Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Autograph letter signed (‘tuo Giacomo’) to his wife Elvira [Puccini], New York, 12 December 1910
In Italian. 16 pages, 151 x 109mm, bifolia, with the envelope.

Puccini recounts to his wife the extraordinary premiere of La fanciulla del West, with Arturo Toscanini and Enrico Caruso, two days after the performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Puccini writes ecstatically about the debut performance of his most recent work. Discussing the ‘tremendous evening’ and his eagerness ‘to tell you everything’, Puccini writes that ‘the execution was extraordinary and the mise-en-scène splendid – [David] Belasco himself took care of it.’ Caruso was ‘splendid in voice and figure’. He describes the audience’s initial reticence and his own ‘terrible agony’ during the first act, which lasted a little over an hour and appeared to provoke little reaction – that is, until its end, with Puccini receiving more than 50 curtain calls in total. Describing his reception in the foyer, where he was introduced to ‘thousands’ of people, ‘all of them billionaires – the Astors, the Goulds, etc.’ For food and drink there was ‘un buffet chic’, but all Puccini had was a little water; after 2 o’clock, he, ‘Toscanini, [his son] Tonio, [his publisher, Giulio] Ricordi, and others’ went to an Italian restaurant. He also describes his health as well as his plans to travel to Philadelphia and London, and asking if Elvira has found a new, ‘less problematic’ servant.

Puccini’s La fanciulla del West had its debut performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910, conducted by Toscanini and with Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destin in the leading roles. Elvira Puccini was living in Florence at the time, effectively estranged from Giacomo following the ‘Doria Manfredi affair’ (see lot 250), to which Puccini’s mention of a ‘less problematic’ servant may be an allusion.