G. Verdi. Autograph letter to the librettist Salvadore Cammarano, 1848

VERDI, GIUSEPPE

Autograph letter to his librettist Salvadore Cammarano, signed ("GVerdi"), 31 May 1848

expressing disappointment at not receiving any of the libretto for their forthcoming opera [La battaglia di Legnano], enquiring if this is due to the serious events in Naples (the Bourbon suppression of the provisional parliament) or to his uncertainty about staging the opera there, assuring him that, in case it cannot be given, he will keep the libretto for his future use in any case and has arranged for Ricordi to pay him whatever he considers appropriate for his work, exhorting him to continue writing the libretto with as much speed as possible, and to send the prose draft of it to him in Paris (...Parto per Parigi e mi fermo una mezz'ora in Como espressamente per scrivervi. Speravo una vostra lettera continente poesie del nuovo dramma; ma forse le cose gravi successe nel vostro paese ve ne avranno distolto, oppure anche l’incertezza di produrre l’opera in Napoli…. ...")

1 page, 8vo, integral autograph address leaf ("esimio poeta melodrammatico, Napoli"), annotated by the recipient, Como, 31 May 1848, remains of red seal with small tear

Salvadore Cammarano (1801-1852) collaborated with Verdi on several projects for Naples, culminating in Il trovatore in 1853. He was the official poet and stage director of the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, so Verdi negotiated with the opera house largely through him. This letter shows the business-like but respectful treatment Verdi accorded his skilful but dilatory librettist, contrasting with the way he treated Piave (see Lot 87).   After many delays, including threats not to compose the opera at all, Verdi finally staged La battaglia di Legnano at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, on 27 January 1849. Verdi refers to the brutal suppression by Bourbon troops of the provisional parliament in Naples on 15 May which left about five hundred dead, a reaction to the revolutions sweeping Europe in 1848.

LITERATURE:

C.M. Mossa, Carteggio Verdi-Cammarano 1843-1852 (2001), no.18, transcribed from G. Cesari & A. Luzio, I copialettere (1913), p.53n, without recourse to the original and lacking some details.