Six autograph letters and postcards signed ("Giacomo" and "GPuccini").

8vo and oblong 12mo. Altogether 12 pages on 8 ff. 4 items written in violet ink, Paris, Grand H tel de Londres, 23 October to 12 December 1906 where dated. Stamp removed from one postcard with loss of text; two letters apparently incomplete. Five unpublished letters to Sybil Seligman, Puccini s closest female friend and his most important advisor after Giulio Ricordi, and one to her husband David, reporting his arrival in Paris, the first rehearsal at the Op ra-Comique, and his expectation that the opera will be staged within about a month, which will leave too little time before his departure for New York, expressing his anguish at matters going from bad to worse with the soprano Marguerite Carr , for whom the title role is too demanding, admitting he is constrained from stating his position openly, for fear of ruining the forthcoming production of La Boh me, and that he is leaving it until as late as possible to give his blessing to the production, hoping his fears are not realized. He also discusses the book by Oscar Wilde (A Florentine Tragedy) that Sybil was going to send him, meetings with Maurice Vaucaire about Conchita, and his travel plans to Milan, Torre de Lago and New York, and writes to David Seligman, asking for Sybil to be allowed to attend the production in Paris ("Cara Sybil, angustie sopra angustie! Qui si va di male in peggio, passo indietro esigenze ridicole tutte a causa di Mme Carr la quale a mio parere ha un r le troppo forte. Temo che non andremo in scena o mai o forse molto tardi. Dico mai perch m aspetto all ultimo momento quando si eseguir l opera [.] Figuratevi dunque in che stato d animo io sia! E mia salute tanto male! [.]"). - The letters to Sybil are unpublished. Puccini clearly expresses his frustration with Marguerite Carr , who sang the title role in the French premiere of Madama Butterfly; it was staged at the Op ra-Comique on 28 December 1906 and established the opera in the definitive form in which it is usually performed today. Mme. Carr was the wife of the Director of the theatre, Albert Carr (who staged and produced the opera), but was clearly out of her depth. The letter to David Seligman is published, not quite complete, in V. Seligman, Puccini Among Friends, (1938), p. 3.