Helena Modjeska
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| Helena Modjeska | |
 Helena Modrzejewska as Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Austrian Poland, 1867. |
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| Birth name | Helena Opid |
| Born | October 12, 1840 Kraków, Poland |
| Died | April 8, 1909 Newport Beach, California, USA |
| Spouse(s) | Gustav Modrzejewski (1861-1868) Count Karol Bozenta Chłapowski (1868) |
Helena Modjeska (Modrzejewska, "Mod-zhe-yev-ska"; born "Helena Opid"; in the Free City of Kraków, October 12, 1840 - April 8, 1909, Newport Beach, California, USA) was a renowned Polish actress who specialized in Shakespearean roles.
She was the mother of Ralph Modjeski, and godmother to Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, son of Stanisław Witkiewicz (the elder Witkiewicz almost accompanied her and her family to California in 1876).
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[edit] Early life
Modjeska's father, Michał Opid, was a musician, and her tastes soon declared themselves strongly in favor of a dramatic career. In 1861 she married her guardian, Gustav Modrzejewski, who helped her get started in the theater.
In 1868 Modrzejewski died. Modrzejewska married Count Karol Bozenta Chłapowski, a politician and critic, and received an invitation to act at Warsaw, in Russian Poland, where she remained for seven years. She kept the normal, grammatically-feminine form of her first husband's surname. She would later, when acting abroad, use an "anglicized" version of her name ("Modjeska"), easier for English-speaking audiences to pronounce. [1]).
In 1876 Modjeska emigrated with her husband and son and several friends, including fellow-luminary Henryk Sienkiewicz, future author of Quo Vadis, to southern California. There they founded a utopian Polish colony on a ranch that Modjeska and her husband bought near Anaheim (future home of Disneyland). It was in this period that Sienkiewicz wrote his Charcoal Sketches (Szkice węglem). The utopian experiment failed, the colonists went their separate ways, and Modrzejewska returned to the stage, reprising Shakespearean roles that she had acted in Poland.
[edit] Career
In 1877 Modjeska appeared in San Francisco in an English version of Ernest Legouvé's Adrienne Lecouvreur and also made her New York debut. Despite her imperfect command of English, she achieved remarkable success.
During her career she played nine Shakespearean heroines, Marguerite Gautier in Camille, and Schiller's Mary Stuart. In 1883, the year she took out American citizenship, she produced Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House in Louisville, Kentucky, the first Ibsen play staged in the United States. In the 1880s and 1890s she had a reputation as the leading female interpreter of Shakespeare on the American stage.
In 1893 Modjeska was invited to speak to a women's conference at the Chicago World's Fair, and described the situation of Polish women in the Russian- and Prussian-ruled parts of dismembered Poland. This led to a Tsarist ban on her traveling in Russian territory.
She last visited Poland in 1902-03. During her stay, from October 31, 1902, to April 28, 1903, she appeared on the stage in Lwów (Austro-Hungarian Poland), Poznań (German Poland) and Kraków (Austro-Hungarian Poland).
On May 2, 1905, she gave a jubilee performance in New York City. Then she toured for two years and ended her acting career, afterward only appearing sporadically in support of charitable causes.
Modjeska died near Los Angeles, California, on April 8, 1909. A book by her, Memories and Impressions of Helena Modjeska, appeared posthumously in 1910. A Polish translation ran that same year in the Kraków newspaper, Czas (Time). The last Polish edition of the book appeared in 1957.
Modrzejewska's son, Rudolf (Ralph Modjeski), became famous as a designer of bridges.
Modjeska's home from 1888 to 1906, "Arden," is a registered National Historic Landmark. Named for her are "Modjeska Canyon" (where Arden is located) and nearby "Modjeska Peak" (the north peak of Saddleback Mountain).
[edit] Roles
Modjeska's chief tragic roles were:
- William Shakespeare:
- Ophelia, in Hamlet;
- Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet;
- Desdemona, in Othello; and
- Queen Anne, in Richard III.
- Nora, in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.
- Louisa Miller.
- Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart.
- Friedrich Schiller's Princess Eboli.
- Marion Delorme.
- Victor Hugo's Tisb.
- Juliusz Slowacki's Mazeppa.
Her favorite comedy roles were:
- Beatrice, in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
- Donna Diana, in Donna Diana.
Modrzejewska was also the Polish interpreter of the most prominent plays by Ernest Legouvé, Alexandre Dumas, père and fils, Émile Augier, Alfred de Musset, Octave Feuillet and Victorien Sardou.
[edit] Popular culture
Susan Sontag's 1999 novel, In America, won the National Book Award in 2000. Although fiction, it is based on the true story of Helena Modrzejewska (in the book, called "Maryna Zalewska"), her 1876 emigration to California, and her ascendance to American stardom.
Modrzejewska's ghost is said to haunt The Calumet Theatre where her presence supposedly can be felt.
[edit] References
- Mabel Collins, The Story of Helena Modjeska, London, 1883.
- Helena Modjeska, Memories and Impressions, New York, 1910.
- Obituary of Susan Sontag, New York Times, December 28, 2004
