Item #24135 Autograph letter signed "E. Frezzolini" to the French music publisher Marie Escudier. Erminia FREZZOLINI.

Autograph letter signed "E. Frezzolini" to the French music publisher Marie Escudier

2 pp. of bifolium. Octavo. Dated Tuesday evening. In blue ink. On stationery with Frezzolini's monogram embossed at head. In French (with translation). With autograph envelope, ca. 58 x 86 mm., with recipient's name and address to upper panel.

Frezzolini asks Escudier to apologize to a certain Mr. Paulin for her poor welcome. She then relays several times during which she would be free to meet Paulin.

"Mr. Paulin did indeed come to see me today but at the moment when I was leaving. In my hurry I took him for a visitor whom I had feared for several days and I fear that my welcome made itself felt! Please relay to him my regrets about it and believe me that I will always be inclined to be pleasant to you and your friends."

Very slightly worn and soiled; creased at folds and slightly overall; minor remnants of former mount to blank second leaf.

Closely identified with Romantic opera and especially with Verdi, Frezzolini "had bel canto skills but sang in the new manner called for by Verdi's works, uniting smooth legato and dramatic power. Her sensational début, at Florence in 1837, was in the title role of Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda; this remained one of her most effective parts, along with Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia (in which she caused another sensation, at La Scala in 1840), Bellini's Elvira (I puritani), and Verdi's Giselda, Gilda (Rigoletto) and Leonora (Il trovatore). She also created the title role in Coccia’s Giovanna II, regina di Napoli (1840, Milan). She was compared to Maria Malibran for boldness, intensity and pathos, with an added sweetness of timbre; Fétis wrote of her beauty and nobility on stage. After an early London season (1841) and many Italian engagements, she spent the years between 1847 and 1857 in St Petersburg, Madrid, London and Paris." John Rosselli in Grove Music Online.

In 1840, Marie-Pierre-Pascal Escudier (1809-1880) and his brother Léon (1815-1881) founded a Paris publishing firm, which developed out of their weekly journal, La France musicale. "From May 1842 the firm began to publish music on its own account... In 1849 Marie Escudier had become sole director of La France musicale, with Léon as his co-editor; and by November 1853 at the latest Léon had taken sole responsibility for the music publishing activities of the firm." Both La France musicale and the publishing firm paid special attention to Italian opera; indeed the firm served as Verdi's chief French publisher, and did much to establish his international reputation. Richard Macnutt in Grove Music Online.

Item #24135

Price: $200.00  other currencies

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