Sarah Bernhardt: The Art Within the Legend

by Gerda Taranow

Overview

Through a study of the actress' films, records and writings, Gerda Taranow reconstructs the rigorously developed artistry that lay behind the superb performances. Analyzing each histrionic element and discussing repertoire she shows how Bernhardt adapted the techniques learned at the Conservatoire and in the theatre to her own particular strengths and limitations.

Originally published in 1972.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691646916
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1572
Pages:	322
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

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Sarah Bernhardt

The Art Within the Legend

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By Gerda Taranow

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1972 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06181-8

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CHAPTER 1

VOICE

SARAH BERNHARDT entered the Conservatoire in i860. Although the branch of the school concerned with dramatic declamation had been in existence only seventy-four years, the traditions it fostered had their roots centuries deep. The original faculty of 1786 consisted of three professors of declamation: François René Molé, Abraham-Joseph Fleury, and Jean Baptiste Dugazon. All three had served a lengthy apprenticeship in the provinces where they had received their training from older actors, who, in turn, had been taught by predecessors. The school in which these men were trained had its classrooms on provincial stages and its curriculum in performance. Exhibiting less interest in theatre than previously, the provinces ceased to yield the educational services formerly provided, and it was therefore considered necessary to formalize the actor's education. While preventing the extinction of a histrionic inheritance, the formation of classes in dramatic declamation at the Paris Conservatoire also concentrated into one school both present and future practitioners of the tradition.

The first great actor to be trained at the Conservatoire was François-Joseph Talma (1763-1826), the leading tragedian of his day. He was particularly influenced by the teachings of Molé, although, according to contemporary regulations, he was expected to study with the entire faculty. As a student Talma entered the Comédie-Française, later became a sociétaire, that is, a senior member and shareholder in the company, and eventually returned to the Conservatoire as a professor of declamation. Even after having assumed his professorship, Talma, like his predecessors, continued an active member of the Comédie-Française. While he was on the faculty of the Conservatoire, Joseph-Isidore Samson entered as a student. The rules having been altered since the opening of the school in 1786, students were placed in the class of a particular professor, but with permission could attend the classes of other professors as well. Samson was placed with Pierre Lafon, but he also became a faithful member of Talma's group. Following in his professors' footsteps, Samson entered the Comédie-Française, became a sociétaire, and then a professor at the Conservatoire. Under Samson's tutelage, Rachel entered the Conservatoire and afterwards the Comédie-Française where she soon became a sociétaire. A class in declamation was created at the Conservatoire especially for Rachel, but her premature death prevented her from assuming her professorship. Augustine Brohan, another pupil of Samson and a sociétaire at the Comédie, filled the post intended for Rachel. Both Samson and Augustine Brohan were still on the faculty when Sarah Bernhardt entered the Conservatoire.

The genealogy of any of these actor-professors is not so specific that one can say Molé begot Talma; Talma, Samson; or Samson, Rachel. Rather, the Conservatoire begot them all. Although the teaching varied with the individuality of the professor, the same emphasis on declamation is to be found among all faculty members, for the formal quality of French poetic drama had, at its inception, generated a vocal approach corresponding to its elevated style. Encompassing all the elements of voice and speech, the art of declamation was cultivated to such an extent among actors of the past that the course in operatic declamation offered at the Conservatoire was originally taught by Molé and Dugazon. Molé, in fact, was appointed to the Conservatoire faculty when in 1784 it opened as a training school for opera. As founding members with sufficient knowledge to teach musical as well as spoken declamation, Molé and Dugazon were instrumental in crystallizing into histrionic principles traditions which were sustained by the Conservatoire and the Comédie-Française.

