The 46th installment in the prestigious Collezione Ettore Molinario series presents a compelling artistic dialogue that celebrates one of theater's most revolutionary actresses through the eyes of two distinguished photographers. This latest exhibition piece, described as a "small theatrical work," pays homage to the legendary Eleonora Duse while exploring themes of identity, performance, and the relationship between body and character through the contrasting photographic visions of Arnold Genthe and Lucien Waléry.

Curator Ettore Molinario reflects on a pivotal moment of artistic choice that shaped his understanding of theatrical greatness. "One day I had to choose," Molinario explains, describing an imagined scene where he pictured both Eleonora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt stepping onto the stage together in his beloved theater. In that moment of visualization, he realized the fundamental incompatibility between these two titans of the stage. While both were sublime artists, only Duse truly belonged to his artistic vision and personal aesthetic philosophy.

Molinario's choice of Duse over Bernhardt reveals profound insights into different approaches to acting and artistic identity. He describes Duse as "the divine one," noting her historic achievement as the first woman to appear on the cover of Time magazine and, more significantly, as the first actress who completely surrendered herself to her characters. Duse allowed her characters to possess her entirely, transforming her body into a living instrument through which fictional beings could be brought to life. Her revolutionary approach was encapsulated in her famous advice: "You must forget yourself" – a philosophy that predated and influenced the most groundbreaking acting methods of the twentieth century, including Stanislavski's system.

In stark contrast, Sarah Bernhardt represented a completely different theatrical philosophy, one rooted in the power of unchanging personality. Whether she embodied Phaedra, Cleopatra, the Lady of the Camellias, or even Hamlet, Bernhardt remained unmistakably herself – statuesque, eternal, and unwavering even in moments of sexual fluidity. Molinario characterizes her as an "absolute ego," wearing no mask other than her own magnificent presence, creating an immortal theatrical persona that transcended individual roles.

The exhibition draws particular attention to Arnold Genthe's extraordinary 1906 photograph of Sarah Bernhardt, captured in the immediate aftermath of San Francisco's devastating earthquake. This image, created by the vibrant and innovative German photographer, shows the French actress sitting impassively in a carriage amid the city's ruins, wearing a magnificent hat and feather boa. The photograph perfectly captures Bernhardt's unwavering composure – a woman of theatrical grandeur maintaining her dignity even in the face of natural catastrophe. Molinario imagines how differently Eleonora Duse might have reacted in similar circumstances, given her reputation for wild emotional authenticity and her willingness to break conventional boundaries on stage.

Duse's revolutionary approach to performance included spontaneous, unscripted moments that shocked audiences of her era. In one legendary performance as the Princess of Baghdad, she unfastened her corset and bared her breast to reveal what she believed was the true soul of her character – a completely improvised gesture that demonstrated her total commitment to authentic expression. Similarly groundbreaking was her decision to perform without makeup, both on stage and in her daily life, a radical choice for a woman of that historical period.

The photographic documentation of Duse's final years adds poignancy to this artistic dialogue. Arnold Genthe, who had transformed from a classical philologist and polyglot into one of America's most sought-after portrait photographers, encountered Duse in New York in 1923 during what would prove to be her farewell tour. Genthe had arrived in San Francisco in 1895 at age twenty-six as a tutor to Baron Heinrich von Schroeder's son, but fifteen years later, following his groundbreaking photographic work documenting Chinatown, he had established himself as an innovator in psychological portraiture.

Genthe's photographic style perfectly complemented Duse's artistic philosophy, employing slightly out-of-focus techniques that created an almost vibrating quality in his portraits. This psychological approach to photography found an eager audience in New York, a neurotic metropolis that embraced his innovative aesthetic. When Genthe photographed the sixty-three-year-old Duse, he captured her silver hair and complexion, her profile emerging from shadows, and her lips appearing to part in what seems like a sigh or farewell – a haunting documentation of a great artist near the end of her journey.

The exhibition also incorporates the work of Stanisław Julian Ignacy Ostroróg, who adopted the artistic name Lucien Waléry in Paris – another example of invented artistic destiny. During the same period when Genthe was photographing Duse, Waléry created a striking series of nude photographs, including one particularly powerful image of a headless body that Molinario interprets as "a body awaiting a role." This work gains additional significance when viewed alongside Luigi Pirandello's contemporaneous play "Six Characters in Search of an Author," published in Italy during exactly the same years.

Molinario sees Duse as the embodiment of all these artistic concepts – a performer who offered her body without reservation, even to the painful blows of love and artistic transformation. Each time she assumed a character, she became that singular being among the infinite faces that crowded her psyche. Her genius lay in her ability to forget herself completely in order to remember and inhabit other lives, demonstrating that authentic acting requires making space within oneself for "the other" who dwells within us all.

The exhibition concludes with Molinario's simple but profound tribute: "Duse forever," acknowledging the eternal relevance of her artistic philosophy and revolutionary approach to performance. Through the contrasting photographic visions of Genthe and Waléry, visitors to Dialogues #46 can explore the complex relationship between identity, performance, and artistic truth that Duse embodied throughout her groundbreaking career. The collection continues to be accessible through the Collezione Molinario website, offering ongoing dialogues between historical and contemporary artistic perspectives.