Sarah bernhardt

Rosine Bernardt, artistically known as Sarah Bernhardt, (Paris, October 23, 1844 - Paris, March 26, 1923) was a theater and film actress French, one of the most famous and acclaimed at the end of the XIX century and beginning of the XX. She worked on works such as The Lady of the Camellias , by Alexandre Dumas Jr.; Ruy Blas, by Victor Hugo; Fédora and La Tosca, by Victorien Sardou; and L'Aiglon, by Edmond Rostand. She also played male roles, including Prince Hamlet in Shakespeare's play of the same name. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", while Hugo praised her "golden voice of hers". She undertook several theatrical tours around the world and was one of the first leading actresses to make sound recordings and act in films.

It is also related to the success of the artist Alphonse Mucha, when he gave him his first commission for a poster in Paris in 1894, with which he gained notoriety and later made him one of the most sought-after artists of this time for his artistic style nouveau.

Childhood and studies

Sarah Bernhardt was born on October 23, 1844 at 5 rue de l'École-de-Médecine, Paris. Her real name was Rosine Bernardt. Her mother was a Jewish woman of Dutch origin named Judith-Julie Bernardt (1821-1876), alias Youle. She earned her living as a courtesan along with her sister Rosine hers. Julie had several more daughters. In April 1843 she had twin girls who died within two weeks. After Sarah, she had Jeanne (date of birth unknown) and Régine in 1855, who died of tuberculosis in 1873. All were daughters of different and unknown fathers. Sarah Bernhardt never found out who her biological father was, although it is believed that he was the Duc de Morny, half-brother of Napoleon III.

Sarah spent the first four years of her life in Brittany in the care of a wet nurse. The first language that Sarah herself learned was Breton and for this reason, at the beginning of her theatrical career, she adopted the Breton form of her last name, "Bernhardt". At this time she suffered an accident that many years later would cause her serious health problems. She fell from a window, breaking her right knee. Although she healed without problems, her knee was forever delicate, and in 1914, due to a painful inflammation of that same knee, her right leg had to be amputated. After her accident, her mother took her with her to Paris, where she stayed for two years. About to turn seven, she entered the Fressard Institution, a boarding school for young ladies near Auteuil. She stayed there two years. In 1853 she entered the Grandchamp conventual college, near Versailles. At this school she participated in her first play, Tobias recovers his sight, written by one of the nuns. She was also baptized here and made her first communion. The mystical atmosphere of the school made her consider becoming a nun.

Career

Authorport

After leaving Grandchamp at the age of 15, her mother tried to introduce her to the world of gallantry so that she could earn a living as a courtesan. But Sarah, influenced by her convent upbringing, repeatedly refused. Julie Bernard had a salon in her Parisian apartment where her clients met. Among them was Napoleon III's half-brother, the Duc de Morny. Morny advised Sarah to enroll in the Conservatory of Music and Declamation. Thanks to the duke's contacts, her Sarah herself entered without difficulty in 1859. In 1861 she won a second prize in tragedy and an honorable mention in comedy.

After completing his studies at the Conservatoire, he entered, again thanks to Morny's influential contacts, at the Comédie-Française. He debuted on August 11, 1862 with the work Iphigénie, by Jean Racine. Her strong character brought him trouble with her peers, which caused her to leave the Comédie for the first time in 1863. Three weeks later she was engaged by the Gymnase Theatre, where she played seven small parts in various plays. She performed for the last time on April 7, 1864 with the play Un mari qui lance sa femme .

That same year she met one of the great loves of her life, Charles-Joseph Lamoral, Prince of Ligne. She began a passionate relationship with him, until she became pregnant and the prince abandoned her. On December 22, 1864, she gave birth to her only child, Maurice Bernhardt. Without a job and having momentarily failed in the world of theater, she followed in the footsteps of her mother, becoming a luxury courtesan. Ella sarah she did not abandon her activity as a courtesan until her theatrical career had been successfully established and she was able to support herself only with the work that the theater brought her.

