Download or read book Eleonora Duse written by Helen Sheehy and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2009-02-04 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new biography, the first in two decades, of the legendary actress who inspired Anton Chekhov, popularized Henrik Ibsen, and spurred Stanislavski to create a new theory of acting based on her art and to invoke her name at every rehearsal. 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 d’Annunzio, 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, “I’ve 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, Duse’s 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 Duse—a 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 women’s lives and she wanted her art to endure. Drawing on newly discovered material, including Duse’s own memoir, and unpublished letters and notes, Sheehy brings us to an understanding of the great actress’s unique ways of working: Duse acting out of her sense of her character’s inner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 hide—tracing her life from her childhood as a performing member of a family of actors touring their repertory of drama and commedia dell’arte 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 Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, Marguerite in Dumas’s La Dame aux camélias, Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s 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 born—on tour. Sheehy’s illuminating book brings us as close as we have ever been to the woman and the artist.
Download or read book Eleonora Duse in Life and Art written by Giovanni Pontiero and published by Frankfurt am Main ; New York : V.P. Lang. This book was released on 1986 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new biography of the Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1858-1924) traces her progress from obscurity to international acclaim as one of the most charismatic and influential actresses of her generation. A true pioneer in the theatre, Duse perfected an introspective style of acting which left critics and audiences spellbound. Vision and courage were the hallmark of her unique personality and no sacrifice was too great in her untiring quest for a «theatre of poetry».
Download or read book Playing to the Gods written by Peter Rader and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The riveting story of the rivalry between the two most renowned actresses of the nineteenth century: legendary Sarah Bernhardt, whose eccentricity on and off the stage made her the original diva, and mystical Eleonora Duse, who broke all the rules to popularize the natural style of acting we celebrate today. Audiences across Europe and the Americas clamored to see the divine Sarah Bernhardt swoon—and she gave them their money’s worth. The world’s first superstar, she traveled with a chimpanzee named Darwin and a pet alligator that drank champagne, shamelessly supplementing her income by endorsing everything from aperitifs to beef bouillon, and spreading rumors that she slept in a coffin to better understand the macabre heroines she played. Eleonora Duse shied away from the spotlight. Born to a penniless family of itinerant troubadours, she disappeared into the characters she portrayed—channeling their spirits, she claimed. Her new, empathetic style of acting revolutionized the theater—and earned her the ire of Sarah Bernhardt in what would become the most tumultuous theatrical showdown of the nineteenth century. Bernhardt and Duse seduced each other’s lovers, stole one another’s favorite playwrights, and took to the world’s stages to outperform their rival in her most iconic roles. A scandalous, enormously entertaining history full of high drama and low blows, Playing to the Gods is the perfect “book for all of us who binge-watched Feud” (Daniel de Visé, author of Andy & Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show).
Download or read book The Mystic in the Theatre Eleonora Duse written by Eva Le Gallienne and published by [New York] : Farrar, Straus & Giroux. This book was released on 1966 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Life and Acting written by Jack Garfein and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jack Garfein's book is a touching reminder of our early attempts at creating theater without artifice. It is good to know that he is still working hard at it."---Ben Gazzara --
Download or read book My Mortal Enemy written by Willa Cather and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-08-24 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1926, this book is Willa Cather's sparest and most dramatic novel, a dark and prescient portrait of a marriage that subverts our oldest notions about the nature of domestic happiness. As a young woman, Myra Henshawe gave up a fortune to marry for love--a boldly romantic gesture that became a legend in her family. But this worldly, sarcastic, and perhaps even wicked woman may have been made for something greater than love. In her portrait of Myra and in her exquisitely nuanced depiction of her marriage, Cather shows the evolution of a human spirit as it comes to bridle against the constraints of ordinary happiness and seek an otherwordly fulfillment. My Mortal Enemy is a work whose drama and intensely moral imagination make it unforgettable.
Download or read book The Story of My Life written by Dame Ellen Terry and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Eleonora Duse and Cenere Ashes written by Maria Pia Pagani and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1916 silent film Cenere (Ashes) features the great Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1858-1924) in her only cinematic role. In her meditative approach to her craft, she reprised for the screen all the "mother roles" she had created for the theater. Marking the film's 100th anniversary, this collection of essays brings together for the first time in English a range of scholarship. The difficulties involved in the making of the film are explored--Duse's perfectionism was too advanced for the Italian movie industry of the 1910s. Her work is discussed within the creative, political and historical context of the silent movie industry as it developed in wartime Italy.
Download or read book My Art My Stetson Between Europe and America the Unique Story of a Portuguese Artist and Dandy written by Manuel de Queiroz and published by Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press. This book was released on 2021-05-06 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This story is about Aleixo de Queiroz Ribeiro, a Portuguese sculptor, and his celebrated marriage in Philadelphia to Sarah Elizabeth Stetson, the widow of the multimillionaire philanthropist John B. Stetson, owner of the biggest and most renowned hat company in the world. Based on real people and events, the novel explores Aleixo’s early years in Paris where he crosses paths with some of the era’s greatest names in sculpture, like Rodin and Saint-Gaudens, his brief and controversial stay in Lisbon, and his departure for the United States, where he becomes Portuguese Consul in Chicago and renowned sculptor. Intrinsic to the narrative itself, the history of an extraordinary era emerges, not as mere background scenery, but rather as it was witnessed and experienced by the actual individuals who lived it: the fall of the monarchy and the turbulent early years of the Republic in Portugal, the Spanish-American War, the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900, the First World War, etc. From the end-of-the-century Parisian effervescence to the interaction with the high society of Philadelphia and New York, from early artistic devotion and persistence to a certain mature dandyism in the later years, from public recognition to critical derision, from sensibility to pragmatism, and from ambition to disappointment, My Art and My Stetson dramatically conveys the conflicts and yearnings of a charismatic, controversial, and misunderstood man, as well as the numerous contradictions inherent to the epoch during which the narrative takes place.
