An exhibition at the Petit Palais, a ball, period literary dinners and guided tours, in Paris several events will pay tribute to the French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who died 100 years ago.
Considered the first international star, “The Golden Voice”for whom Jean Cocteau invented the expression “sacred beast”, took French theater to five continents before becoming a phenomenon. To pay homage to Sarah Bernhardt, from April 14 to August 27, the Petit Palais – which houses a famous portrait of the actress by Georges Clairin – will present the exhibition “And the woman created the star”.
She will retrace her life and her career – with, among other things, objects from her interior and her wardrobe -, but also her activities as a painter, writer and above all as a sculptor. Star of the Comédie-Française, with whom she had a stormy relationship, she regularly made the headlines of the press who were ecstatic about her interpretations but also exasperated by her eccentricity.
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A collective, called “Sarah in all its states”, will celebrate Divine from March 22 to 26, at events announced Monday at the Théâtre de la Ville. Closed for seven years for work, it must also reopen its doors in September and once again bear the name of Sarah Bernhardt, who had run the place for many years.
The celebrations, which will be launched by academicians Muriel Mayette-Holtz (ex-administrator of the French) and Laurent Pernot, will include guided tours in the footsteps of “La Divine”, a “Belle Epoque Ball”in costume, at the town hall of 9e arrondissement and period literary dinners at the Sarah Bernhardt brasserie, place du Châtelet.
Several conferences will take place, in particular at the Jean-Jacques Henner museum, around the one who had as friends Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde or Edmond Rostand – whose career she launched -, defended Émile Zola and transformed the Théâtre de l’Odéon into “ambulance” in 1870. Readings and concerts are scheduled for the parish of Saint-François de Sales, where his grandiose funeral (800,000 people) left. A conference is also planned on this icon of glamor in Belle-Ile-en-Mer (Morbihan), where she settled in the summer.
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