Three years later, in 1867, he made his debut at the Odéon Theater with Wise Women (Les femmes savantes) by Molière. There she began her true professional career. She participated in many theatrical productions, alternating theatrical life with the gallant life. Her fame came suddenly in 1869 with François Coppée's Le Passant,, a one-act play in verse. Sarah also played a male role for the first time in this work, that of the troubadour Zanetto. She would repeat more times playing the man in several more works ( Lorenzaccio , Hamlet and L & # 39; Aiglon ).

In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, he set up the Odeon as a hospital for convalescents, where he dedicatedly cared for the war wounded. In 1871 the improvised hospital had to be closed due to health problems.

Sarah Bernhardt on the role of the Spanish consort queen of German origin Mariana de Neoburg Ruy Blas Victor Hugo. Photo anonymous, year 1879.

After the French defeat and the fall of Napoleon III, many intellectuals, exiled for being against the emperor, were able to return to France, including Victor Hugo. Hugo's return was transcendental in Bernhardt's life, since the writer chose her to star in the revival of his work Ruy Blas . Bernhardt also starred in another Hugo play, Hernani. Ruy Blas elevated it to unimaginable levels of success. She returned to the Comédie-Française as a great star and there she consolidated her repertoire and her multiple records as an actress.

Bernhardt's acting style was based on naturalness. He deeply detested the old standards of the French theater, where the actors declaimed histrionics and made exaggerated gestures. He broke with everything established, delving into the psychology of the characters. He studied each gesture and each intonation of the text that he had to say, looking for natural perfection without noticing any kind of artifice. He highlights in his art that, always representing great heroines of tragedy or queens, he fled from overacting and affectation. His death scenes are famous, in which instead of, according to his own words, "offering a whole string of pathologies" such as rattles, coughs, agonizing moans, he delved into the act of dying from the psychological and sentimental point of view.

Sarah Bernhardt, for Nadar, about 1864.

Apart from her profession as an actress, she became interested in sculpture and painting, exhibiting several times at the Paris Salon between 1874 and 1896. She received different prizes and honorable mentions in both disciplines. She also wrote three books: her autobiography entitled Ma double vie, Petite Idole and L´art du Théâtre: la voix, la geste, la pronontiation.

Bernhardt specialized in performing the verse works of Jean Racine, such as Iphigénie, Phèdre or Andromaque. He stood out especially, among many others, in La Dame aux camélias, by Dumas Jr., Théodora, by Sardou, L'Aiglon, by Edmond Rostand, Izéïl, from Silvestre and Morand, Macbeth, from Shakespeare and Jeanne D'Arc, from Jules Barbier.

In 1879 he made his first trip to France, specifically to England, where he spent six weeks performing twice a day and was a resounding success. When she arrived in the country, she was spectacularly received, indicating that her fame had crossed the borders of France. On this first visit she met a young writer named Oscar Wilde. Years later, in 1893, Bernhardt would agree to represent her work Salome . That same year, she Sarah was promoted to Full Partner of the Comédie-Française. The Full Members are the highest hierarchy of this institution.

After his spectacular success in England he decided to go on his first American tour. He left for the United States on October 15, 1880. The success was total. Bernhardt would make repeated tours of the United States (his famous "farewell tours") and also toured all of South America, getting to perform in Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Argentina and Chile. He traveled by train and by boat and even crossed Cape Horn. In the United States, her success was such that she was equipped with a train with seven luxury carriages called Sarah Bernhardt Special , which was for the exclusive use of the actress. Her tours took her to Australia and she visited the Hawaiian Islands and the Sandwich Islands. She performed in Egypt and in Turkey. She also toured Europe, performing in Moscow, Berlin, Bucharest, Rome, Athens. In her career, she has acted not only in big theaters, but also in low-class theaters.