Download or read book The Flame of Life written by Gabriele D'Annunzio and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2007-09-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gabriele d'Annunzio, born Gaetano Rapagnetta (1863-1938) was an Italian poet, writer, novelist, dramatist, womanizer and daredevil who went on to have a controversial role in politics as figure-head of the Italian Fascist movement and mentor of Benito Mussolini. His literary works included: "The Child of Pleasure," "The Intruder," "The MAidens of the Rocks," and "The Flame of Life" ("Il Fuoco").
Download or read book Secrets of Acting Shakespeare written by Patrick Tucker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secrets of Acting Shakespeare isn't a book that gently instructs. It's a passionate, yes-you-can designed to prove that anybody can act Shakespeare. By explaining how Elizabethan actors had only their own lines and not entire playscripts, Patrick Tucker shows how much these plays work by ear. Secrets of Acting Shakespeare is a book for actors trained and amateur, as well as for anyone curious about how the Elizabethan theater worked.
Download or read book Gabriele d Annunzio written by Lucy Hughes-Hallett and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 745 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Godfather to Mussolini, national hero of Italy and the WWI irredentist movement, literary icon of Joyce and Pound, lover of actress Eleonora Duse: here is Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s extraordinary biography of Gabriele d’Annunzio, poet, bon vivant, harbinger of Italian fascism. Gabriele d’Annunzio was Italy’s premier poet at a time when poetry mattered enough to trigger riots. A brilliant self-publicist in the first age of mass media, he used his fame to sell his work, seduce women, and promote his extreme nationalism. In 1915 d’Annunzio’s incendiary oratory helped drive Italy to enter the First World War, in which he achieved heroic status as an aviator. In 1919 he led a troop of mutineers into the Croatian port of Fiume and there a delinquent city-state. Futurists, anarchists, communists, and proto-fascists descended on the city. So did literati and thrill seekers, drug dealers, and prostitutes. After fifteen months an Italian gunship brought the regime to an end, but the adventure had its sequel: three years later, the fascists marched on Rome, belting out anthems they’d learned in Fiume, as Mussolini consciously modeled himself after the great poet. At once an aesthete and a militarist, d’Annunzio wrote with equal enthusiasm about Fortuny gowns and torpedoes, and enjoyed making love on beds strewn with rose petals as much as risking death as an aviator. Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s stunning biography vividly re-creates his flamboyant life and dramatic times, tracing the early twentieth century’s trajectory from Romantic idealism to world war and fascist aggression.
Download or read book Playing Changes written by Nate Chinen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, GQ, Billboard, JazzTimes In jazz parlance, “playing changes” refers to an improviser’s resourceful path through a chord progression. In this definitive guide to the jazz of our time, leading critic Nate Chinen boldly expands on that idea, taking us through the key changes, concepts, events, and people that have shaped jazz since the turn of the century—from Wayne Shorter and Henry Threadgill to Kamasi Washington and Esperanza Spalding; from the phrase “America’s classical music” to an explosion of new ideas and approaches; from claims of jazz’s demise to the living, breathing scene that exerts influence on mass culture, hip-hop, and R&B. Grounded in authority and brimming with style, packed with essential album lists and listening recommendations, Playing Changes takes the measure of this exhilarating moment—and the shimmering possibilities to come.
Download or read book Gioconda written by Gabriele D'Annunzio and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Letters to a Young Poet written by Rainer Maria Rilke and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1993-09-17 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Letters written to F.X. Kappus during the years 1903-1908. Chronicle of Rilkes's life for the years 1903-1908 (p. 81-123).
Download or read book The Life and Times of Moses Jacob Ezekiel written by Peter Adam Nash and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-03-06 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Life and Times of Moses Jacob Ezekiel: American Sculptor, Arcadian Knight tells the remarkable story of Moses Ezekiel and his rise to international fame as an artist in late nineteenth-century Italy. Sephardic Jew, homosexual, Confederate soldier, Southern apologist, opponent of slavery, patriot, expatriate, mystic, Victorian, dandy, good Samaritan, humanist, royalist, romantic, reactionary, republican, monist, dualist, theosophist, freemason, champion of religious freedom, proto-Zionist, and proverbial Court Jew, Moses Ezekiel was a riddle of a man, a puzzle of seemingly irreconcilable parts. Knighted by three European monarchs, courted by the rich and famous, Moses Ezekiel lived the life of an aristocrat with rarely a penny to his name. Making his home in the capacious ruins of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, he quickly distinguished himself as the consummate artist and host, winning international fame for his work and consorting with many of the lions and luminaries of the fin-de-siècle world, including Giuseppe Garibaldi, Queen Margherita, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Sarah Bernhardt, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Eleonora Duse, Annie Besant, Clara Schumann, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Alphonse Daudet, Mark Twain, Émile Zola, Robert E. Lee, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Isaac Mayer Wise. In a city besieged with eccentrics, he, a Southern Jewish homosexual sculptor, was outstanding, an enigma to those who knew him, a man at once stubbornly original and deeply emblematic of his times. According to Stanley Chyet in his introduction to Ezekiel’s memoirs, “The contemporary European struggle between liberalism and reaction, between modernity and feudalism, between the democratic and the hierarchical is rather amply refracted in Ezekiel’s account of his life in Rome.” Indeed so many of the contentious cultural, political, artistic, and scientific struggles of the age converged in the figure of this adroit and prepossessing Jew.
Download or read book Way of the Actor written by Brian Bates and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1988-04-12 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interviews with world-famous actors introduce the work of the actor as an exhilarating journey of self-discovery.
