G. Puccini. Six autograph letters and postcards signed, one with a photograph signed, 1917-1918.

PUCCINI, GIACOMO

Six autograph letters and postcards signed, one with a photograph signed (“GiacomoPuccini”), to Sybil Seligman, about La rondine and Il trittico, 1917-1918 

About the successful premiere of La rondine, commending its vitality and melodiousness, despite Tito Ricordi’s criticism of it as “bad Lehár” and his refusal to publish it, for which Puccini opines he will soon be sorry, sending the score to her, discussing his progress composing Suor Angelica, announcing its completion in August, repeatedly expressing his anguish that the "ghastly War" is continuing to prevent him coming to London, Vienna or Paris and endangering his son Tonio, who has been sent back to the front as a driver, lamenting the six-month-long pains in his arm and his diabetes, and the death of his elder sister Tomaide in August, apologizing for the black mood of his letters, causing him to hide one postcard photograph in an envelope, and promising to write more positively in future ("...Ho un’altra opera che ho cominciato--Suor Angelica, opera in un atto da unire all’ Houppelande [Il tabarro] che è già finita. Ho avuto molti Telegr:--mi sorprende di non averne avuti di Angelo nè di Ricordi. Lui diceva (Ricordi) che avevo scritto un’opera mancata [La rondine] ed era del cattivo Lehar! Io insistevo che la prendesse e ho insistito tanto, fin alla viltà! Ma lui niente--ora sarà pentito perchè la Rondine è opera piena di vita e di melodia, a voi piacerà molto…")

9 pages, various sizes, including 3 postcards and two lettercards, 5 autograph address-panels, a few marks in orange crayon, Monte Carlo, Torre del Lago, and Viareggio, 1 April, 11 June, 8 August, 2 September, & 23 December 1917 and 17(?) January 1918, 1 lettercard damaged (stamp removed) with substantial loss

Two of the letters are published in V. Seligman, Puccini Among Friends (1938), pp.268-169 & 274-275, the rest unpublished. Puccini gives information about the start and end of his work on Suor Angelica, the second of the operas in Il trittico (New York, 1918), having completed the first opera, Il tabarro, based on Didier Gold’s play La Houppelande. La rondine (Monte Carlo, 1917) was the only Puccini opera that was not published by Ricordi, and the autograph lost. Puccini’s gloom about the First World War reflects his concerns for his only son Tonio, but also for the terrible defeat suffered by the Italians at the Battle of Caporetto in October-November 1917 and its aftermath, described in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929).