Bernhardt had a turbulent sentimental life, in which names such as Louise Abbèma, Gustave Doré, Victor Hugo, Jean Mounet-Sully, Jean Richepin, Philippe Garnier, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Edward, Prince of Wales, among others. She was married only once, to a Greek officer named Jacques Aristidis Damala. Damala was the son of a wealthy shipowner and was addicted to morphine. She was born in Piraeus in 1842. Bernhardt married him on April 4, 1882, and it was a stormy marriage. Sarah tried to turn Damala into an actor, but failed. The actress gave him acting classes and gave him the role of Armand Duval in La Dame aux Camélias. They were unfaithful to each other, and one day Damala, overwhelmed by the success of his wife, by the constant ridicule of the actors of Bernhardt's company and the bad relationship with Maurice Bernhardt, enlisted in the Legion, being posted to Algeria.. Months later he returned with Sarah. The separations and reconciliations were continuous until Sarah decided to go on a tour of the entire American continent in 1887 and Damala no longer accompanied her. It was the final separation. They remained married until Damala's death from the side effects of continued morphine abuse, in 1889, at the age of 42. Bernhardt buried him in Athens and adorned the tomb with a bust carved by herself.

Sarah Bernhardt was also show business's first business actress. Following a very strained relationship with the director of the Comédie-Française, Perrin, Bernhardt broke her contract and resigned from her as a Full Partner on March 18, 1880. The Comédie sued against her, winning the lawsuit. Sarah Bernhardt had to renounce her pension of 43,000 francs that she would have had if she had spent at least twenty years at the Comédie, and was also sentenced to a 100,000 francs fine, which she never paid. After his splendid first American tour, which had made him a great fortune, Bernhardt leased the Porte-Saint-Martin theater in 1883. In this theater he produced and acted in plays such as Frou-Frou and La Dame aux camélias, among others. During her tours, the theater remained open and works were continually premiered with varying commercial success. Bernhardt did not hesitate to support avant-garde theater, so, in addition to the classical repertoire, works by new authors that broke with traditional theater were premiered at the Porte-Saint-Martin. After a few years, Ella Bernhardt leased the Théatre de la Renaissance, where she staged many successful plays. In 1899 she leased for twenty-five years the enormous Theater des Nations, the only theater where she would perform in France for the last twenty-four years of her life.

Her family life was not easy. He had a strained and distant relationship with his mother, Julie. Her parent was never a caring and caring parent, and this made Sarah always seek her approval and affection. Julie Bernard had a predilection only for her daughter Jeanne hers and she totally neglected the education of her youngest daughter, Régine. Sarah Bernhardt had a predilection for her little sister Régine de ella, and when she managed to be independent of her, she took her to live with her to keep her away from her mother and her intentions to make her a courtesan too.. Unfortunately, because of the affective abandonment that she suffered from her and the atmosphere in her mother's apartment, Régine became a prostitute at the age of thirteen. She died at eighteen, in 1873, of tuberculosis. Her other sister, Jeanne, was also a courtesan for a time and whenever she was in need of money. To get her out of her bad life, Bernhardt took her with him to her company and accompanied her on several of her tours of the United States and Europe. She was a mediocre actress, but she played small roles and lived a luxurious life with her sister. It is known that she suffered neurotic attacks due to her addiction to morphine and that she was admitted to the La Pitié-Salpetrière hospital in Paris, under the care of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot. In contrast, Sarah's son, Maurice, was always very close to her mother. He always lived in her shadow, squandering fortunes gambling, traveling and living a luxurious life.

Bernhardt as Napoleon II in L'Aiglon.

The 20th century began with a great success, L'Aiglon, by Edmond Rostand. The work was released on March 15, 1900 and achieved unprecedented success. Sarah did 250 performances of L'Aiglon and after that, she made another tour to the United States to represent her. In New York she performed the work at the Metropolitan Opera House and it was hugely successful. She also tried her luck with the newborn cinema. In 1900 she filmed Le Duel d'Hamlet, playing Hamlet herself. In 1906 she filmed La Dame aux camélias , with Lou Tellegen, her lover at the time, playing Armand Duval. Bernhardt, when he saw it, was horrified and had the negative, which fortunately still exists, destroyed. She also shot Elisabeth, Queen of Anglaterre , directed by Louis Mercanton. In 1913 she filmed Jeanne Doré, directed by Tristan Bernard. This film is considered the best shot by Bernhardt and where you can best observe his acting art. The film is kept at the Cinématèque de Paris.

