Duse: She Has Played the. Greatest Romances of Art and Life

Announcement was made that Duse is coming to America.

Eleanora Duse, Italian actress, is generally conceded a solitary niche of honor at the forefront of the players of the world. So amazing  is her art that she will stand in shadowy greatness with Mrs Siddons, David Garrick, Salvini, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernahrdt. She plays only in Italian.

Born in a wagon among the musty properties of a band of strolling players on the outskirts of Venice, she grew to womanhood behind the flickering footlights of mean country stages. At the age of 24 she fell violently in Iove, lost her Iover, then burst suddenly into world-wide fame. Taking Rome by storm in 1885, she tourned Europe 1886-92, coming to America in 1893.

Meanwhile she married Signor Checci, actor and journalist. To the couple was born one daughter, Manchette, who was brought up in a convent and forbidden forever to discuss the stage, even with her mother. Manchette married an Oxford don in 1908.

Duse and.Checci soon separated.

The story of Duse and Gabriele d'Annunzio, soldier, poet,  playwright, in scarcely matched in all history. He, the great passion of her life, apparently returned her love, and for a time they lived together. It is indicative of the idolatry with which she was regarded that Roman Catholic Italy took no exception to the union, though Duse and d'Annunzio were never married.

La Gioconda, one of the great plays of all literature, was one of the various artistic products of their life together.

The poet tired of her. In1900 he deserted, soon to publish a novel (Fire) , revealing to the world their secrets in intimate detail.  It later came to light that through it all he had been  playing simply for literary material. The shock nearly brought about Duse’s death. For two decades they were estranged.

In April 1916, d’Annunzio was shot down in an airplane while scouting on the Italian front. He lay at Rome in danger of blindness, even death. Duse rushed, unforbidden, to his bedside. Partial reconciliation followed.

Her art rises to supremacy through her magnificent repression, her submersion of personality in her part, her eager spirit. For years she would use no make-up. She preferred to make her entrances unnoticed in the crowd, suddenly to step forward and carry the play away with the splendor of her fervor. All her life she shunned publicity. Bernard Shaw declared her incomparably the superior of Bernhardt, after witnessing their rival. interpretations of La Dame aux Camellias.

Because she lost her fortune in the War, Duse reappeared two years ago after a 15 year retirement. She is 64. Owing to her age and failing health she plays only twice a week. She comes to New York for 10 weeks, 20 performances, in October.