ALS to Pierre Louÿs, French Poet and Dedicatee of Oscar Wilde’s “Salomé”

I am not confining myself to asking you for an authorization. I have presented you with a libretto which we have discussed and which you have accepted; we have settled all the conditions of our contract which will be signed in October. I have assured you that I will begin work immediately after Roland and have even talked with you of the translator! Furthermore, we have had conferences with a publisher, Choudens! Taking into consideration this manner of proceeding, profoundly serious on my part, and hoping for a little sympathy from you, here is all that I ask of you: (1) forbid M. Berutti to give performances of his work in Europe at least until the first performance of my Aphrodite. If you had been satisfied with me you would have absolutely prohibited his work.

I have no feeling concerning M. Berutti’s talent. The pain of seeing the cream taken away from a subject which I love has caused me to sulk. If the work were signed Massenet I should only be sorry to have lost a beautiful subject, but as an artist, I should have rejoiced to see it in such competent hands! (2) I also ask for your kindness in the following: if someone of those who have already asked you for an authorization (aside from M. Erlanger) should ask you to sign a contract, I beg you to postpone it until the first performance of my Aphrodite.

It all depends upon my work. I am not asking much and I do not believe you will refuse it to a collaborator whom you have received in Paris in such a charming manner.

My homage to Madame, and believe me, always your devoted admirer…”

The success of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in 1892 prompted German Emperor “Wilhelm II [to] commission… an opera from him to celebrate the Hohenzollern dynasty. The story chosen as the subject, Der Roland von Berlin, had to be translated into Italian for Leoncavallo to dramatize it, and the result was then translated back into German, in which language it received great acclaim in 1904, with almost 40 performances,” (The New Grove Dictionary). Leoncavallo’s place in the standard repertoire was ensured when Enrico Caruso’s performance of Pagliacci became the first record to sell more than a million copies.

In 1896, Louÿs published his exceedingly popular and scandalous novel Aphrodite – Ancient Manners about Egyptian courtesans. Leoncavallo left messages at Louÿs’ Paris home expressing his interest in the work but “did not include his own Parisian address, thereby forcing Louÿs to search for the composer through [the French firm Éditions] Choudens,” mentioned in our letter, and publisher of many notable 19^th-century compositions, including works by Berlioz, Gounod and Bizet (Leoncavallo: Life and Works, Dryden).

Louÿs finally received Leoncavallo but warned him that he had already authorized other composers to adapt the work including Debussy, who had previously set his poems to music and to whom Louÿs proposed that the work would make a good ballet or pantomime. “Debussy did not oblige. Speed always seemed important to Louÿs in these proposed collaborations. He failed to grasp Debussy’s meticulous pace, and from the start that seemed to doom their work together. But it also seems clear that none of the proposals caught fire with Debussy,” (Debussy, Jensen). Louÿs had also granted non-exclusive rights to Albéniz for a ballet and an opera adaptation to a student of prolific French opera composer Jules Massenet (1842-1912), Ernest Moret, among others. At the same time Puccini was also considering Aphrodite as a subject for his next work. Eventually, “Louÿs reluctantly agreed to let Leoncavallo use Aphrodite, as long as he was not requested to produce a libretto,” and lent him his own copy of the unauthorized libretto of Argentinian composer Arturo Berutti’s (1862-1938) 1902 opera Khrysé based on Louÿs’ novel. As Leoncavallo urged him in our letter, Louÿs forbade performances of Berutti’s work in Europe until 1904. Leoncavallo’s disapproval of Berutti contrasts with his approbation of Massenet.

Our letter also mentions French composer Camille Erlanger (1863-1919) whose dramatization of Aphrodite premiered in 1906. “Upon hearing Camille Erlanger’s adaptation of Aphrodite, Louÿs still believed there would be room for two, especially with a composer of Leoncavallo’s stature. Since beginning Aphrodite precisely ten years earlier on 22 July 1892, the author had refused eighty requests for operatic and stage adaptations, writing some five hundred letters on the subject, without one of the propositions ever reaching the stage. Tired, Louÿs implored Leoncavallo to decide, hoping that a combination of the composer’s ‘great talent’ and ‘universal fame’ would finally lead to a fruitful collaboration. When Leoncavallo eventually dropped the project, one cannot help concluding that his interest had only been inspired by Puccini’s,” (ibid.).

Written on all four pages of a folded sheet of decorative stationery. Folded with dust staining and normal wear. With the original holograph envelope. In very fine condition and a valuable association piece.