Agar (actress)

Portrait agars

Marie Léonide Charvin , known as Agar , (born September 18, 1832 in Sedan , † August 15, 1891 in Mustapha , Algeria ) was a French actress.

family

Agar's family came from the Dauphiné in what is now the Isère department . Her father, Pierre Charvan, was 22 years old when she was born and Maréchal des logis , that is, a non-commissioned officer, in a mounted regiment of hunters. He was stationed in Sedan and so his wife and mother, 17 years old, followed him there. Her father was regularly transferred as an officer and so her mother died in 1848, still living in Lyon, while her father was already stationed in Limoges. The girl was then placed in the care of her grandparents in Vienne . Her father married Marguerite Bonneton, who was much younger, back in Vienne in 1851. Almost of the same age as Agar, the stepmother was extremely vulgar and treated her badly, which Agar found difficult to bear, and so she fled into a marriage with a certain Nique.

However, Nique, who ran a café in Chalon-sur-Saône , treated her even worse. So after a few years she ran away from him to Paris. When she arrived there in 1853, she first gave piano lessons. Then she began to sing in concert cafes under the pseudonym Madame Lallier . First in the Café-concert du Géant , later also in the Cheval-blanc . At that time she was still afraid of being recognized by a spectator from the Dauphiné, which one day also happened. But the compatriot was none other than François Ponsard , of whom she had nothing to fear.

Caricature by André Gill : Mademoiselle Agar (de l'Odeon)

First career

In 1858 she got a role in Roger de Beauvoir's revue Madame la Comète at the Théâtre Beaumarchais and in the following year she appeared in the same house in singspiele for the Battle of Magenta and the Battle of Solferino .

At that time she was taking acting lessons from Achille Ricourt . He advised her not to use her maiden name Charvin, but to use a stage name like the actress Rachel . Following the example, she also chose a biblical name and called herself Agar from then on . She then made her debut in 1859 as Mademoiselle Agar in a small theater, the École Lyrique , in the 9th arrondissement . She played the main role of Maritana in the play Don César de Bazan .

She continued her career in far more important houses. In 1862 she got an engagement at the Odéon and then at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin , in order to succeed in 1863 at the Comédie-Française . In 1869 she turned her back on the Comédie-Française for the time being to retire for a while.

Portraits of agars from Nadar

Paris Commune

When the Franco-Prussian War began in 1870 , she volunteered as a nurse. She also took up an engagement at the Comédie-Française, and then in the late summer of the first year of the war, in the breaks between two acts, she sang the Marseillaise . She donated the fee for this performance to care for wounded soldiers. She continued to do so during the siege of Paris . When the leadership of the Paris Commune organized a benefit concert for widows and orphans in the Tuileries in the summer of 1871, artists from the Comédie-Française, such as Agar with the Marseillaise, should also take part. Over 3000 spectators awaited her for her announced performance and it is alleged that she said she had forgotten the text and that she is no longer fighting the Prussians. Other statements are that she did recite some stanzas. A scandal broke out, which Agar was unable to stop, and she left the Comédie-Française in 1872 to go on a tour of the province.

Funerary stele with bust of Agars on the Cimetière du Montparnasse

Second career

In 1875, Agar returned to Paris. She made her first appearances in Hilarion Ballandes Matinées littéraires . However, real engagements soon followed and so in the same year she played a leading role, the Agrippine in Britannicus , at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin. She also had a role in a play at the Théâtre de la Renaissance . At that time she was already regularly spending her free time with the museum curator, Georges Marye.

Three years later, in 1877, Agar had made it back to the Comédie-Française. When her husband, Nique, died in 1879, she married Georges Marye, but continued to work. In addition to the Comédie-Française, she also played at other theaters that were in great demand at the time, such as the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, and continued her career until 1883.

A trip to Spain followed, from which she returned in 1886 and settled in Rueil-Malmaison . From there she had an extensive letter conversation with former colleagues and theater makers in order to - she felt financially disadvantaged over the years - to claim her rights, which she succeeded in doing. But Agar was still very disappointed and bitter that the Comédie-Française had dropped her in 1872 and therefore lost her for seven years.

In 1890, Agar and her husband embarked for Algeria via Nice. Her health was already very bad, so that she succumbed to her ailments in Mustapha the following year. At the Comédie-Française, her death caused consternation and 1000 francs were ordered for the transfer to France. So she came back to Paris, accompanied by her husband, where she was buried on the Cimetière Montparnasse .

Agar was next to Rachel and Sarah Bernhardt as the greatest actress of her time.

Others

Throughout the years her husband, Nique, has appeared from time to time, but Agar refused to resume their life together. She really wanted to keep her freedom. Her husband then went so far that he met her at the stage exit and took her evening wages. The extortion didn't stop until Nique's death in 1879.

Bibliographical reference

In his Dictionnaire des comédiens français , published in 1912, the historian and lexicographer Henry Lyonnet makes it clear that all other claims, including those of Pierre Larousse and Gustave Vaperau , regarding their origin from Israelites from Arabia, or the various dates of birth and places, as well as a hidden mystery are wrong at birth. Furthermore, she was never a waitress in a hostel in Vaugneray, nor was she a model for Eugène Delacroix .

Agar as Phaedra

Roles (excerpt)

• Don César de Bazan , the Maritana , École Lyrique, 1859
• Phèdre , Phaedra , Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, 1862
• Fils de la Nuit , the Ghébel , Théâtre de la Gaîté , 1864
• Conjuration d'Ambroise , the Queen Mother , Odéon, 1866
• Britannicus , the Agrippine , Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, 1875
• Mères ennemies , the Comtesse Boleska , Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, 1882
• La Glu , the Marie , Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, 1883

Web links

• Information on agar in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .

literature

• Henry Lyonnet : Dictionnaire des comédiens français, ceux d'hier , 1912, volume 1, p. 7ff., Digitized