O Joelho de Sarah Bernardt: A Musa Francesa no Palco Carioca na Belle Epoque Rio de Janeiro

• In Event: Rio By Night, 1840s-1940s

Abstract

As the night fell on turn-of-the-twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro, the elites of the city flocked to the half-dozen theaters to enjoy the plays of European and Brazilian performers in productions that either promoted national culture or borrowed heavily from abroad. As the gas-lit flood lights dimmed on the São Pedro Theater, Rio’s high society, dressed in their finest, enjoyed comedy, drama, and opera. Among the Europeans who performed in Rio was Sarah Bernhardt, popularly known as France’s greatest nineteenth-century actress, who toured Brazil in 1886, 1893, and 1905. (On her third visit she injured her knee, a tragedy that eventually led to her leg being amputated). Brazil journalists praised her representations of the ideal feminine and students thronged to her performances, offering their apparel, flowers and bodies to the French diva. This paper examines Brazilian accounts of her visits to consider how gender constructions of the ideal feminine were reflected onto the performances of the “Divine Sarah.” It also explores how the actress fashioned an image of the “New Woman” that had to negotiate between different stereotypes to be seen neither as an immoral courtesan or an excessively independent professional woman, who debased of her femininity. In the process of analyzing her visits to Rio, the paper also unpacked one of the myths that she invented about herself that left the blame on Rio.

Author

• James N Green, Brown University