Verdi, Giuseppe

to the librettist Salvatore Cammarano at the Teatro San Carlo Naples, reproaching him for not writing and discussing proposed subjects for operas, including two based on Shakespeare's play (as Re Lear) and on Dumas père's play Le Comte Herman, which has been recommended by De Sanctis;  Verdi agrees reluctantly that maybe they should reserve Shakespeare for another occasion, when they might have more time to consider such an important work, but emphasizes that doesn't intend to excuse Cammarano from writing Re Lear, but on the contrary he has fixed in his mind to compose not just an operatic masterpiece, but more particularly his own masterpiece

...Badate che con questo non intendo asolvervi da fare il Re Lear.  No no: io mi sono ficcato in capo di fare non un capo d'opera ma il mio capo d'opera.  Facendo ora il Conte Herman faressimo [sic]  più tardi il Re Lear, e forse sarebbe meglio anche per me perchè aver maggior spazio di tempo onde meditare e studiare bene un opera di tanta importanza...



 1 page, 8vo (c.22 x 14,5cm), Bath paper, integral autograph address panel, post-marked, traces of seal, annotated by the recipient on the address leaf, typed transcription, Busseto, 12 April 1850, light browning to foot of page 

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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Apparently unpublished: not in C.M. Mossa, Carteggio Verdi-Cammarano (2001). 

Re Lear was a subject matter that Verdi considered regularly throughout the 1850s, but never composed; in this letter he considers it the subject on which he could compose his greatest masterpiece.   Salvatore Cammarano was a celebrated librettist, attached to the Teatro San Carlo, who wrote Lucia di Lammermoor for Donizetti and Luisa Miller and Il trovatore for Verdi.  The composer had explained how they might cope with its difficulties in a letter of 28 February 1850, but the present letter, where he emphasizes its importance to him, is apparently unknown.  Mossa refers to Verdi's discussions with Cammarano in April and May 1850 as "questa fase complessa e purtroppo poco documentata" (p.172: no.69).