The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1907-09-14
MEMORIES AND ARTISTIC
STUDIES OF ADELAIDE R|STOR|

/ the Memories and Artistic Studies
of Adelaide Ristori," translated by
G. Mantellini, and provided with bio
graphical "reminiscences by Luigi d.
Ventura, appear in a stable volume,
with many portraits of the great ac-
tress and her contemporaries, among
j them those of Rachel, Sarah Bern
+ hardt, Salvini, Ernesto Rosso, Ca
your, Victor Emmanuel H.. Dumas,
Gautier, Georges Sand, Alfred de
Musset and Plus TX, the relation of
some of these personages to the text
being but of the slightest, since the
actress confines her narrative closely
to the professional side of her life.
+ There is no mention, for instance, of
/ the romance of her courtship and
marriage to the Marquis Giuliano
Capranica del Grillo, merely a state
ment of fact. the translator telling
the story of paternal opposition,
elopement, and hasty union in the
preface.
Adelaide Ristori was born Jan. 30,
1922, at Ciyidale, in F'riulli, the
daughter of strolling players of no
particular talent or prominence. Her
first appearance behind the foot
lights took place when she was
three months old, in the natural part
of a sleeping infant, whose mission
it was to reconcile an obdurate father
to secret marriage. At the age of
five she began to find favor in the
eyes of the public in speaking"
parts in little farces, ''murmurs of
appreciation, if not applause" being
her share At ten she played little
servants, carrying letters, and the
like.
The stage manager" she remem-
bers. would make me rehearse many
times. lest | should appear awkward,
too familiar, or too stiff.
At twelve she became a regular
member of a theatrical company, be-
ing booked for children's parts. In
the following year she began to play
. second lady and at fourteen
leads were occasionally intrusted
to her. 1t was at this age that she
! recited for the first time Silvio Pei
ico's Francesca da Rimini.'
She began to be so efficient that
| an offer of the place of leading lady
was made to her by the manager by
the time she was fifteen, but her
2 father, sensible man, though a poor
I actor, fearing that her health might
suffer under the work thus prema-
: turely placed upon her, secured for
a her more modest engagement as
ingenue in the Royal company under
C the auspices of the king of Sardinia
q which was stationed each year for
several months at Milan. But the
1 child could not be kept back. At the
V end of her first year with the COM
pany she was promoted to first lady
and, after two years more, to 'abso-
6 Lutte leading lady.
1t was during her engagement with
S this Royal company, kistOri tells us
: that her artistic education really be-
gan. She mentions with gratitude
d Carlotta Marchioni and Gaetano Baz-
c 70 as her teachers, and expresses he1
faith in this old-fashioned method
e of training the player from the bot.
r tom of the ladder upward. BY 1S4C
when she was eighteen years old
II Ristori's reputation as an actress was
;. firmly established. 1t was then thai
she played for the first time Schiller's
: Maria Stuart Then she began the
s independent study of her art, which
carried her to her honored place
u among the international stars of hel
!, generation.
Ristori found French traditions oil
IL acting and the French drama ruling
6 the Italian stage. She set herself the
task of doing away with the French
{ manner of speaking verse, with its
= insistence upon metre and caesura
substituting for it what she calls q
''colored naturalness. The public
recognized her efforts and encour-
aged them, but at best she could dc
but little for the Italian drama in
: the middle of the last century, be-
cause like literature, it was suspected
: by the Austrian and native rules OF
the country as a possible vehicle OF
liberal thought and national aspira-
: tions. There are some curious illus
:. trations in the book of the gross stu
pidity of the Austrian and Pontitical
censorship in those days. Under
n Gregorius XVI, no character in a
play could be called Gregory, and
D under Plus TX. Giovanni MastaD
Plus or Giovanni We're prescribed
names. The word angelic was for
hidden on the stage; it was sacred
''Armonic' was substituted for it,
o which led a Roman wag to call the
: Via Porta Angelica" in that city, the
h Via Porta Armonica.''
h Nay, more, in the prompt-book of
G ii CURRENT play, Ill the stage u1TecLlOll
: here the actor (impersonating a
t mute) must express in pantomine his
b joy in beholding his fatherland," the
/, word 'fatherland" was stricken out,
Y and native land substituted, the
= censor apparently having high
e opinion of the eloquence of panto-
Il mime and the interpretative intelli-
: gence of spectators.
0 1t was in such depressing condi-
4 tons that Ristori resolved to leave
a stage whose best work was mutt
lated by political fear of all enlight-
eminent of the Italian people. Then,
e in 1855, the plan was proposed to
a her of a tour of France with the Roy
al Sandman company, and accepted,
S Notwithstanding it's many palpable
risks.
t MY object she says, was to
e vindicate abroad the true artistic
, genius of the Italian stage, and to
show that Italy was not only the
Land of the Dead
: Thus begun the series of triumphs
in foreign lands-in France, in Eng
: land, Germany and Russia, in Spain
, and Portugal. in Egypt, the United
= States, and South America-which
ended in 1885.
The actress appends to her auto
biography analytical studies of six
, of her famous parts" Maria
, Stuart Giacometti's Elizabeth of
aIv Hoobafl, ..AIo