences. She edited her characters lines to bare skeletons, asked for the simplest sets and costumes. Where other actresses used hysterics onstage, Duse used stillness.
Sheehy writes about the Duse that the actress herself tried to hidetracing her life from her childhood as a performing member of a family of actors touring their repertory of drama and commedia dellarte through Italy. We follow her through her twenties and through the next four decades of commissioning and directing plays, running her own company, and illuminating a series of great roles that included Emile Zolas Thrse Raquin, Marguerite in Dumass La Dame aux camlias, Nora in Ibsens A Dolls House, and Hedda in his Hedda Gabler. When she thought her beauty was fading at fifty-one, she gave up the stage, only to return to the theatre in her early sixties; she traveled to America and enchanted audiences across the country. She died as she was bornon tour.
Sheehys illuminating book brings us as close as we have ever been to the woman and the artist.
Helen Sheehy: author's other books
Who wrote Eleonora Duse: A Biography? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Eleonora Duse: A Biography — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Eleonora Duse: A Biography" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Font size:
Interval:
Bookmark:
ALSO BY HELEN SHEEHY
All About Theatre
Margo: The Life and Theatre of Margo Jones
Eva Le Gallienne: A Biography
For Tommasoancora e sempre
PAGE
9 Luigi Duse as Giacometto. Author's collection.
11 Alessandro Duse, c. 1880s. Fondazione Cini.
13 Eleonora with her mother, Angelica, 1863. Fondazione Cini.
16 Rachel in 1858. Author's collection.
17 Adelaide Ristori as Lady Macbeth, c. 1860s. Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
19 Eleonora in her early twenties. Martin Waldron Collection.
24 Giovanni Emmanuel, late 1870s. Fondazione Cini.
28 Matilde Serao, 1880. Fondazione Cini.
31 Emile Zola, c. 1880s. Library of Congress.
34 Cesare Rossi, c. 1880s. Fondazione Cini.
39 Tebaldo Checchi, c. 1880s. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
41 Flavio And, c. 1880s. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
43 Duse, 1882. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di Roma S.I.A.E.
45 Duse with her daughter, Enrichetta, c. 188485. Fondazione Cini.
47 Sarah Bernhardt, late 1880s. Author's collection.
51 In La Femme de Claude, c. 188284. Fondazione Cini.
52 In Frou-Frou, 1882. Fondazione Cini.
55 Count Primoli, c. 1880s. Fondazione Cini.
57 Giovanni Verga, c. 1890s. Fondazione Cini.
59 Duse, c. 188485. Fondazione Cini.
62 Sarah Bernhardt as Marguerite in La Dame aux camlias. Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
Duse in La Dame aux camellias. Author's collection.
64 Giuseppe Giacosa and Arrigo Boito, c. 1880s.
67 As Denise, 1885. Fondazione Cini.
80 As Goldoni's Pamela, c. 1880s. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
82 Arrigo Boito, late 1880s. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
90 Cleopatra, late 1880s. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
98 Alexandre Dumas fils. Author's collection.
102 As Nora in Ibsen's A Doll House, early 1890s. Martin Waldron Collection.
104 Alexander Wolkoff. Author's collection.
110 Stanislavsky in 1898. Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
111 Duse in Russia, 1891. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
Duse in Russia (in hat). Author's collection.
113 Enrichetta, c. 1890. Fondzione Cini.
120 Duse as Wolkoff painted her. Author's collection.
123 New York playbill. Martin Waldron collection.
125 Duse as Mirandolina. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
127 Ellen Terry in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, 1906. Author's collection.
129 Wolkoff palazzo in Venice. Author's collection.
130 Duse in Venice. Fondazione Cini.
135 Duse in Venice at Wolkoff's. Fondazione Cini.
138 Duse in Venice, c. 189495. Fondazione Cini.
139 Gabriele d'Annunzio, late 1890s. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
166 Duse with all the stars of the Comdie-Franaise, 1897. Fondazione Cini.
169 La Porziuncola, 1898. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
179 D'Annunzio at La Capponcina, 1898. Fondazione Cini.
186 In d'Annunzio's La Gioconda, c. 18991900. Author's collection.
188 D'Annunzio at home.
D'Annunzio's snapshot of Duse, late 1890s. Fondazione Cini.
