"If you don't do what I want, I'll stop dying!" » Behind this threat hides an immortal actress with a fiery temperament but emphatic acting, renowned for her spectacular agonies on stage: the divine Sarah Bernhardt. One hundred years after the disappearance of the indomitable tragedian, the Petit Palais looks back on the theatrical career of this "sacred monster" of live performance, a term invented for her by Jean Cocteau to sum up her life, her follies. The exhibition is thus intended to reflect the actress, eccentric and excessive, in every way unreasonable! By mixing his intimate photographs with his sumptuous stage costumes, by contrasting the famous posters signed by his friend Alphonse Mucha with his personal effects, the museum signs the largest retrospective ever devoted to this emblematic figure of the Belle Époque playing to sold-out crowds everywhere. where it was happening. More than 400 pieces, objects and treasures retrace the life of this star with "the Golden Voice", mythical performer of La Dame aux camélias, to whom we owe the invention of the Hollywood studio Paramount! By drawing on a Shakespearian imagination, the exhibition thus looks back on each of his greatest roles in the theater, recounts his best friendships with the whole of Paris - from Victor Hugo to Edmond Rostand, from Gustave Doré to Sacha Guitry - while saluting his unique sense of repartee. Beyond the whimsical character of the "Empress", the institution raises the curtain on a little-known part of her history by exploring her life as an artist, her patriotism or her past as a sculptor. Yet a Sarah remains to be discovered, that of intimacy, the most secret of all. Multiple objects that belonged to her give us some keys to understanding the woman behind the icon. If everything in this exhibition reminds us of his taste for eccentricities and oddities, the Petit Palais celebrates here above all the image of a legend until it bows out one last time.

Did you know?
Attacked throughout her life on her physique, the actress, however at the height of her glory, succumbed to diktats in 1912 by carrying out… a facelift! The cosmetic surgery operation, which was then in its infancy, unfortunately did not go as planned and had to be corrected by the pioneer in this field, the Frenchwoman Suzanne Noël.

Focus on...
And God created Sarah Bernhardt

A white satin dress, blue stockings barely hidden by a black mule, a feathered fan and her arm resting carelessly on a golden cushion... Stretched out on a garnet sofa, Sarah Bernhardt gazes at the viewer with the calm assurance of a diva certain of her power of seduction. The painter Clairin, who was her lover and then a faithful friend, remained for fifty years the appointed portrait painter of her illustrious muse. With this portrait of skilfully studied nonchalance, the young actress will definitely conquer Paris.