Description

IMPORTANT SET OF 80 AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED BY LEADING MUSICIANS, CONDUCTORS, POLITICIANS, THEATRE DIRECTORS, CRITICS AND JOURNALISTS ADDRESSED TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE PARIS OPERA: EDOUARD MONNAIS.

EDOUARD MONNAIS (1798 - 1868)
A Parisian by birth (and by death), Désiré Guillaume Édouard Monnais was a brilliant student at the Lycée Charlemagne, winning the difficult fifth prize for Latin version at the Universités de France in 1814 during his second year at the Humanité. He went on to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1828. But Monnais preferred literature to the bar. As early as 1818, he began writing articles for various small newspapers, and in 1826 he contributed to a number of comedies and vaudevilles alongside Armand d'Artois, Emmanuel Arago, Paul Duport, Saint-Hilaire and Vulpain. These light productions bear the evocative titles : Midi, or The Abdication of a Woman, Grandma's Future, The First Cause or The Young Lawyer, The Counter-Letter or the Jesuit, The Marriage Proposal or The Returned Jesuit...
Monnais also took part in the more serious work of Marchagy and Tissot of the Académie Française, and directed Universal Ephemeris (1828-1833), of which he was one of the main editors. In July 1832, he became editor of the courrier théâtral du Courrier Françaisand in 1835 joined the Revue et Gazette Musicale de Parissigning his articles under the pseudonym Paul Smith.

In 1836 he obtained a position at the Ministry of the Interior and in 1838 was promoted to Commissaire royal des théâtres lyriques royaux. In 1839, he was appointed co-director of the Paris Opéra with Henri Duponchel, and the following year Imperial Commissioner for Lyric Theatres and the Conservatoire, a post he held until 1847..
He wrote short stories and novels about music, Sketch of an artist's life (1844), Wallet for two opera singers (1845), The seven notes of the scale (1846) and wrote the annual review of all the events.
Responsible for reporting on works presented at the Académie Impériale de Musique (L'Opéra) and the Théâtre Italien, he also spent four years writing the poems and cantatas for the major musical composition competitions organised by the Académie des Beaux-Arts de l'Institut.
He died on 25 February 1868, and Jules Janin paid him a long and moving tribute in the Journal des Débats politiques et littéraires characterising his benevolence and politeness: "He was urbanity itself and Atticism in person. He had been writing for almost half a century, and in all that time he had never hurt - who would believe it? Hardly had he touched some intrepid vanity, his beautiful pen was equally adept at making, at healing all together a light wound and not a man of whom he speaks remained his friend."
Between 1835 and 1860, at the height of the Romantic period, Édouard Monnais was at the centre of the French musical scene. His qualities as an editor and critic, as well as the high institutional positions he held, made him a correspondent of choice for many composers, musicians, critics and theatre administrators.
A friend of Berlioz, who entrusted him with his " hopes [of] the profound and absolute ruin of these evil places called Lyric Theatres"A close friend of Liszt, Delacroix, Gautier and Gounod, he was also a regular visitor to Auber, Meyerbeer, Scribe and Thomas.

The 80 unpublished signed letters presented here show a person who was much in demand, both for his presence at previews and dinners, and for his support of musicians and composers during auditions. The opinion of Édouard Monnais is an opinion that counts, as Berton wrote in a letter of thanks after his nomination: "[Your treasure is] much more precious still, it is the art with which your brilliant pen gives you the power to make people happy as you please!!!! "

A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE LETTERS CAN BE CONSULTED BY CLICKING ON THE FOLLOWING LINK:
https://librairie-le-pas-sage.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Edouard-Monnais-compressed.pdf

EXCEPTIONAL ENSEMBLE.