PUCCINI, GIACOMO. (1858-1924). ALS. (“Giacomo”). 6pp. Small 4to. N.p., June 20, 1921. To his lover, German-Jewish soprano ROSE ADER (1890-1955; “My sweet Rose”). In Italian with translation.

“By this time, you will have completed the audition with Gatti Casazza. Everything saddens me! Even the thought that you must go to America. I know, I am sure, my fate is to lose you. My heart is already prepared for this! Feeling more or less pain, life is made of suffering, especially for me, because I have a soul that feels, and maybe it feels too much!! I did not write to you in the past 3 days because I just could not. I was in such a bad mood, and I did not want you to feel the same with my letters. But today I decided to do it. This morning, I received 2 little travel letters, and last night, another one, where you tell me about your trip to Vienna. Are you alone? Are many people trying to talk to you during your trip? I know it, but you will be serious and good, I have no doubt about this because you love me, and when you truly love someone like I love you and like you love me, the whole world is for us only. But if we were ever to meet, what sustains love? I can resist, but you, so young and beautiful? Do you see my sadness and despair? Maybe I am being neurasthenic? My life is only suffering, and you believe that in this country of mine (in Italy) you can no longer breathe art. Everything is bluff, everything is greed and falsehood, and an artist with a delicate and sensitive conscience and soul feels bad in it. Oh, how I liked Vienna, even as it is reduced, poor city! Here, art is at the forefront, and everything and everyone speaks to you with passion and aestheticism. Poor Italy! This worries me, and I think Turandot will not succeed. I think I am too old (by the way, I was not born on June 22, but on December 23) and I will not be able to do anything good and then... and then... I mean, sometimes I think it would be better if I die and I stop thinking about anything.

Perhaps it would have been better if I had not written to you today, my dear Rose! I think so much about you, wondering how you can love me! You can see that God loves me if he allows your love to me. Do not talk about me to Gatti Casazza unless it is incidentally. He is a dear friend, but I do not want him to know about our love, because he could talk. After Vienna are you going to … Alone? Or with your mother? Are you not returning to Hamburg? Please tell me everything, be clear and sincere about your life. How long are you staying in Vienna? And how will you manage to read my letters? I cannot stand others reading them. By now, your teacher in Hamburg already knows about us, but what about others? I should not write you about my personal sadness and my most intimate thoughts!

How will you do this? I have no one here to translate into German.

But would you go to America? My God! Of course, you must pursue the career you deserve, and I must approve, but it is sad and hard for me!

Write and tell me about everything and about the audition. You can write at your best, but in Italian. I will understand you how I understood the two letters you wrote during your trip.

Goodbye My Holy Love,
Millions of kisses,
on your divine mouth,
your Giacomo”

In 1915, following her debut at the Hamburg Opera, Ader sang at the Vienna State Opera from 1918 to 1919 and returned to Hamburg in 1921, where Puccini first saw her perform in the German première of his Suor Angelica. She sang at La Scala and on the opera stages of Munich, Berlin, and Vienna. However, her career was cut short by the Nazis due to her Jewish heritage, and she eventually immigrated to Buenos Aires.

During his lifetime Puccini had a succession of mistresses, many of whom were opera singers. Between 1921 and 1923, he enjoyed what was likely his last romantic fling, falling passionately in love with Ader, for whom he created the part of Liù in his final work, Turandot, mentioned in our letter. “With Turandot Puccini felt that he was moving on to a loftier plane, that an ‘original and perhaps unique work is in the making,’ compared with which all his previous music seemed to him ‘a farce.’ But no other opera cost him so much labour and toil… and no other opera filled him with such strong doubts about his creative powers,” (The New Grove Dictionary). Following his death on November 29, 1924, the opera was finished by Franco Alfano and, instead of Rose Ader, the part of Liù was sung at the April 1926 premiere by Maria Zamboni.

Giulio Gatti-Casazza (1869-1940) managed Milan’s La Scala from 1898-1908 after which he famously led New York’s Metropolitan Opera from 1908-1935. During his tenure there, he attracted such world-renowned singers as Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, Feodor Chaliapin, Lily Pons, Maria Jeritza, Lauritz Melchior, Rosa Ponselle, and Arturo Toscanini as conductor of the Met. In 1910, he presented the Met’s first world premiere, Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West.

Our letter’s first four pages are written on the recto and verso of a folded sheet and pages five and six on both sides of a single sheet. Minor creasing and light wear. Accompanied by the original envelope addressed by Puccini to Ader at Vienna’s Hotel Imperial.