Adelaide Ristori

A Woodburytype portrait of the celebrated Italian actress Adelaide Ristori (1822-1906), seen here in the title role of Maria Stuart by Friedrich von Schiller.

The French theatre of the mid-nineteenth century was dominated by two great actresses with very different acting styles, Rachel and Ristori, and a fierce partisanship arose between their supporters. When Ristori first appeared, in André Maffei's translation of Schiller's

Maria Stuart, French audiences were struck by the contrast between her fiery Latin style of gesticulation compared with the controlled, restrained, introverted technique that Rachel had popularised since her debut in 1838 at the age of seventeen.

Critics were divided in their reception of Ristori's style. Jules Lecomte charged that Ristori 'often offers a disagreeably drawn pantomime, vulgar attitudes ...The exaggeration of her acting, the affectation of her delivery, her unbearable sing-song, her often vulgar gestures, and her face contracted to the point of ugliness place her among the boulevard celebrities.'

However, this same variety and exaggeration of expression prompted Alexandre Dumas to write that 'the prodigious tragedienne, in the course of two hours, was at once tender, awful, calm, ardent, loving, jealous, menacing, despairing.' The seeming spontaneity and range of her emotional display impressed another critic, who wrote: 'Everything in her gushes forth - vocal intonation, gesture, gaze, facial expression, - without [the audience] ever once sensing effort, calculation or preparation.'

Photographer unidentified.