La Dame aux camélias (Dumas fils, novel and play)
Také známý jako: La Dame aux camélias, La dame aux camélias, "La dame aux camélias", dame aux camélias, Marguerite Gautier
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Overview
La Dame aux camélias is the novel (first published 1848) in which Alexandre Dumas fils tells the love of Armand Duval for the consumptive courtesan Marguerite Gautier, modelled on his own lover Marie Duplessis, and her self-sacrifice. He turned it into a play that opened at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris on 2 February 1852 and was an immediate success; Verdi's La traviata (1853) is based on it. (Wikipedia, "The Lady of the Camellias".) In the 1880s the stage role was one of Sarah Bernhardt's signature parts. See also La Traviata.
Marie and this work
- Novel, 2 May 1876 (entry of 3 May, 059.0686). "J'ai lu La dame aux camélias hier après déjeuner. Je m'attendais à mieux après tout ce qu'on en a dit." She prefers Dumas père and "le vieux Plutarque".
- 26 January 1879 (084.0116). Writing about a love she wants to be "plus qu'un frère, moins qu'un amant", she tells Dumas fils that he is wrong to say "des horreurs dans votre préface de La dame aux camélias"; true love, she argues, shows itself in purity and disinterestedness. (Which preface she means is not clear.)
- 29 December 1879 (087.0095). Fearing that a man she hopes to be introduced to (Arnaud, per the RSR note) will think her cheaply available, she paraphrases Armand's sentence: "Dites-moi qu'il faut mourir pour posséder cette femme, je consentirai à mourir; mais qu'on vienne me dire que je pourrai l'avoir pour dix louis, je m'en irais en pleurant." The sentence is in chapter VII of the novel ("Donnez dix louis, et vous serez son amant, j'eusse refusé et pleuré").
- 27 July 1881 (092.0339). "Allons lire La dame aux camélias en rêvant que je joue ce rôle avec un talent tel que Sarah Bernhard devient laveuse de parquet."
- Play, Bordeaux, 15 September 1881 (entry of 16 September, 093.0079-0080). On the journey to Biarritz she and her mother stay in Bordeaux because "Sarah donnait une représentation", and she sees the play from balcony stalls (50 francs for two). She was far away and tired, and says that after hearing so much about Sarah she cannot judge her own impressions: "Je ne l'ai vue que quatre fois", the previous ones in Le Sphinx, Hernani and L'Étrangère; "je crois qu'elle est ravissante".
- Play, Paris, 25 May 1882 (095.0095). A charity performance with Sarah Bernhardt "avec son mari Dalmas dans le rôle d'Armand" (Aristides Damalas, stage name Jacques Damala, Greek actor who was Bernhardt's husband in the 1880s; Wikipedia, "Jacques Damala"). "Nous y allons en famille et je m'ennuie beaucoup... Sarah n'est pas si admirable qu'on dit."
Sources
- Wikipedia, "The Lady of the Camellias" and "Jacques Damala".
- fr.wikisource, La Dame aux camélias (chapter VII for the "dix louis" sentence).
- Diary paragraphs as cited above.
The glossary has no earlier entry for this work. For the actress see Sarah Bernhardt.