This dvd presents a broad selection of materials from the Eleonora Duse archives in the Giorgio Cini Foundation. They mainly concern concerning the actress’s work on plays that actually were staged or simply projects. The reproduced documents are
thoroughgoing scripts, individual parts, printed texts or copies for the prompter for 18 plays. On all of these scripts the actress has left signs, notes, cuts, alternatives and various kinds of annotations in a slow elaborate process of reading, interpreting and
exploring. They thus provided extraordinary insight into her working method. The documents range from her most often performed parts to others only outlined. By consulting the dvd the reader gets the impression of exploring the actress’s private studio as she engages in the long process of studying and writing, made up of returns, second thoughts and betrayals, underlying the creation of her highly original, unforgettable performances. The seven playwrights involved range from William Shakespeare, translated and adapted by Arrigo Boito (Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra), to Tommaso Gallarati Scotti (Così sia), Maurice Maeterlinck (Monna Vanna and La mort de Titangiles), Augustin-Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé (Adrienne Lecouvreur), and Marco Praga (La porta chiusa). The two playwrights with the most often performed works are Gabriele D’Annunzio (Sogno di un mattino di primavera, La gloria, La città morta, La figlia di Jorio and Francesca da Rimini) and Henrik Ibsen (Ghosts, The Lady from the Sea, Jean-Gabriel Borkman, Rosmersholm and When We Dead Awaken). Created by the Veneto region in collaboration with the G. Mazzariol Department of History of Arts and Conservation of the Artistic Heritage, the dvd also includes a rich selection of mainly unpublished documents: articles, reviews, stage photographs, posters and letters. All of this material is useful in completing the picture of how Duse prepared and staged the various plays. The dvd is interactive, enabling scholars to browse page by page the scripts once owned by the actress, here reproduced in digital form.