Sarah Bernhardt's tomb.

In 1914 he was awarded the Legion of Honor. In 1915 her right knee, the same one she had fractured as a child, had come to cause her excruciating pain. To make matters worse, during one of his interpretations of the dramatic work Tosca —the same one that Puccini made triumphant in the operatic genre—, in the last scene, when the heroine throws herself from a ravine, they did not take the relevant security measures; Sarah dove and injured her leg. Although she had been suffering from constant discomfort for several years, during 1914 it worsened, until there was no other choice but to have an amputation in February 1915. Once she had recovered from the amputation, and the First World War had already begun, the actress decided to do a he tours behind the French trenches doing performances to cheer up the troops. She organized several tours with her company and toured all over France. Even with her leg amputated, Sarah Bernhardt continued to perform. She would recite monologues, poems, or perform famous acts from her repertoire of plays in which she was not supposed to be standing. She also continued to participate in films after the war. Her health was deteriorating until she suffered a serious attack of uremia that was about to kill her. In 1922 she sold her mansion in the Belle-Île-en-Mer countryside, where she had made a documentary film about her life years before. When she died she was shooting a movie, La Voyante . The shooting was taking place at her house, on Boulevard Péreire, since the actress was already in very delicate health. On March 15, 1923, after shooting a scene, she was totally exhausted, until she fainted. She never recovered. Eleven days later, on March 23, she died in the arms of her son Maurice.

His funeral was massive. Some 150,000 French people came to say goodbye to her. She was buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Despite being called "the divine Sarah" for her eccentric and whimsical nature, Sarah Bernhardt worked on countless theater projects displaying a persevering character, great professionalism and dedication to her art.

The art of theater

In his later years, Bernhardt wrote a textbook on the art of acting. She wrote whenever she had time, usually between productions and when she was on vacation in Belle-Île. After his death, the writer Marcel Berger, his close friend, found the unfinished manuscript among his belongings at his house on Boulevard Pereire. He edited the book and it was published as L'Art du Théâtre in 1923.

He paid particular attention to the use of the voice, "the most necessary instrument for the dramatic artist." It was the element, he wrote she, that connects the artist with the audience. «The voice must have all the harmonies,... serious, plaintive, vibrant and metallic». For a voice to be complete, he wrote: "It needs to be a bit nasal. An artist who has a dry voice can never touch the public. He also stressed the importance of artists training their breathing during long passages. She suggested that an actress should be able to recite the following passage from Phédre in one breath:

You've seen them with full license,

The heaven of his sighs approved innocence;

They followed their loving inclination without remorse;

Every day they dawned clear and serene for them.

He pointed out that «the art of our art is that the public does not notice it... We must create an environment with our sincerity, so that the public, panting, distracted, does not recover its balance and free will until the curtain falls. What is called work, in our art, should only be the search for the truth».

He also insisted that artists express their emotions clearly and without words, using "the eye, the hand, the position of the chest, the tilt of the head... The outward form of art is often the whole art; at least, it's what hits the audience most effectively." He encouraged the actors to "work, overexcite their emotional expression, get used to varying their psychological states and translating them... The diction, the way of stopping, the look, the gesture are the predominant ones in the development of an artist's career.".”

She explained why she liked playing male roles: "The men's roles are generally more intellectual than the women's... Only the role of Phèdre gives me the charm of digging into a heart that is truly anguished... Always, in the theater, the roles of men are the best. And yet the theater is the only art in which women can sometimes be superior to men."

Critical reviews

The famous literary poster with actress Sarah Bernhardt on the leading role of Gismonda.

French theater critics praised Bernhardt's performances; Francisque Sarcey, an influential Paris critic, wrote of her 1871 performance in Marie: 'She has a sovereign grace, a penetrating charm, and I don't know what. She is a natural and incomparable artist ». Referring to Ruy Blas's rendition of her in 1872, the critic Théodore de Banville wrote that Bernhardt " declaimed like a blue bird sings, like the wind sighs, like the water murmurs ". Of the same performance, Sarcey wrote: "She added the music of her voice to the music of the verse. She sang, yes, she sang with the melodious voice of her... »

Victor Hugo was an ardent admirer of Bernhardt, praising his "golden voice." Describing his performance in his play, Ruy Blas in 1872, he wrote in his Carnets: "It is the first time that this play has actually been performed! She is better than an actress, she is a woman. She is adorable, she is better than beautiful, she has harmonious movements and looks of irresistible seduction ».

