Sarah Bernhardt on Stage and Screen: Nineteenth-Century Theater Music and Early Silent Film

Abstract

Silent film accompaniment owes much to the musical practices of nineteenth-century theater. Yet if we are to fully acknowledge these debts, we must first embrace theater music as a complex entity in its own right. Analyzing the eclectic sixty-year career of legendary French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) is one way to approach these connections between theater and film. Bernhardt employed a great deal of music in her theatrical performances, and by the early twentieth century embraced the new medium of film as well, appearing in a number of motion pictures. Drawing on scores, newspaper accounts, production materials, and advertisements, I examine how music for Bernhardt stage dramas such as Theodora, Cleopâtre, Phedre, and La belle au bois dormant compares and contrasts with accompaniments for her silent films such as Camille, Queen Elizabeth, Jeanne Dore, and Les meres francaises. Through this case study, I hope to provide a more nuanced perspective of the historical lineage between nineteenth-century stage music and early cinema practice.