OFFENBACH, Jacques (1819-1880)
Autograph letter signed « Jacques Offenbach » to Philippe Gille
N.p.n.d. [after 1868], 1 p. in-8° (with autograph envelope)
« In the past, one would certainly have noted in your paper the rather curious fact of a musician or some writer rehearsing three pieces at the same time »
Fact sheet
OFFENBACH, Jacques (1819-1880)
Autograph letter signed « Jacques Offenbach » to Philippe Gille
N.p.n.d. [after 1868], 1 p. in-8° on laid paper
Header with his monogram “J. O”
Watermark: “Original / Turkey Mill / Kent”
Autograph envelope (delivered by hand) enclosed
In the midst of rehearsing three of his works, Offenbach asks his librettist friend Philippe Gille to devote a note to him in Le Figaro, as kind as the one he has just written about him in La Liberté
« Mon cher ami,
Je trouve une note des plus gentilles, des plus aimables, des plus amicales dans La Liberté.
Je te demande d’en faire une pareille et de la faire passer ce soir dans Le Figaro, si toute fois tu y as encore quelque influence.
Autrefois on aurait certes signalé dans ton journal la chose assez curieuse d’un musicien ou d’un auteur quelconque faisant répéter trois pièces à la fois – Mais maintenant que le Figaro est entièrement à… on oublie facilement les vieux amis. Tant pis pour ceux qui oublient. Je ne t’en aime pas moins.
Ton Jacques Offenbach »
A longtime collaborator of Offenbach for over twenty years, Philippe Gille (1830–1901) was the composer’s librettist for six opéras bouffes and operettas. Their partnership reached its peak with Le Docteur Ox (premiered in 1877 at the Théâtre des Variétés), the last work the two men created together, with Arnold Mortier also contributing to the libretto. Gille also worked as a librettist for composers such as Bizet, Delibes, and Massenet. An influential journalist and close to the naturalist writers, he wrote a regular column in Le Figaro under the title Bataille littéraire.
A German-born composer who later became a naturalized French citizen, Jacques Offenbach began his career as a virtuoso instrumentalist. In 1855, he opened his own theatre, Les Bouffes-Parisiens. His brilliance lay in turning this genre into a form of musical and social satire, parodying both the noble traditions of opera and the bourgeois values of the Second Empire.
Jacques Offenbach’s letters are rather uncommon on the open market.
Provenance:
Private collection