The emphasis which the Conservatoire placed upon declamation may initially have resulted in a system known as chant, but with the passage of time, another system, vérité, took its place beside the original. According to the great actor-teacher François Joseph Pierre Regnier, the two systems alternated upon the French stage, each depending for its ascendancy upon the prevailing tastes of the age and upon the "brilliant faults" of the performers. Emphasizing music and elevating the recitation of verse to recitative, the chant system relies heavily upon such adjuncts of poetic recitation as cadence, rhyme, the caesura, and the mute e. Emphasizing content and reducing verse to prose, the vérité system concentrates solely upon text. Samson contends that a genuine system of declamation is to be found in neither extreme, but in an approach that is equally faithful to sound and sense. Samson's injunction that the actor speak with nobility is grounded in the nature of poetic drama which, elevated in verbal style, demands a corresponding histrionic embodiment. Echoing Samson's words, the playwright Ernest Legouve denounces an exclusive reliance upon either "unctuous" mélopée (recitative) or "false" vérité, but affirms that verse must be read like verse and poets interpreted poetically. Regnier admits that in his youth the highest praise accorded an actor was that he employed spoken rather than chanted declamation, but that toward 1885 speech was again being superseded by song. Although he, too, rejects exclusive reliance upon either system, he asserts that in performance music and meaning must unite, the music made evident without elevation to song, the meaning without reduction to prose. Regnier's student Henri Dupont-Vernon may prefer speech to song, but he follows his former professor when he insists that in the recitation of verse two equally important histrionic factors are to be taken into consideration — interpretive thought and poetic melody — a neglect of either factor producing imperfect delivery. Sarah Bernhardt's concurrence with her predecessors, two of whom, Samson and Regnier, had been her former professors, reveals that she favored a traditional alternative to two equally traditional, but extreme, systems of declamation.

In her histrionic treatise, Sarah Bernhardt expresses her theory by means of a definition: "Declamation is the art of saying, of declaiming beautiful verse with precision, tenderness, or fury...." Instead of one verb, the use of two, dire and déclamer, may be arbitrary, but is more likely intentional. Dire stresses content; declamer, music. Tenderness and jury are opposed to precision, for precision, an attribute of technique, is representative of the chant system, while tenderness and fury, emotional attributes, represent vérité. Sarah Bernhardt's advocacy of a system uniting sound and sense is corroborated elsewhere in her treatise where her explanation is more traditional than she admits: "I have unwittingly created a personal technique in order to intensify the sonorous music of verse, the melody of the word, as well as the music and melody of thought." Despite Sarah's lack of acknowledgment, her theory represents an outgrowth of Conservatoire concepts current in the 1860s.

During Sarah Bernhardt's student days, the Conservatoire offered four classes in dramatic declamation, which were taught by Jean-Baptiste Provost, Léon Beauvallet, Augustine Brohan, and Pierre Regnier. Of these four professors, only Regnier had not been a product of the Conservatoire. He was doubtless influenced by his mother Mme Tousez, a member of the Comédie-Française, but as was the earlier custom, he received his training in the provinces. In addition to their activities as sociétaires of the Comédie-Française, both Regnier and his colleagues taught three two-hour classes a week at the Conservatoire. As in the past, each student was assigned a specific professor, but now he was also required to be present at the classes of all. When Sarah Bernhardt passed her entrance examinations, she was placed under the tutelage of Provost, and in her memoirs she states that she attended the other classes as well.

In addition to the course in dramatic declamation, there were four disciplines, three practical and one academic, which the student was expected to pursue: deportment, fencing, coaching, and dramatic history and literature. The class in deportment, maintien theâtral, was directed by Georges Antoine Élie, the class in fencing by Pons. Coaching sessions with the répétiteurs, introduced in 1786, constituted one of the oldest features of the Conservatoire system. The function of these coaches was that of rehearsing roles with the students an hour before their classes. The répétiteur was the professor's assistant and was often, but not necessarily, a student himself. Provost, for example, be came a répétiteur after he had left the Conservatoire, and Denis-Stanislas Talbot, Sarah's répétiteur, was a sociétaire at the Comédie-Française. During Sarah Bernhardt's student days, the function of the répétiteur did not differ from that which it had served in the past. Later on, however, the teachings of the coach came to have so little connection with those of the professor that the répétiteur system was eventually abolished. The single academic discipline, a course entitled Histoire et litterature dramatique, after having been dropped from the curriculum in 1812, was reinstated in 1855 and was taught by Samson. Prior to 1855 Samson had taught déclamation dramatique, and when Provost became ill late in the academic year of 1862, Samson was placed in charge of his colleague's class in declamation.

