Hector Berlioz. Autograph letter signed, to Eugene Scribe, 23 June [1841]

Hector Berlioz

Autograph letter signed ("H. Berlioz"), to the librettist Eugene Scribe ("Mon cher Collaborateur"), ABOUT THE UNFINISHED OPERA LA NONNE SANGLANTE, 23 June [1841], MIS-PUBLISHED

enclosing a manuscript of the first act (not included) which Scribe may keep, as it has been copied; informing him that he would have sent the second act next month had he received the libretto; discussing special effects in the score, which he insists should be saved for the more telling scenes ("...Je serais sur ainsi de ne pas aborder trop tôt certains effets qui doivent être tenus en reserve...")

2 pages, 8vo (21.2 x 13.5cm), integral blank, two later pencil annotations, no place, 23 June [1841], two old repairs to folds, some light spotting and browning

MIS-PUBLISHED. The letter appeared in a Maggs catalogue of 1928 with a partial text in English, which was subsequently translated back into French in Correspondence générale, ii (addressed to the wrong collaborator and with the wrong date).

In this letter to the leading librettist of French opera, Eugène Scribe (1791-1861), Berlioz provides a glimpse of his thoughts during the composition of a large-scale work. Scribe was slow to provide the second act of the opera, La nonne sanglante, loosely based on an episode from Matthew Lewis’s Gothic novel The Monk. Berlioz was frustrated by the slow progress of his librettist and did not receive the text of the next act until October 1841. He abandoned work in early 1842, though he considered a completion for London in 1847. The libretto was eventually set by Charles Gounod between 1852-1854.