Letter 1956
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Russian text (original)
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English translation
Copyright © 2010 by Luis Sundkvist
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| Рим
18 февр[аля] |
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Rome
18 February |
| Добрейший Сергей Васильевич! |
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Most kind Sergei Vasil'evich! |
| Представление в «Apollo» отменено по случаю болезни тенора. Отложим, следовательно, посещение этого театра до будущей
недели. |
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The performance at the Apollo has been cancelled
due to the tenor being sick [1]. Let us therefore defer our visit to
this theatre until next week. |
| Завтра утром я зайду к Вам. |
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Tomorrow morning I shall call on you [2]. |
| Ваш |
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Yours |
| П. Чайковский |
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P. Tchaikovsky |
Notes:
- The Teatro Apollo (previously known as Teatro
Torre di Nona) was the largest opera-house in Rome at the time and had staged the
premières of Verdi's Il
trovatore (1853) and Un ballo in maschera (1859). In fact it
seems that the
production in question was cancelled not due to the indisposition of the
tenor, but due to financial difficulties of the opera company — see П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том XI (1966), p.
53 [back]
- Tchaikovsky first met Sergei Flerov in February
1882 during his stay in Rome. In a
letter to Petr Jurgenson
written the previous day (see letter 1955), Tchaikovsky
had observed: "Flerov
is, I think, a very kind and nice person, but… I am escaping to Naples to get away from him. Yesterday
he sat at my place from five in the afternoon until midnight!!! There was
a moment when I wanted to murder him—namely, when he started pestering me
with questions as to what scenes, what images I had floating
in my imagination when I wrote this or that! Oh, [the devil] take him! He
is learned, well-read, but rather stupid and unctuous". Three days after
writing the above letter to Flerov,
Tchaikovsky left Rome and went to Naples, so it seems that he had never
intended to keep his promise of going to the Teatro Apollo with him. In
an article "A Letter from Italy", published in the 17 February 1882 [O.S.] issue
of the Moscow Register,
Flerov informed his readers how Tchaikovsky had won some pickles at
a lottery held on the Piazza Navona. Jurgenson sent this article
to Tchaikovsky in Naples, and the
latter wrote furiously to his publisher on 2/14 March (letter 1983): "Have you ever come across someone more
loathsome and stupid than this
Flerov? The excerpt from the Moscow Register which you sent the
other day has awakened my rage. Not only did he completely spoil my last
days in Rome—no, he still feels he
has to persecute me now that I escaped to Naples to get away from him. No dirtier
trick could possibly be played on me than to exhibit me before the public,
and what is more in the guise of a person who has won some pickles (!!!)
and the next day goes and assures Flerov that they are wonderful.
[…] Can this interest anyone at all?! Oh, the devil take him!" — note based
on information provided by Vasilii Kiselev in:
Чайковский на московской сцене (1940), p. 465 [back]
This page was last updated
on 14 November 2010
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