Lot 26
MUSIC VERDI (GIUSEPPE) Autograph letter signed ("G. Verdi"), to the opera manager Benjamin Lumley ("Caro Lumley"), telling him that he will be with him at three tomorrow afternoon, Paris, 1 February, docketed in another hand 1852; written the day before the premiere of Alexander Dumas fils's La Dame aux Camélias, the inspiration for La Traviata
4 December 2019, 11:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £892.50 inc. premium
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MUSIC
VERDI (GIUSEPPE) Autograph letter signed ("G. Verdi"), to the opera manager Benjamin Lumley ("Caro Lumley"), telling him that he will be with him at three tomorrow afternoon; and asking him to let him know and name another time during the day if this does not suit, 1 page, slight browning, traces of mounting overleaf, 8vo, Paris, 1 February, docketed in another hand 1852
Footnotes
Written the day before the premiere of Alexander Dumas fils's La Dame aux Camélias, which opened at the Théâtre du Vaudeville on the evening of 2 February – the evening when, as Verdi tells Lumley, he will be unavailable. It was of course Dumas's play that inspired Verdi, who at the time was wintering in Paris with his beloved Giuseppina Strepponi, to compose La Traviata (although it is not certain which performance it was that Verdi saw).
The letter's recipient, Benjamin Lumley, has the distinction of being the first person to stage a Verdi opera in London, giving Ernani at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1845; and going on to introduce a total of eight of his works to London. However, the years between 1849 and 1852 marked a hiatus, with nothing at all by him appearing in London (see Massimo Zicari, Verdi in Victorian London, 2018, p.9). Indeed Lumley himself was in serious difficulties at this period; and soon afterwards fled his creditors and settled in Paris; with Her Majesty's Theatre closed down between 1853 and 1856.