Beschreibung:

MUSIC]. VERDI, Giuseppe (1813-1901), composer . Autograph letter signed ("G. Verdi") to Edoardo Mascheroni, Genoa, 27 April 1893. 3 pages, 8vo, neat repair to folds, matted and framed, mounted on rotating stand. INCORPORATING A TWO-BAR MUSICAL QUOTATION. VERDI RELATES AN ANECDOTE TO THE CONDUCTOR OF HIS LAST OPERATIC MASTERPIECE FALSTAFF Writing two months after the first performance of Falstaff (1893, based on The Merry Wives of Windsor ), the eighty-year old composer writes exhuberantly, claiming that he is dying of laughter: "I wanted to be congenial for once in my life, and I failed badly! I sent a portrait of myself to the proprietor of the Quirinale and I addressed it 'To Signor Bruno...' As Boito was leaving for Milan yesterday, he screamed in an F sharp voice 'but the proprietor of the Quirinale isn't Bruno.' Aahhhhh! And who is he?...He didn't know!...In a fury I took a revolver made of chocolate and fired it into my mouth! And I still live!!! [there follow two bars of music, set to the words "E vivo ancora" which are the final words of Il trovatore ] ... Save me, save me ..." The première performance of Falstaff in February 1893 aroused enormous excitement and enthusiasm in Milan and Rome and when Verdi eventually arrived in Rome on 13 April he had to be smuggled through the crowds of admirers into his room at the Hotel Quirinale. Among Verdi's major successes, which showed him to be a master of dramatic composition and established him securely at La Scala, were Rigoletto (1851), considered his first masterpiece, Il Trovatore (1853) and La Traviata (1853). Boito produced the libretti for both masterpieces of Verdi's old age, Otello (1887) and Falstaff , with a power, subtlety and brilliance that marked the culmination of Italian grand opera. Published in part in Charles Osborne's selection of Verdi's Letters.