Her 1882 portrayal of Fédora was described by the French critic Maurice Baring in the following terms "A secret atmosphere emanated from her, an aroma, an attraction that was at once exotic and cerebral... She literally mesmerized the audience." audience", and played "with such tiger passion and feline seduction that, whether good art or bad, no one has been able to equal since."

In 1884, Sigmund Freud saw Bernhardt play Theodora, writing:

"I can't say much of the work, but this Sarah, how she played! From the moment I heard her first lines, pronounced with her vibrant and adorable voice, I had the feeling that I had known her for years. None of the lines he spoke could surprise me, I immediately believed everything he said. The smallest inch of this character was alive and you loved it. And then, it was the way she had to flatter, implore, embrace. Her amazing postures, the way she keeps quiet, but each of her limbs and each of her movements play a role for her! Strange creature! It's easy for me to imagine that there's no need to be different on the street than it is on stage.»

He also had his critics, particularly in his later years among the new generation of playwrights who advocated a more natural style of acting. George Bernard Shaw wrote of the "childishly egotistical character of her acting, which is not the art of making you think better or feel more deeply, but the art of making you admire her, pity her, defend her, weep with her, laugh at her" his jokes, follow her luck breathlessly and applaud wildly when the curtain falls... It's the art of fooling you." Ivan Turgenev wrote: "All she has is a wonderful voice. The rest is cold, false and affected; The worst kind of repulsive, chic Parisian!” The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, then a young medical student, paid for his studies by writing reviews for a Moscow newspaper. He stated that “We are far from admiring the talent of Sarah Bernhardt. She is a woman who is very intelligent and knows how to produce an effect, who has immense taste, who understands the human heart, but she wanted too much to amaze and overwhelm her audience." He wrote that in her papers, "charm is stifled with artifice."

Sarah Bernhardt's performances were seen and appreciated by many of the leading literary and cultural figures of the late 19th century. Mark Twain wrote: "There are five types of actresses: bad actresses, good actresses, good actresses, great actresses, and then there is Sarah Bernhardt." Oscar Wilde called her "the incomparable," scattered lilies in her path, and wrote a play in French, Salome, especially for her; it was banned by British censors before it could be made. Shortly before her death, Wilde wrote: "The three women I have most admired in my life are Sarah Bernhardt, Lily Langtry and Queen Victoria. I would have married any of them with pleasure."

After seeing a performance of Bernhardt in 1903, British actress Ellen Terry wrote: "How wonderful Sarah Bernhardt was! She had the transparency of an azalea but with even more delicacy, the lightness of a cloud but more ethereal. The smoke from a burning paper is what best describes it."

British author D.H. Lawrence saw Bernhardt perform Lady of the Camellias in 1908. Later, he wrote to a friend:

"Sarah was wonderful and terrible. Oh, see her and listen to her, a wild creature, a gazelle with the fascination and fury of a beautiful panther, laughing in musical French, screaming with real panther screaming, sobbing and sighing like a deadly deer... It is not beautiful, its voice is not sweet, but it is the incarnation of the wild emotion that we share with all living beings... »

Plays

Sarah Bernhardt in Cléopâtre1891.

Sarah Bernhardt in Ruy Blas1897.

Alfons Cartel Much for La Dame aux camélias.