It was at this time that Sarah Bernhardt became his student.

In both her novel Petite idole and her histrionic treatise UArt du theatre, Sarah Bernhardt reveals her attitude toward the Conservatoire. In her opinion it was an indispensable institution whose methods, however, were in need of reform. Although the Conservatoire is depicted noncritically in Petite idole, in UArt du theatre it is censured for overemphasizing the voice and for producing types rather than well-rounded actors. Sarah Bernhardt's negative attitude was connected with her bitterness toward the Comédie-Française and intensified by her experiences at the Conservatoire during the period of her professorship. Upon graduation in 1862, Sarah entered the Comédie-Française, but a year after the customary three debuts, she left as the result of an unfortunate clash with Mme Nathalie, one of the more respected sociétaires. After achieving considerable success at the Odeon, she was invited to return to the Comédie where in 1872 she made her debuts anew. Soon thereafter she became a sociétaire. So overindulged was her temperament, however, that it was bound to jar against the long-established rules of the House of Molière, and in 1880, after a number of stormy scenes, she resigned. Although later invited to return, she refused. In 1907, however, she did accept a professorship at the Conservatoire. Instead of assuaging bitterness, her year-and-a-half stay at the school served to intensify it. Ernest Pronier suggests that she resigned because of the difficulty of teaching and performing concurrently, but Sarah attributes her action to a difference of opinion with the Conservatoire. A student was placed in her class whose pronunciation was that of the Parisian faubourgs, in Sarah's opinion, the most intolerable of all accents. She maintains that her pedagogical efforts were useless against an impenetrable linguistic barrier: "With great patience I applied myself to teaching her how to recite a Suzanne scene from Le Manage de Figaro. After five lessons that I considered futile, I told the girl she would do well to resume her former profession of dressmaker." The student complained to higher authority, and when her appeal was sanctioned, Sarah resigned. Sarah Bernhardt's written evaluation of the Conservatoire therefore reflects subjective as well as objective appraisal.

While still a student, Sarah Bernhardt had commented upon both the faculty and the curriculum of the Conservatoire. Of the eight faculty members, only three emerge respected, and of these, but one admired. For filie and Talbot she expresses a condescension that is alternately amused, annoyed, and appreciative. For Pons she exhibits irritation; for Beauvallet, contempt. She reduces Augustine Brohan to insignificance by ignoring her. On the other hand, Sarah esteemed Provost, Samson, and Regnier, and she gratefully acknowledges her debt to each of them. It was Regnier, however, whose methods she most admired and whose teachings she followed long after her graduation from the Conservatoire. There can be little doubt that the art of Sarah Bernhardt was formed, not by the ideas of one particular professor, but by the combined precepts of the Conservatoire. After extolling the virtues of Regnier, Sarah expresses her gratitude for the entire curriculum: "My art is nevertheless indebted to the variety of studies which I religiously pursued." The Conservatoire curriculum thus became the foundation of the art of Sarah Bernhardt.

In discussing the individual approaches of each professor, Sarah describes Provost's style as "broad," Samson's as "precise," and Regnier's as "true." Both Samson and Regnier have left their methods and ideas to posterity in the form of treatises and memoirs, but as actor and professor, Provost died intestate, and what is known of him must therefore be reconstructed from external sources.

