Playing to the Gods

by Peter Rader

  • • •

  With her Paris season only two months away, Duse was feeling anxious. She was in fragile health—bedridden, coughing violently—prompting a bizarre regimen of strychnine injections. Given in microdoses, strychnine was meant to act as a stimulant, but it simply made Duse even more nervous than she already was.

  It came down to this: She could hardly take her first steps on a Parisian stage in a French play by Dumas or Sardou, in which her Italian (or, even worse, her highly accented French) could be seen as provincial. She urgently needed fresh material to energize her repertoire, ideally an Italian work—preferably something entirely new. That had been her wish for The Dead City, but the French rights now belonged to Sarah Bernhardt.

  Playing upon d’Annunzio’s guilt, Duse begged him to compose something else for her imminent Paris debut. D’Annunzio scowled in disbelief—impossible!

  Not a play, coaxed Eleonora—a poetic monologue, a dream, perhaps. This avant-garde idea elicited immediate interest from d’Annunzio; poetry was something he could produce with ease. As always, the title came to him first: A Spring Morning’s Dream. Eleonora felt a surge of elation as he departed to compose it.

  “When will you give me the dream?” she wrote impatiently a few days later. He ignored the letter, which prompted her to send a follow-up: “I bless your silence because it proves that you’re working.” He actually was, this time—at an impressive pace. Just ten days later, at the end of April, he handed her the completed text: the mad ranting of a woman, Isabella, as she clings to the bloody corpse of her lover, slain by her husband.

  It was a stylized piece, almost experimental in its mise-en-scène. D’Annunzio had been influenced by a new wave of “abstract” drama that was sweeping across Europe in reaction to the “realism” of the bourgeois theater in which Eleonora excelled.

  Though she could have been put off, Duse became intrigued; A Spring Morning’s Dream would stretch her as an artist. It would be entirely new, unlike anything she’d ever done. Duse felt certain that she and d’Annunzio had crossed paths for a reason. Something sublime was just waiting to manifest. Perhaps this?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “It was more of a collision than a meeting,” reported Count Robert de Montesquiou about the moment, in the late spring of 1897, when Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse were formally introduced: “The two women grasped each other so tightly that it looked like a mad wrestling match.” One of the best-connected hosts in Paris, le comte had arranged the encounter personally—an intimate afternoon gathering with a few select guests in Sarah’s sculpture atelier.

  In preparation for their arrival, the Italians had mounted a clever public relations campaign. Several of Eleonora’s friends (Count Primoli and Matilde Serao, the writer from Naples) had published a piece in La Revue de Paris that, instead of singing Duse’s praises, bestowed accolades on Sarah Bernhardt and French culture—shameless flattery in an attempt to lower expectations and sway public opinion to the “underdog.” But Bernhardt concocted an equally cunning response—she would act “magnanimous,” as if Eleonora were her protégée.

  Even though Bernhardt and José Schürmann had not been on speaking terms since he abandoned her to oversee Duse’s career, Sarah had decided to pay her former manager a visit. She knew that Schürmann had been searching for an appropriate venue for Eleonora’s Paris debut, so Sarah offered them her own Théâtre de la Renaissance—at no charge.

  It was an irresistible proposal for the impresario, who accepted it on the spot; soon all of Paris knew of Sarah’s generosity. She would come to regret her decision almost immediately—but for now, at least, Bernhardt had regained the upper hand.

  Then Duse announced her opening night’s play: La Dame aux camélias. Bernhardt exploded. It was one thing for Duse to trot around foreign capitals performing the most famous of Sarah’s signature roles. It was quite another for the Italian to announce Camille as her debut in Paris, where Sarah had played the part a thousand times—as recently as last season, in fact.

  Eleonora had wanted to open with A Spring Morning’s Dream, d’Annunzio’s poetic monologue, but had thought better of it. It was customary for the author to be present on opening night—especially since this particular writer was also her lover—but d’Annunzio had decided to stay in Italy. He was running, audaciously, as a “Candidate of Beauty” for a seat in the newly formed Italian congress. He was also avoiding the scene that was sure to erupt in the volatile triangle he had created. Given the author’s conspicuous absence, Duse decided to save d’Annunzio’s play for last, and go all in by declaring her intention to open with Camille.

