G.Verdi. Characteristic autograph letter to the librettist of "La traviata", Francesco Maria Piave, 1852

VERDI, GIUSEPPE

Characteristic autograph letter to the librettist of "La traviata", Francesco Maria Piave, 17 August 1852

addressing his submissive accomplice in his usual hectoring manner, insisting that Piave writes the libretto for the opera they are contracted to produce for Venice (eventually La traviata], despite rejecting all his suggestions for the plot, dismissing his despair at the rejection of "L'Ebrea" and his threat not to write a libretto at all, sarcastically throwing Piave's words back at him, putting all the blame on him for not setting to work earlier, asserting that he himself would be able to come up with "a fine subject, a great subject", if he didn't have other things to do, explaining that it is difficult to find a plot among the jumble of French dramas he is being presented with, because everyone knows all the best ones already, but insisting "for the 20th t.mes " that Piave absolutely must come up with a plot and that "it has to be done", asking in a postscript if his pupil Muzio has sent him a play called "Matilda" ("...Vedi! s'io non avessi altre occupazioni sono sicuro ch'io troverò un bel sogetto, un grande sogetto. Nella farragine dei drammi francesi è difficile trovare perché li più belli si conoscono tutti. Bisogna fare, ripeto per la 20ma volta: se non trovi nelli altri cerca nella tua testa ma...bisogna fare...Addio!...")

1 page, 8vo, "Bath" paper, a few smudged corrections, integral autograph address leaf, ("Sigr Francesco Maria Piave, Venezia"), stamped and postmarked, remains of red seal, St Agata, 17 August 1852

VERDI'S LETTERS TO HIS GREATEST EARLY LIBRETTIST ARE RARELY OFFERED FOR SALE; we have only seen one here in the last twenty years. F.M. Piave wrote Ernani (1844), Macbeth (1847), Rigoletto (1851), La traviata (1853), La forza del destino (1862) and five other librettos for Verdi, who nevertheless treated him with scant respect, especially compared with Cammarano (see lot 89).

In April 1852, Verdi had contracted to write the opera with Piave that would eventually become La traviata. Originally scheduled for the carnival season at Venice, Verdi repeatedly rejected all Piave's plot suggestions and asked the management for postponements. Piave continued to suggest various French plays until, when Verdi rejected L'Ebrea, based on Théophil Gautier's La Juive de Constantine (1846), his normally-subservient collaborator threatened to give up on the project, in terms that Verdi repeats sarcastically at the beginning of this letter. Verdi decided on La traviata only in November and the opera staged in Venice on 6 March 1853. Although this letter was published by Franco Abbiati in 1959, his edition was evidently based on a transcript which lacked the date and other details.

LITERATURE:

F. Abbiati (1959), II, 174 (undated); the letter is quoted from, in English, in J. Budden, II (1978), 116, and in D. Kimbell, Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism (1985), p.296.