• The Intelligent Diva. Russian Tours of Eleonora Duse: Old Reviews and New Contexts

УДК: [792.2(=131.1)+792.071]:7.091.8

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2025-1-173-196

EDN: XQZIRY

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Marina G. Litavrina

D. Sc. in Art Studies, Leading Researcher of Laboratory of Cultural History at History Department, Lomonosov Mоscow State University, University, professor of the Department of Russian Theatre History
Lomonosov Mоscow State University, Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS)
Moscow, Russia
E-mail: itavrina55@gmail.com

The Intelligent Diva. Russian Tours of Eleonora Duse: Old Reviews and New Contexts

Abstract

Hundred years have passed since the day the greatest diva Eleonora Duse (1858–1924) left this world. Multilingual bibliography on her performing art is enormous. Her place in the cultural memory of her native land — Italy — is unique. Nevertheless, numerous new research works contributed to this huge amount of literature in very recent period, both in Italian and in Russian translation. Due to the current reconsideration of the impact of her craft and personality on art in general (including newly-discovered correspondence), numerous questions arise, — which concern not merely the role of Duse the performer in the history of world theatre, but make us doubt the common view on the reforms which brought into being the Directors’ Era in the early XX-th century. Did her stage triumph presume exclusively natural talent and natural intuition she was endowed with? Apparently, not. Duse, being considered the first one in the brilliant row of the last greatest stage “tsarinas” who ruled the boards of the time (as Yermolova and Komissarzhevskaya in Russia), gained her artistic fame mainly in the parts of new drama — which evidently required new general approach and performing style. Duse “scenic lessons” initiated general reconsideration of theatre art in Russia. She welcomed the arrival of “new drama”, new heroine to the stage of the period. So, quite opposite to the “last tsarinas’ theory”, probably, her own unique style of acting pioneered new theatrical era prior to directors’ reforms and anticipated them, — as well as new ‘systems of acting’ which would come into being soon after? (Not neglecting her phenomenal talent). The last but not the least — how both things: actress’s “solo’ in the performing process and the new director’s vision of performance as a whole thing correlate and cooperate with each other? Moreover, “to catch” and verbally reproduce the “stealing beauty” of the intelligent diva’s stage being proved to be a challenge for Russian criticism. Basing her reflection on almost forgotten old reviewers’ reconstructions of Duse performances in Russia, and combining these observations and facts with the new evidences, borrowed from the autotexts of her partners, colleagues and admirers, the author puts these aspects in focus of her paper.

Keywords

Duse, Italian theatre, Russia, performing art, theatre criticism, new drama, Stanislavsky, Ibsen, Chekhov, D’Annunzio.drama, poetics.

For citation

Fine Arts. Cinema. Music. 2025, no. 1, pp. 173–196.

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2025-1-173-196

EDN XQZIRY

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Received: 11.01.2025

Revised: 10.02.2025

Accepted: 13.02.2025