Beschreibung:

Verdi, Giuseppe AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO HIS LIBRETTIST FRANCESCO MARIA PIAVE about Les vêpres siciliennes, reporting developments on planning the opera during his visit to Paris, including the fact that libretto will be written by Eugène Scribe, confiding that he would much rather compose two or three operas for Italy than write one in French, thereby earning more, but that his hopes of being commissioned for one at Naples are fast diminishing and that, unless something unexpected happens to save him, he will need to compose the opera for Paris ...Sperando di finire l’inverno a Napoli, ma di giorno in giorno le mie speranze disvaniscono. Intanto Scribe stà scrivando il libretto per me, e se qualche circostanza improvista non viene a salvarmi, bisognerà scrivere all’ Opéra, in francese, ma Oufa!!! Ed intanto avrei scritte due o tre opera in Italiano con più piacere e maggior guadagno... Verdi also launches a characteristically abrasive diatribe against Piave's apparent stupidity, partly written out in short lines like verse, describing Piave as deluded and completely wrong, prompted by a letter from [Cesare] Vigna, possibly about the biography of Verdi by Vigna's friend Luigi Luzzati, which had displeased the composer (“...Non so il perche!, il come, il quando tu ti sia incapellato, ma quel che so di certo che tu hai torto. Non so il perché ma tu hai torto, torto, tortissimo...”), unsigned, but with the salutation at the end: "Addio--La Peppina ti saluta..." 1 page, 8vo (c.20.5 x 13.5cm), integral autograph address panel (“Francesco Maria Piave, Venezia”), remains of red seal, [Paris], 1 December 1853, some light foxing, small seal tear