Lucrèce Borgia

THE MEMORY OF A BATTLE always remains attached to its location. That of Hernani at the Comédie-Française thus offered Victor Hugo a setting for his next work, Le Roi s’amuse. But the failure and prohibition of this play, accused of glorifying regicide, immediately shut the door to him, ruling out any prospect of premiering Lucrèce Borgia there. Thanks to Mademoiselle George, a former sociétaire of the Comédie-Française, the play was accepted by Harel, director of the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, who was open to the Romantic movement. Hugo stood in as director, closely following the rehearsals and performances of his actors, Frederick Lemaître (Gennaro) and Juliette Drouet (Princess Negroni) –from then on, the actress was to share the rest of her life with Hugo. On 2 February 1833, the premiere was a triumph, although the plays’ perceived attack on political morality tempered critics’ enthusiasms.

Lucrèce Borgia did not enter the Comédie-Française Repertoire until 1918, under the threat of German bombardment, which had disrupted performances in Parisian theatres since the beginning of the month. The context of the war accentuated the violence of the work, which was viewed poorly. Between 1935 and 1948, subsequent productions fared better, respectively featuring Mary Marquet and Louise Conte in the lead role.

Devastating, tortured, torn apart, because for her, “being a mother is hell”, wishing to do good but only doing evil, Christine Fersen was the Lucrezia chosen by Jean-Luc Boutté (1994), continuing his cycle of Victor Hugo productions (Marie Tudor in 1982, Le Roi s’amuse in 1991).

Masks have a predominant role in this play. Denis Podalydès substantiated this theme in 2014 by having the male actor Guillaume Gallienne play Lucrezia. The male-female reversal “is less about a woman being played by a man than a woman being locked in an appearance that is not her own” and as such acts as an allegory for the moral monster cited by Hugo in his preface. The inversion of genders is mirrored in the character of Gennaro, who in this production is a woman, played by Suliane Brahim. As with every Comédie-Française production, cast changes occur during the season, in keeping with the alternating calendar. In this case, Elsa Lepoivre became the new Lucrezia and Gaël Kamilindi played Gennaro.