Verdi, Giuseppe

confiding in him "as a friend" what he would not tell the management of La Scala, that he does not want to come to supervise the Italian première of Don Carlos, scoffing at their concern that he has not replied to all their invitations, remarking that all the rehearsals would be very exhausting, and that he is still recovering from those in Paris; Verdi judges that his coming to Milan would invest the La Scala production with an unwarranted importance, pointing out that he already has everything he needs to mount the opera, and declares that he really does not need to make a final decision now, although he will write to Ricordi anyway

3 pages, 8vo (c.20.5 x 13cm), black-edged paper, Genoa, 2 December 1867, typed transcriptions, foxing and creasing, repairs to spiltting at folds

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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...Ad un' amico posso aprire l'animo mio e dire quello che non dirò alla Commissione. --Cosa verrei a fare a Milano?  Mettere in scena un' opera che è stata rappresentata in tre gran Teatri mi sembra un' inutilità.  Più, venendo io, si farebbe un po' di blague  e si darebbe troppa importanza a cosa che forse non merita...Aggiungi la fatica delle prove che per me, tu ben lo sai, è immensa...

 Apparently unpublished. This is in some ways a poignant letter by Verdi to his long-standing collaborator, and almost certainly the last.   Piave's duties as librettist at La Scala would have included acting as stage-manager for their production of Don Carlos.  However, three days after this letter was sent, Piave suffered a stroke and remained an invalid for the remaining eight years of his life.  Don Carlos was originally written for the Paris Opéra and staged on 11 March 1867; it was given in Italian first at Covent Garden on 1 June and then at Bologna on 27 October.   When La Scala finally gave Don Carlos at the end of 1868, without Verdi, it was not a great success.  Instead of attending Don Carlos at La Scala, Verdi revised La forza del destino instead.