Catulle MENDÈS is to take over Gustave FLAUBERT's Salammbô.

Catulle Mendès (1841.1909)

Autographed letter signed to the composer Ernest Reyer.

One octavo page on letterhead of the Republic of Letters.

[Paris. 1877-1878]

" Gustave Flaubert must have told you that the script for Salammbô is more or less written?"

A very interesting letter about the proposed operatic adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's novel, Salammbô. After years of delays, Catulle Mendès was approached to write the libretto, but then declined. The five-act opera, Salammbô, was finally premiered nearly ten years after Flaubert's death, on February 10, 1890, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels.

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"My dear Mr. Reyer, Gustave Flaubert must have told you that the script for Salammbô is almost finished? Our dear and great friend didn't seem displeased. When would you like to chat for a while? Your day and time are mine. Yours sincerely, Catulle Mendès."

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As early as 1862, Flaubert envisioned staging Salammbô as an opera and partnered with Ernest Reyer to give a musical voice to his ancient Carthage.
He conceived an initial outline and approached his friend Théophile Gautier to write the libretto. However, the project stalled, and Gautier's death in 1872 left this lyrical Salammbô without a voice.

Catulle Mendès then took up the mantle and undertook to shape, in turn, the scenario intended for Reyer. Flaubert followed his work closely and welcomed the first sketches of this new incarnation of his work.

However, the fate of Salammbô remained uncertain for a long time: the libretto would be revised again and would notably pass through the hands of Jules Barbier.
Finally, Camille du Locle gave the project its definitive form, nearly three decades after Flaubert's initial dreams: Reyer's opera was premiered in Brussels, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, on February 10, 1890.