• 1862: Iphigénie, of Racine, on main paper, his debut.
• 1862: Valérie, Scribe.
• 1862: Les Femmes savantesfrom Molière.
• 1864: A Mari qui lance sa femme, from Labiche and Deslandres.
• 1866: La Biche aux bois.
• 1866: Phèdre, of Racine (like Aricie).
• 1866: Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard (like Silvia).
• 1867: Les Femmes savantes, de Molière (as Armande).
• 1867: Le Marquis de VillemerGeorges Sand.
• 1867: François le Champi (like Mariette).
• 1868: Keanfrom Dumas (like Anna Damby).
• 1869: La PassantCoppée, like the Zanetto troubadour, his first success on stage.
• 1870: L'AutreGeorges Sand.
• 1871: Jeanne-MarieTheuriet.
• 1871: Fais ce que DoisCoppee.
• 1871: La Baronne
• 1872: Mademoiselle AïsséBouilhet.
• 1872: Ruy Blasof Hugo (as doña María de Neubourg, queen of Spain).
• 1872: Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle (like Gabrielle) of Dumas father.
• 1872: Britannicus (like Junie).
• 1872: Le Mariage de Figaro, Beaumarchais.
• 1872: Mademoiselle de la SeiglièreSandeau.
• 1873: DalilaFeuillet (like Princess Falconieri).
• 1873: Chez l'AvocatFerrier.
• 1873: AndromaqueRacine.
• 1873: PhèdreRacine, like Aricie.
• 1873: Le SphinxFeuillet.
• 1874: ZaireVoltaire.
• 1874: PhèdreRacine, like Fedra.
• 1875: The Phille of RolandBornier.
• 1875: L'ÉtrangèreDumas son (like Mrs. Clarkson).
• 1875: Rome vaincueParodi.
• 1877: HernaniHugo (like Doña Sol).
• 1879: PhèdreRacine, like Fedra.
• 1880: L'AventurièreEmile Augier.
• 1880: Adrienne Lecouvreurfrom Legouvé and Scribe
• 1880: FroufrouMeilhac and Halévy.
• 1880: La Dame aux Camélias, of Dumas son (like Marguerite).
• 1882: FédoraSardou.
• 1882: ThéodoraSardou (like Theodora, Byzantium Empress).
• 1882: The ToscaSardou.
• 1882: Princess GeorgesDumas son.
• 1890: CléopâtreSardou (like Cleopatra).
• 1893: Les RoisLemaître.
• 1894: GismondaSardou.
• 1895: Amphytrion, de Molière
• 1895: Magda, translation of the work HeimatSuderman.
• 1896: La Dame aux caméliasDumas.
• 1896: LorenzaccioMusset (like Lorenzino de Medici).
• 1897: SpiritismeSardou.
• 1897: The SamaritaineRostand.
• 1897: Les Mauvais bergers, (The bad shepherdsOctave Mirbeau.
• 1898: Get in.
• 1898: La Dame aux camélias (like Marguerite Gautier).
• 1898: Jeanne d'Arc, from Barbier (like Joan of Arc).
• 1898: IzéïlMorand and Sylvestre (like Izéïl).
• 1898: King Lear of Shakespeare (like Cordelia).
• 1899: HamletShakespeare (like Hamlet).
• 1899: Antony and CleopatraShakespeare (like Cleopatra).
• 1898: Macbethfrom Shakespeare (like Lady Macbeth, French version).
• 1898: Pierrot AssassinRichepin, like Pierrot.
• 1900: L'AiglonRostand (like l'Aiglon).
• 1903: La SorcièreSardou.
• 1904: Pelléas et MélisandeMaeterlinck.
• 1906: The Lady of the SeaIbsen.
• 1906: La Vierge d'Avilaof Mendès (like St. Theresa).
• 1911: Queen Elizabethof Moreau (like Queen Elizabeth).
• 1913: Jeanne DoréBernard (like Jeanne Doré).

Filmography

• The voyeur (1923) (unfinished)
• Jeanne Doré (1916) (like Jeanne Doré)
• Ceux de chez nous (1915) (biographical film)
• Mères françaises (1915) (as a nurse)
• Le duel d'Hamlet (1900) (like Hamlet)
• Sarah Bernhardt à Belle-Isle (1912) (as she herself)
• Elisabeth, reigne d'Angleterre (1912)
• Adrienne Lecouvreur (1912) (like Adrienne Lecouvreur)
• Give it to me. (1911) (like Camille)
• Tosca (1908) (like Tosca)