Tragic Muse
Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Rachel Felix (1821-58), the homely daughter of poor Jewish peddlers, was the first stage actress to achieve international stardom - and the last person one would have expected to resurrect the cultural patrimony of France. Yet her passionate, startling performances of the works of Racine and Corneille saved them from almost certain obsolescence after the fall of Napoleon (who had relished classical French tragedy) and the emergence of Romanticism. Audiences in Paris, London, Boston, and Moscow thrilled to her voice, and devoured the rumors of her offstage promiscuity and extravagance. Her fame - equal parts popularity and notoriety - was so great that she could nonchalantly dispose of her last name. La grande Rachel virtually invented the role of the superstar, while remaining a symbol of the highest art and most serious cultural pursuits. Indeed, her identity was fraught with such contradictions - which intrigued the public all the more. From the moment she was discovered playing the guitar on the streets of Lyons, to her debut on the Parisian stage at the age of fifteen, to her critical and commercial triumphs as Camille, Phedre, and other tormented women, Rachel's career was exhaustively "managed." A series of theater gurus, influential reviewers, and impresarios - including her brash and opportunistic father - claimed the credit for her astonishing success. What this abundance of male managers has always obscured is Rachel's own decisiveness and control over her time and money - not only did she play her various champions (and high-profile lovers) against one another, she openly defied them. Some called her stubborn, even perverse; in these pages, we come to recognize her as a woman ahead of her time, a charismatic individual very much in charge of her own destiny. As her fascination with all things Napoleonic suggests, Rachel liked power - both personal and professional - and had the talent to command it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Regarding her subject as a "cultural construct," Brownstein ( Becoming a Heroine ) inquires into the life of Rachel (nee Elisa Felix), the legendary 19th-century French actress (1821-1858), in a book that is less a biography than a scholarly study of the image Rachel presented to the world as the leading tragedienne of the French stage for more than 20 years. Brownstein examines the paradox of the uneducated daughter of Jewish peddlers reviving classical tragedy and performing the works of Corneille and Racine to great critical acclaim in a climate of virulent anti-Semitism. Audiences who thrilled to Rachel's performances also referred to her as money-grubbing and ignorant. Presenting Rachel through the eyes of fans, critics and novelists such as Henry James, Brownstein analyzes the phenomenon of stardom and describes how Rachel used her fame and fortune to enrich her life and rescue her family from poverty. Her long illness and early death from tuberculosis enhanced her reputation as the "tragic muse." Illustrations not seen by PW.