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The Making of ‘Don Carlos’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Andrew Porter
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Extract

In 1969 the Institute of Verdi Studies in Parma convened an international congress on the subject of Don Carlos. Fifty-two papers were read, and the proceedings fill a fat volume of over 600 pages. Two speakers had looked beyond the printed sources: Ursula Gunther had examined the autograph of Act I, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and David Rosen had discovered, folded down in the conducting score used for the first performance, and still in the Paris Opera library, a hitherto unknown section of the Philip/Posa duet which Verdi had cut before the premiere. He also found evidence for other pre-performance cuts, in the form of stub-ends of pages which had been literally cut from both the autograph and the conducting score; some opening and closing bars remained. A few months later I found this ‘lost’ music, in the original orchestral parts, still preserved at the Opera: the cut passages had simply been stitched or pinned together, or pasted down; the same had happened in the singers' scores. Line by line, it was possible to reconstruct a good deal of totally unknown music by the mature Verdi.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 98 , 1971 , pp. 73 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Atti del II° Congresso internazionale di studi verdiani, Parma, 1971.Google Scholar

2 ‘Le Livret français de Don Carlos: le premier acte et sa revision par Verdi’, Atti, pp. 90–140, amplified in the published version by discussion of the Sant'Agata librettos.Google Scholar

3 MSS 1072–4.Google Scholar

4 A.619.a, i-iv.Google Scholar

5 ‘Le quattro stesure del duetto Filippo-Posa’, Atti, pp. 368–88.Google Scholar

6 See The Financial Times, 6 February 1970; ‘A Sketch for “Don Carlos”’, The Musical Times, cxi (1970), 882–5; introductory note to the HMV recording SLS 956 (July 1971). Ursula Gunther's critical edition of the ‘new’ passages is to be published by Ricordi; score and performing material of my reconstruction are with the Chelsea Opera Group (Act I) and in the BBC Music Library (vocal score 14029).Google Scholar

7 The prose scenario and manuscript librettos bound in brown, blue and pink paper, representing successive stages of the text, are preserved at Sant'Agata; Dr. Gabriella Carrara-Verdi kindly allowed me to examine these.Google Scholar

8 See my ‘A Note on Princess Eboli’, The Musical Times, cxiii (1972), 750–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 I copialettere di Giuseppe Verdi, ed. Gaetano Cesari and Alessandro Luzio, Milan, 1913, p. 104.Google Scholar

10 The correspondence leading up to commission is in AJ xiii 499 (‘Correspondance: Auteurs—V), the Carlos material proper in AJ xn 505 (‘Mise d'ouvrages 1865–67’). Verdi's letters to Escudier and du Locle are in the Opera library, their replies at Sant'Agata. Unless otherwise noted, all documents are cited from these sources. I am deeply grateful to Mr. John Roberts for bringing the Archives material to my attention.Google Scholar

11 The libretto was written in 1854, and Meyerbeer's diary shows that he did in fact do some work on it in that year, before turning his attention to Dinorah (information from John Roberts).Google Scholar

12 Evidently he preferred not to put into writing his opinion of Holy Church.Google Scholar

13 Annibale Alberti, Verdi intimo (1861–1886), Verona, 1931, pp. 61, 71.Google Scholar

14 Alberti, op. cit.; Franco Abbiati, Verdi, 2nd edn., Milan, 1963. For example the letter Alberti (p. 71) heads ‘14 maggio 1866’ should certainly be dated ‘14 marzo’.Google Scholar

15 A. 619. supplt. I, which also contains eight pages of sketches for the Carlos ballet (see my ‘Verdi's Ballet Music and La Pérégrina’, Atti, p. 360). The tenor monologue is transcribed and discussed in the Musical Times article mentioned in note 6 above. It certainly formed part of the original autograph, since its bar-numbering system runs consecutively into the numbers of the autograph full score. Having scrapped the monologue, Verdi used some of the blank staves to sketch a theme for the ballet.Google Scholar

16 Carteggi verdiani, ed. Alessandro Luzio, Rome, 1935–47, iv. 163–7; Abbiati, op. cit., iii. 88–102.Google Scholar

17 Although listed officially as a mezzo-soprano, her repertory overlapped with Sasse's; in fact she had been the Opera's first Leonora. In 1867 Gueymard had the same salary as Sasse, 55,000 francs—5 1/2 times that of Rosine Bloch (Archives Nationales, AJ xii 658 (‘Appointements du personnel 1867’)).Google Scholar

18 His letter, and Verdi's reply, are translated in the article mentioned in note 8 above.Google Scholar

19 His misgivings were justified. Notes in the Archives and the Opera record that on 18 October 1866 Verdi skipped a rehearsal, ‘ennuyé de la petite grimace que fait Mme Saxe à propos des arrangements executes par Mme Gueymard’.Google Scholar

