Sarah Bernhardt’s presence in Montréal Québec

During the summer 2021 and under the direction of Geneviève De Viveiros, Amanda Lee produced a large portion of this study based on Sarah Bernhardt’s performances in Canada as they occurred between 1800 and 1918 and were studied by John Hare and Ramon Hathron, who included in their records her repertoire and the dates of her performances as well as critical opinions from various print sources. When Montréal constructed its francophone theater and its artistic infrastructure it quickly caught up with anglophone venues. Catholic institutions became increasingly adverse to Bernhardt deemed unworthy to represent the desired link to the French Catholic cultural bridge with the former motherland, in a context that revealed itself anti-women as well as anti-Semitic for this respected actress of Jewish ancestry, yet so famous for her French elocution. Bernhardt’s sulphureous reputation festered when she was reported as accusing people from Québec to be Iroquois or under religious guidance, setting her friend Louis Fréchette apart from the benighted crowd. Conversely, contrary to the increasingly negative reception of Bernhardt’s performances in the early 1900s, and the association of Jewish immigrants with Anglophone communities, Yiddish theatre saw a massive and fragmented growth between 1905-1910. By 1913, there were a total of three permanent professional Yiddish theatre troupes in the city.