198 In La citt morta, c. 190103. Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo di RomaS.I.A.E.
203 In Francesca da Rimini, c. 190103. Author's collection.
206 Duse's handwritten note. Author's collection.
214 In Hedda Gabler, c. 190408. Author's collection.
220 In Monna Vanna, c. 190506. Fondazione Cini.
221 With Auguste Rodin, c. 190506. Fondazione Cini.
223 With Robi Mendelssohn, c. 190406. Mario Nunes Vais photographer, Nunes Vais Collection, I.C.C.D., Rome.
232 As Vassilisa in Lugn-Poe's 1905 production of The Lower Depths. Author's collection.
235 Onstage after a performance of Rosmersholm in Cristiania, 1906. Author's collection.
239 Isadora Duncan, c. 1900. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig in 1904. New York Public Library.
247 Duse with Enrichetta, c. 190810. Fondazione Cini.
257 Mabel Dodge, c. 1910. Beinecke.
260 Rainer Maria Rilke, c. 1912.
262 Duse in retirement, c. 1910. Fondazione Cini.
267 Maria Osti, c. 1915. Luisa Chiarelli.
270 Sarah Bernhardt, 1916. Author's collection.
278 Grazia Deledda, author of the novel Cenere. Fondazione Cini.
282 A final moment from Cenere, 1916. Fondazione Cini.
284 Arrigo Boito in Milan, c. 1916. Fondazione Cini.
291 Duse with Robert Mendelssohn and his wife Giulietta, 1909. Fondazione Cini.
300 John Barrymore, 1922. Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
310 Stanislavsky with producer Morris Gest, 1937. New York Public Library.
312 Memo Benassi, early 1920s. Fondazione Cini.
315 Mildred Oppenheimer, early 1920s. Wendy Knopf Cooper.
322 Alice Boughton's photograph of Duse, 1923. Martin Waldron Collection.
324 Matilde Serao. Author's collection.
325 Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh at Duse's grave in Asolo, May 1957. Fondazione Cini.
328 Duse's grandchildren, c. 1938. Fondazione Cini.
330 Eleonora Duse, 1896. Robert Steiner.
THIS BIOGRAPHY draws on previously unpublished or unknown material, including Duse's thirty-five-page handwritten memoir. Duse's granddaughter, Sister Mary Mark Bullough, who died in April 2001, shared her memories with candor. Martin Waldron allowed me to use his Duse library and collection of unpublished letters, photographs, and memorabilia. His help, both practical and spiritual, was invaluable. Paolo Valesio of Yale University told me about a packet of Duse letters to d'Annunzio. I'm grateful to Steve Jones of Yale's Beinecke Library for his assistance in copying these letters. Eleonore Thun-Hohenstein of Vienna shared copies of Alexander Wolkoff's letters to Duse. Wendy Knopf Cooper's interview with her mother, Mildred Oppen-heimer Knopf, illuminated Duse's last months. Michael Morrison, John Bar-rymore's biographer, sent me a transcript of Barrymore's memories of meeting Duse, which Morrison had discovered after the publication of his own book. In Venice, Paolo Puppa, playwright and professor, opened his library to me and gave me the thesis of Anastasia Plazzotta, who had done important research in Russia. I'm grateful for his kindness, and for Anastasia Plazzotta's scholarship. In Berlin, Elke Neumann generously shared information about Duse's German tours. Elliot Norton, Luisa Osti Chiarelli, Eleanor Lambert, and Beppe Menegatti all shared their memories of Duse.
I am indebted to Paola Bertolone, theatre historian and Duse scholar, who introduced me to the latest Duse scholarship in Italy, uncovered new information, shared her research into thousands of Duse lettters, and inspired me with her intellectual rigor. She led me to the work of Duse scholar Gerardo Guerrieri. The archives he left and his pioneering research are crucial references. I'm grateful to Maria Casa, who provided years of dedicated detective work, as well as the use of her apartment in Rome. I'm also grateful to d'Annunzio translator and scholar Susan Bassnet, and to Duse scholar Mirella Schino. Their work provided guidance and inspiration.
Font size:
Interval:
Bookmark:
Similar books «Eleonora Duse: A Biography»
Look at similar books to Eleonora Duse: A Biography. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Discussion, reviews of the book Eleonora Duse: A Biography and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.