  It was with clenched teeth that Sarah embraced her Italian rival two weeks later at the private afternoon reception arranged by Montesquiou. Duse arrived without makeup and simply dressed, which raised more than one eyebrow. Sarah looked ravishing, as always. This disparity was noted with glee by Montesquiou, a renowned dandy who would become the inspiration for Baron de Charlus in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.

  Count Robert de Montesquiou had attempted heterosexual sex exactly once in his life, simply out of curiosity—with Sarah Bernhardt. By his own account, the experience had left him vomiting for a week but did nothing to diminish his adoration of the actress.

  The Italians had a count in their camp, too: Count Giuseppe Primoli, who was actually half French, which is why they had recruited him. Primoli knew everyone in Paris, including Sarah.

  Nonsense and pleasantries were exchanged all afternoon, but there was no disputing the underlying tension. Day turned to night, and the guests left for the Théâtre de la Renaissance, where Bernhardt had invited Duse to watch her perform in La Samaritaine. It was a brand-new play written for Sarah by Edmond Rostand—“a ‘gospel’ in three tableaux” is how the author described it. Performed just four days before Easter, its main theme was identical to that of Izeyl: the conversion of a sinner by a saint—in this case, not the Buddha but Jesus in his encounter with the Samaritan woman. This was the play she chose to present to Eleonora on April 14, 1897—one can only speculate whether Bernhardt was being influenced by Duse’s spirituality. It would be Bernhardt’s final performance at the Renaissance before she turned the keys over to her rival.

  The theater was packed with the Parisian elite. Eleonora was given a place of honor in Sarah’s private box, which had been lavishly decorated with orchids—difficult, if not impossible to procure in 1890s Paris and exorbitantly expensive. The stunning effect did not go unnoticed by theater patrons, the very people who Sarah intended to impress with her noblesse oblige.

  From his box across the Grand Loge, Montesquiou watched the Italian through his pearl opera glasses as she took her seat among the flowers. She seemed flustered; he nodded in satisfaction. When Sarah walked before the footlights, she appeared radiant, with sparkles dancing from every jewel of her gem-encrusted dress—illumination made possible by the latest technological innovation: electricity.

  Duse rose immediately, and the house followed, erupting into an ovation. Sarah curtsied in seeming humility, then stood to blow a kiss to her honored guest, who remained standing for a very long time—so long that it became awkward. After a while, Sarah moved to take her first pose and began the scene, which prompted the audience to settle into their seats. Not Eleonora. She was still on her feet—she remained standing for the entire scene, in fact. Duse rose to stand every time Sarah took the stage.

  One wonders what crossed Montesquiou’s mind as he watched the charade unfold. On some level, it was brilliant. The feigned deference by Duse was diverting attention from the performance, so the audience spent the evening swiveling their gaze back and forth between the two divas, as if it were a championship tennis match.

  One week later, the who’s who returned to the Renaissance to see Duse’s audacious Paris debut in La Dame aux camélias. Montesquiou realized the ingenuity behind Eleonora’s decision to play Camille. For one, it would underscore the fourteen-year age differe
nce between the two actresses.

  It was a play, moreover, whose plot was well known. The French public could follow an Italian-language Camille without missing a beat. And because the Parisian audience had memorized Sarah’s every pose in the part, Duse’s performance would underscore their deeply antithetical acting styles.

  Besides the obvious difference in technique, there was a fundamental contrast simply in the way each actress viewed the character. Eleonora saw Camille as a victimized woman whose lifestyle presented a constant struggle. Money came, money went; she had to make do on limited means. It made the part more poignant, she thought. For Sarah, that made the role pathetic; Camille’s appeal was that she was a highly successful courtesan and therefore flush with cash. She was the queen of the demimonde with the best boudoir in France. To make her any less would rob the finale of its irony: once a courtesan, always a courtesan.

