Fauré, Gabriel.

the short score with voice-parts from Act 1, at Pénélope's "C'était la chère voix d'un maître et d'un époux", with many divergences from the final version, in dark brown ink on up to seventeen staves per page (on systems of up to five staves), including a continuous draft of eleven bars for Pénélope's first entrance, with entries also for the suitors Eurymaque and Antinoüs (unidentified), with deletions, corrections, alterations and cues, the text entered throughout; together with, on the verso, further sketches for the music that follows, mainly orchestral passages with the voices added sporadically, 2 pages, folio, 18-stave paper, no date, probably c.1908

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Fauré composed Pénélope, his only opera, over a space of five years, and it was first staged at Monte Carlo on 4 March 1913.  This sketch is apparently an early stage in the composition process and concerns Pénélope's first confrontation with the suitors in Act 1, where she recalls the words of Ulysse to wait for her (pp.45-46 of the contemporary vocal score by Heugel); the verso containing shorter sketches for the continuation (for p.46 and 49), including the theme associated with Ulysse (c.1908), Antinoüs's declaration that Ulysses is dead and containing instrumental motifs from the Prélude to the opera.