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Adrienne Lecouvreur




Born in Damery , she first appeared professionally on the stage in Lille . After her Paris debut at the Comédie Française in 1717 , she was immensely popular with the public, until her mysterious death.

She was credited with having developed a more natural, less stylized, type of acting.

She had a romance with Maurice De Saxe , which ended in tragedy when she was apparently poisoned by her rival, the Duchess of Bouillon. The refusal of the Catholic Church to give her a Christian burial moved her friend Voltaire to write a bitter poem on the subject.

Her life became the inspiration for a tragic drama by Scribe and Legouvé . on which Francesco Cilea 's opera Adriana Lecouvreur is based.