  Eleonora commissioned her costumes from Paris designer Jean-Philippe Worth, who also outfitted Sarah, as well as royals across Europe. When Duse told Worth she wanted a very simple, modest wardrobe for Camille, it confused the designer, who became horrified when Eleonora admitted she had not brought any jewelry. “But, Madame, in Paris you must wear jewels for this play, we French could not imagine it without jewels,” he protested. “We must see some material evidence that Marguerite Gautier was richly provided for.” Duse succumbed and accepted a forty-thousand-franc pearl necklace on consignment from the House of Worth in a rare moment of self-doubt.

  While Bernhardt and Worth were not on speaking terms—she had failed to pay him some years earlier for several dresses she had ordered—Sarah found out nonetheless through the grapevine exactly what Eleonora intended to wear, and she made certain that her own costuming and accessories would overshadow the Italian in every conceivable way.

  Bernhardt wore a crown-like wreath of roses when she entered the sold-out theater on Duse’s opening night. Still seething that Eleonora had upstaged her performance, Bernhardt had her electricians install a small spotlight in her private box, meant to give Sarah an angelic halo and draw attention to her famous locks, dyed now to maintain their auburn pigmentation.

  Bernhardt was playing a role herself as she took her seat, according to younger actress and Duse confidante Eva Le Gallienne, projecting the appearance of “the all-powerful, magnanimous artist who, in the generosity of her princely nature, stretched out a helping hand to this foreign actress—talented no doubt, but still in need of patronage.”

  Many of the “free” tickets to the performance—a custom on opening night—had been scalped at five hundred francs a seat, the average monthly pay for a member of the petite bourgeoisie. There were princes and princesses in the audience, dukes and duchesses. After the opening gavel sounded three times to indicate the beginning of the play, Eleonora’s performance was not the only one set to begin.

  From the box where she sat, Sarah, too, struck a pose. American theater-writer Victor Mapes recorded the moment:

  She puts one arm forward on the edge of the box, and after giving a nervous glance to see if she is still being observed, she leans her chin on her open palm and fixes the stage with her eyes.

  Eleonora made her entrance unusually out of rhythm. Part of her trouble had to do with the conditions backstage. Instead of offering up her own sumptuous dressing room, Sarah had relegated Eleonora to cramped and stuffy quarters in the rear of the theater, an arrangement that forced the actress to exit into an alley and climb a short fire ladder to get to the stage. Duse tried to take the slight in stride, but it threw off her timing

  “As the play goes on,” continued Mapes, “her nervousness betrays her at every step. It holds her in an agony, which she tries in vain to dominate. Her voice sounds hollow, her fingers twitch, her whole form is trembling from head to toe.”

  Meanwhile, in a concurrent performance, Sarah was “going into ecstasies over the talent of her protégée.”

  By intermission, Eleonora retreated to her closet-sized dressing room and slammed the door. Sarah, meanwhile, held court with champagne and caviar. By the final curtain, Eleonora had been trounced. “The audience filed out,” Mapes wrote, “after giving one final look at Bernhardt, there could be no doubt. . . . If someone had triumphed it was not Duse.”

  This disaster was confirmed by esteemed critic Francisque Sarcey, the one man whose opinion all of Paris awaited. His review appeared the following morning in Le Temps, and Sarcey mocked the Italian actress with a belittling stereotype:

  La Duse, either because she thinks of the character in that way, or because she cannot play it in any other, suggests a good little soul who ruins her lovers by making them buy macaroni for her.

  While Count Robert de Montesquiou may have felt gratified, the match was not quite over.

  • • •

  As it turns out, Sarah’s subterfuge had begun to backfire. The dressing room stunt, which had forced Eleonora to exit the heated theater into a drafty alley before taking the stage—going from “fire to ice,” as she reported in one of her daily letters to d’Annunzio—had taken its toll on her health. The actress canceled and delayed performances, extending her stay at the Renaissance to the increasing ire of Sarah Bernhardt.

  Every additional day that Duse’s company occupied the Renaissance prevented Sarah from putting on her own productions there—her only source of income. Meanwhile, she still had to pay her actors and technicians, even when Eleonora took to her sickbed for an entire week and the theater went dark. Bernhardt suspected the Italian of faking her illness to drain money from the Renaissance.

