Eleonora Duse e Aleksandr Volkov

Abstract

It was the painter Alexandre Volkoff (1844–1928) in particular who acquainted Eleonora Duse with mannerist compositional tension when she was preparing the role of Juliet for her Russian tour in the early 1890s. Duse shared Volkoff ’s views and, having taken on the concept of adopting a medieval style, she managed to transpose Juliet into an artificial, ageless icon through her adept use of details that were extracted from reality. In so doing she moulded herself, a woman over 30 years old, to the role of the young Juliet. Shakespeare’s character is just a teenager for whom a very light-colored dress would have arguably been more appropriate. Nevertheless, Volkoff recommended that the actress should not assume that the character must determine how she is presented. Instead, the presentation should be guided by the actress’s appearance. The painter’s suggestion was for her to wear a gown in a colour that suited her. He encouraged her to choose a dress of the same colour as her under-dress, and insisted that if she were to select blue, as in the sky, she should be very careful to find the exact shade among the fifty or so variations available. Finally, though, rather than blue, together they decided on a yellowish brown that would convey a medieval nuance, and also constituted an attempt to destroy any apparent distinction between artifice and reality. Evidence for this is provided by letters that Volkoff wrote to Duse between January 1891 and November 1892. Significantly, those letters enlighten us about what happened during Duse’s first Russian tour as well as about the importance of Volkoff in the actress’s career and life in general. The letters offer proof of the intensity of their romance. In order to preserve the secret of their liaison, Duse presented the entire collection of 195 letters written to her by Volkoff to her close friend Countess Christiane Thun-Salm (1859– 1935). Sophie Aldringen Mensdorff-Pouilly affirms that Duse had left them with Christiane for safe-keeping before one of her tours and had never asked for them back. 6 What happened during Eleonora Duse’s Russian tour is revealed in Alexandre Volkoff ’s letters to her. For almost a century the letters that Volkoff wrote to his Eleonora have been lovingly preserved, first by Christiane Thun-Salm, and after her death by her granddaughter Eleonora Thun-Hohenstein, who was a distinguished playwright and journalist. Christiane secured a promise from her granddaughter that she would not open the boxes that contained her documents until fifty years had passed after her death. When that time came, Eleonora Thun-Hohenstein found that they included Volkoff ’s letters to her grandmother. Before her death, in 2012, she presented Volkoff ’s letters to Duse to her grandniece Sophie Mensdorff-Pouilly, and recommended that she preserve Volkoff ’s letters to Duse since they had been looked after for many years by their family, as Duse had wished.