20 Archives Nationales, F xxi 969 (‘Procès verbaux de censure—Don Carlos’), misfiled under 28 February 1857.Google Scholar

21 See especially ‘A. A.’ in La gazzetta musicale di Milano, 3 March 1867, pp. 69–70; and Jacques Sincere in L'Art musical, 21 March 1867.Google Scholar

22 Thomas' Hamlet, the new production of 1868, achieved 64 performances within a year, Faust, the 1869 production, 75.Google Scholar

23 One critic after the London premieres of La forza del destino and Don Carlos showed unusual candour: ‘The public has accepted Verdi, and we, who are not of the public and have not accepted him, must… chronicle his successes with a mental reservation which shall exonerate our conscience from the artistic crime of having given utterance to what we do not feel’ (The Musical Times, xiii (1867), 97).Google Scholar

24 Leon Escudier's magazine, L'Art musical, contains much about Don Carlos throughout the 1867 issues. His brother Mane Escudier's review appears in LaFrance musicale, 1867, p. 77. Gustave Bertrand's (in Heugel's Le Ménestral, 1867, pp. 121–3) tells us that at the premiere Mme. Patti ‘brillait d'un trop vif éclat, peut-être, dans une éblouissante robe de taffetas rouge’. Reyer reviewed the piece in the Journal des débats, Gautier in Le Moniteur.Google Scholar

25 7,820.75 francs on the first night, 10,400.47 on the second; around 11,000 or more a night during the main part of the run; 12,161.70 on 2 October; 10,704.76 at the penultimate performance, but only 5,930.00 at the last, on 11 November.Google Scholar

26 E.g. those to Escudier of 11 June 1867 and 2 August 1869 (Carteggi, iv. 170–71).Google Scholar

27 Carteggi, 1. 111–59.Google Scholar

28 Letter to Giulio Ricordi, 10 July 1871 (Copialettere, p. 264).Google Scholar

29 Letter of 18 November (Abbiati, Verdi, iii. 110).Google Scholar

30 Copialettere, p. 295.Google Scholar

31 Letter to Tito Ricordi, 4 October 1872 (Abbiati, Verdi, iii. 606).Google Scholar

32 Sincere (L'Art musical, 21 March 1867) insists that this cut alone had the composer's authority; La France musicale (1867, p. 82) speaks of several, including the first strophe of the Veil Song and the revolt; the Gazette musicale (17 March 1867) mentions the revolt, the ‘repetitions’ in ‘Toi qui sus’, and the stretto of the baritone/bass duet &c. Sincere declares that the couplets of Sasse's ‘Toi qui sus’ were reinstated after the second night, ‘grâce à sa belle voix qui les a fait valoir’, but in the orchestral parts the third, fourth and fifth strophes remained pasted over until 1970.Google Scholar

33 Ulderico Rolandi asserts that he did exactly that, but gives no evidence (‘Libretti e librettisti verdiani’, Verdi: Studi e memorie …, Rome, 1941, p. 221).Google Scholar

34 Carteggi, i. 148.Google Scholar

35 Letter to Marchesi (Abbiati, Verdi, iii. 777–8); cf. Giuseppina's letter to Marchesi of 17 September 1875 (Carteggi, ii. 45).Google Scholar

36 31 October 1882 (Copialettere, p. 319).Google Scholar

37 Letter to Piroli (Carteggi, iii. 158–9).Google Scholar

38 The score is still preserved in the Covent Garden library (the orchestral material was destroyed only a few years ago).Google Scholar

39 The letters were first discovered, independently, by Ursula Günther (as announced in Le Monde on 14 April 1972, the day before this paper was delivered). She and Dr. Carrara-Verdi plan to publish the correspondence in a forthcoming issue of Analecta Musicologica.Google Scholar

40 Du Lode's long ‘Note sur des projets de modifications au libretto de Don Carlos’ (original in the National Archives, fair copy at Sant'Agata) is addressed specifically to these two points.Google Scholar

41 Verdi's revision of the scene is discussed by Ursula Gunther in Acta Musicologica, xliii (1971), 184–8.Google Scholar

42 On 23 February 1883 he commended Nuitter for having translated Boccanegra without being bound to rhyme: ‘the translation will be more faithful and expressive’.Google Scholar

43 The translation, by Angelo Zanardini (who also revised A. de Lauzières' version of the passages left unaltered), proceeded simultaneously with the revision, as the new pieces reached Ricordi; the details cannot be revealed until Verdi's letters of the period to Ricordi, currently on the market, become available for study.Google Scholar

44 The first performance was given in Modena on 29 December 1886 (as remarked by David Rosen; see note 5 above). ‘V. T.’ in the Gazzetta musicale de Milano (9 January 1887, pp. 14–15) describes the edition as ‘consentita e approvata dall'illustre autore’.Google Scholar

45 Alberti, Verdi intimo, p. 300.Google Scholar