  There was another problem, too: Sarcey’s damning review notwithstanding, Parisians were starting to talk about Duse’s new style—whatever they thought of its artistic merits, it was undeniably “of the moment.” They were intrigued.

  One useful by-product of her relationship with d’Annunzio was that Duse had become less shy about publicity; knowing that journalists could not be stopped, she had realized she needed to work with them. Thus while in Paris she scrapped her customary press blackout and invited critics to her quarters for tea, so she would remain in the spotlight even while convalescing offstage. Jules Huret of Le Figaro paid the infirm Duse a visit in the apartment she had leased, and described the scene in fawning detail:

  A great fire burns in the fireplace, and from time to time the artist bends over a vaporizer to inhale the tar steam with which she treats her throat. Then the slender, mystical fingers are raised to pull back the rebellious locks, as she speaks ardently with friends surrounding her of the subjects that mean most to her, uttering in passionate accents the words goodness, soul, life.

  Sarah was outraged at how easily critics bought into Eleonora’s “saint” mystique. She needed another ploy to sabotage her rival and had an idea. Sarah had been organizing a gala tribute to honor her cherished playwright, the late Alexandre Dumas fils, who had passed away two years prior. Bernhardt felt confident that Duse would agree to join her in remembrance of Dumas—he had written Denise for her, after all, one of Duse’s favorite roles. Each actress would put on a representative scene—and Paris would see them juxtaposed—which, Sarah remained convinced, would put her at an advantage. Sarah would be performing her Dumas in the original French, while Eleonora would use an Italian translation—this would sway the crowd in her favor, Sarah felt certain. At the very least, she would be able to watch her rival’s performance up close, unnoticed from the wings. Was there a trick to it?

  Bernhardt picked the perfect date for her showdown: June 14, 1897, one day before Eleonora was scheduled to premiere the final work of her Parisian run, the new play by d’Annunzio, which would guarantee its doom.

  In preparation for its Paris debut, A Spring Morning’s Dream had been translated by Georges Hérelle, and the text was published in the Revue de Paris. Sarah had read it along with everyone else and was baffled by d’Annunzio’s hastily written verses. The bizarre and morbid Symbolist poem seemed both pretentious and infantile—the stream
of consciousness ranting of a madwoman, better suited to some small art-house theater than the full-scale production that Eleonora planned. Sarah was confident that this d’Annunzian folly would fail—especially on the heels of an evening in honor of the wildly popular hometown hero Alexandre Dumas.

  Eleonora, for her part, remained enthusiastic about d’Annunzio’s stanzas. She found them staggeringly beautiful and challenging to act, which was, for her, an irresistible combination. “Never, never, never was A Spring Morning’s Dream more sweet and cruel,” she wrote to Boito, with whom she continued to correspond, hoping still to receive his blessing as her first mentor into the world of High Art. “I will be beautiful . . . and this madness will be played so sweetly.”

  • • •

  It was Sarah’s night; Eleonora accepted that, which is why she agreed to less time onstage than Bernhardt for the Dumas benefit. Bernhardt would be performing two acts from his most celebrated play, La Dame aux camélias, while Duse would be restricted to a single act from La Femme de Claude (Claude’s Wife). There would be other names on the marquee as well, including the esteemed Comédie-Française veteran Coquelin, along with Yvette Guilbert, a racy Moulin Rouge headliner and one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s favorite models. The soiree began with Bernhardt taking center stage facing a bust of Dumas, to which she recited an ode by Edmond Rostand. Recitation was a particular talent of hers, and the crowd showed their appreciation in an ovation.

  Next came scenes by Coquelin and Yvette Guilbert, followed by Eleonora’s turn onstage. Sarah had staked out the perfect position from which to observe her rival from the wings. Yet even backstage Bernhardt had to keep up the facade that the Divine Sarah was not terribly interested in the curious novelty of Eleonora’s craft. Bernhardt had surrounded herself with admirers, who took turns mocking Duse’s pretentions and giggling.

  But Sarah fell silent. There was something powerful about what Duse was doing on the stage. It seemed so free. And terrifying. Like a high-wire act without a net.