François-Joseph Talma
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
.
He was born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. His father, a dentist, moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, gave him a good English education. He returned to Paris, where for a year and a half he practised dentistry. His predilection for the stage was cultivated in amateur theatricals, and on 21 November 1787 he made his debut at the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
as Seide in Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's Mahomet
Mahomet (play)
Mahomet is a five-act tragedy written in 1736 by French playwright and philosopher Voltaire. It received its debut performance in Lille on 25 April 1741....
. His efforts from the first won approval, but for a considerable time he only obtained secondary parts.
It was as a juvenile lead that he first came to prominence, and he only gradually achieved his unrivalled position as the exponent of strong and concentrated passion. Talma was among the earliest advocates of realism in scenery and costume, being aided by his friend, the painter Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
. His first step in this direction was to appear in the small role of Proculus in Voltaire's Brutus, with a toga
Toga
The toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a cloth of perhaps 20 ft in length which was wrapped around the body and was generally worn over a tunic. The toga was made of wool, and the tunic under it often was made of linen. After the 2nd century BC, the toga was a garment worn...
and Roman headdress, much to the surprise of an audience accustomed to 18th century costume on stage, regardless of whether it suited the part played.
Talma possessed the physical gifts to enable him to excel, a striking appearance and a voice of beauty and power, which he gradually trained to perfection. At first somewhat stilted and monotonous in his manner, he came to be regarded as a model of simplicity. Talma married Julie Carreau, a rich and talented lady whose salon attracted the principal Girondist
Girondist
The Girondists were a political faction in France within the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention during the French Revolution...
s. The actor was an intimate friend of Napoleon Bonaparte, who delighted in his society, and even, on his return from Elba
Elba
Elba is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. The largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is also part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia...
, forgave him for performing before Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
. In 1808 the emperor had taken him to Erfurt
Erfurt
Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...
and made him play the Mort de Cesar to a company of crowned heads. Five years later he took him to Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
.
Talma was also a friend of Joseph Chénier, Georges Danton
Georges Danton
Georges Jacques Danton was leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in theoverthrow of the monarchy and the...
, Camille Desmoulins
Camille Desmoulins
Lucie Simplice Camille Benoît Desmoulins was a journalist and politician who played an important role in the French Revolution. He was a childhood friend of Maximilien Robespierre and a close friend and political ally of Georges Danton, who were influential figures in the French Revolution.-Early...
and other revolutionists. It was in Chenier's anti-monarchical Charles IX, produced on 4 November 1789, that a prophetic couplet on the destruction of the Bastille
Bastille
The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. The Bastille was built in response to the English threat to the city of...
made the house burst into a salvo of applause, led by Mirabeau. This play was responsible for the political dissensions in the Comédie-Française which resulted in the establishment, under Talma, of a new theatre.
By the 1820s, Talma was established as "the dominant personality at the Comédie-Française, where he alone could still successfully impose classical tragedy upon the public". It was at this time that a young Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
, on one of his first visits to Paris, was inspired by a performance by Talma.
In The Case of Wagner
The Case of Wagner
The Case of Wagner is a German book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1888. Subtitled "A Musician's Problem", it has also been known as "The Wagner Case" in English.-Contents:...
, Nietzsche references one of Talma's dictums while derisively characterizing Wagner as an actor, and not a musician:
One is an actor by virtue of being ahead of mankind in one insight: what is meant to have the effect of truth must not be true. The proposition was formulated by Talma; it contains the whole psychology of the actor; it also contains--we need not doubt it--his morality. Wagner's music is never true.
But it is taken for true; and thus it is in order.