Although Provost had been trained at the Conservatoire, he did not achieve his first success in serious roles at the Odéon, but in the melodramatic roles he performed on the Boulevard. His six-year association with the Porte Saint-Martin may not have converted him into a melodramatic actor, but the exaggerated grandeur of Boulevard acting undoubtedly left its stamp upon his style and pedagogy. Samson gready admired Provost's acting, but he reveals nothing of his colleague's teachings. Volunteering a minimum of information, Sarah maintains that in his teaching Provost favored the broad style in both deportment and declamation. She recalls only that his gestures were sweeping and that his delivery verged on pomposity. Although Sarah's succinct description of Provost's style implies Boulevard influence, his technique was sufficiendy classic to have made his acting acceptable at the Comédie-Française and his pedagogy suitable to the Conservatoire.

The extent of Provost's influence upon Sarah Bernhardt is difficult to ascertain. In her memoirs she cites an anecdote which reveals her at interpretive odds with her professor. She disagreed with Provost both in choice of a tragic role for the annual concours and in the proposed interpretation. Despite her success in convincing him that Voltaire's Zaïire suited her talents, she failed to persuade him of the merits of her pathetic interpretation. Edmond Got, who became dean of the Comédie-Française, had studied with Provost two decades before Sarah Bernhardt and, in his memoirs, he praises his former professor, but points out that his great fault was in obliging the student to imitate him. Since Sarah's interpretive convictions reinforced her customarydefiance of authority, she had no intention of relinquishing her chosen interpretation. The line "Frappe! dis-je, je l'aime!" which Zaïre speaks at Nerestan's knees, represented the heart of the controversy. Following a heroic interpretation, Provost insisted that the line be delivered "forcefully," but Sarah, pursuing a pathetic approach, was convinced it would be more effective if delivered "tenderly." Unable to persuade Provost, she acceded to his wishes in class, but at the concours, she played the scene with an emphasis on pathos. She fell at Nerestan's knees with a sob and, with her arms outstretched, offered herself like a victim to his dagger. With tenderness she then pronounced the controversial line. Careful though Sarah is to record the positive audience reaction, she fails to mention her professor's response. The interpretive conflict concerning Zaire reveals the early manifestation of the actress's extreme individuality. It would seem, then, that Sarah Bernhardt acquired the broad style later in her career when, after 1880, she abandoned the Comédie-Française in favor of the Boulevard.

Sarah experienced similar difficulties in working under Samson. Like Edmond Got, she admired the methods of the eminent maitre, but she notes that Samson left little to the initiative of the student. "Authoritarian and unbending," he insisted that for her second concours she appear in "two very poor scenes" from "two very poor plays," both by the obsolescent playwright Casimir Delavigne. Unsuccessful in convincing Samson that a change of author would be beneficial, she gave a poor performance at the concours. Her failure might have been attributable to her professor, but in the previous year it was Sarah, not Provost, who had chosen the role and the interpretation, and at that time she had been awarded only a second prize in tragedy. The positive attitude toward Samson of other students and colleagues, including Rachel, indicates that the problems experienced by Sarah Bernhardt and Edmond Got were doubtless personal. In his tribute to Samson, Conservatoire administrator and playwright Ernest Legouvé pinpoints the talents of Samson by comparing his histrionic and pedagogical endowments. As a performer, observes Legouvé, Samson possessed "'genuine talent,'" but as a professor, "'genius.'" Sarah Bernhardt's difficulties with Samson were doubtless attributable to a clash of temperaments.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Sarah Bernhardt by Gerda Taranow. Copyright © 1972 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Acknowledgments, pg. vii
• Preface, pg. xi
• Contents, pg. xv
• List of Illustrations, pg. xvii
• ONE. VOICE, pg. 1
• TWO. PANTOMIME, pg. 83
• THREE. GESTURE AND SPECTACLE, pg. 123
• FOUR. ROLES AND REPERTOIRE, pg. 180
• FIVE. PARADOX, pg. 229
• Bibliography, pg. 249
• Audiography, pg. 262
• Filmography, pg. 271
• Index, pg. 275