Eleonora Duse is one of the greatest actresses of modern theater. Creative, revolutionary, innovative, her figure has left its mark on society at the turn of the century and beyond. To distance herself from the nomad-like life that came with her métier, she once stopped in Asolo and fell in love with it. A passion that led her to speak of these places as a real paradise for the peace of the spirit.
Duse, born in 1858, in Vigevano, in a family of Clodiense actors began acting as a child, already with important roles in the most famous plays: from “The Miserables” to “Romeo and Juliet”. She stirred the interest of the public and critics with her style so different from traditional interpretations, as her characters had no make-up, wigs, or altered voices. She is a revolutionary performer, with a style built around the instinct and purity of real feeling, a completely new way of acting that will make her a cultural reference point of the time. Her life split between continuous journeys and troubled loves takes her to the Asolani hills by sheer chance, as guest of an American friend. The extraordinary landscape, the view of Monte Grappa and the stillness of this corner of Veneto overwhelm her to the point of wanting to live there, years later, as soon as she’d call it a career. After living in the beginning at the historical home called “La Mura” and then at the “Casa dell’Arco”, the “Divine” – as she was called – made Asolo famous in the whole world.
Today, Eleonora Duse rests in the cemetery of Sant’Anna, which overlooks the valley just as the window of her room was the place where, every morning, she used to display fresh cut flowers: a small altar for those who, during the Great War, had lost their lives in those enchanting hills.
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