Dulcinée (Don Quichotte)
Since then and ever since I have seen audiences greatly captivated by these compositions and deeply affected by the admirable personal expression of the interpretess.
As I was correcting the last proofs of Panurge one morning, I received a kindly visit from O. de Lagoanère, the general manager of the Théâtre Lyrique de la Gaîté. The libretto of Panurge had been entrusted to me by my friend Heugel and its authors were Maurice Boukay, the pseudonym of Couyba, later Minister of Commerce, and Georges Spitzmuller. De Lagoanère came in behalf of the Isola brothers to ask me to let them have Panurge.
I answered to this proceeding, which was as spontaneous as it was flattering, that the gentlemen's interest in me was very kind but that they did not know the work.
"That is true," the amiable M. Lagoanère answered at once, "but it is a work of yours."
We fixed on a date and before we separated the agreement was signed, including the names of the artists proposed by the directors.
Some weeks ago my good friend Adrien Bernheim came to see me and between two sugar plums (he is as much of a gourmand as I am) proposed that I should take part in a great performance he was organizing in my honor to celebrate the tenth anniversary of that French popular charity "Trente Ans de Théâtre." "In my honor!" I cried in the greatest confusion.
No artist, even the greatest, could help being delighted at lending his presence at such an evening.
After that, day by day, and always at my house, in the sitting room in the Rue de Vaugirard, I saw gathered together, animated by an equal devotion of making a success, the general secretaries of the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, Mm. Stuart and Carbonne, and the manager of the Théâtre Lyrique de la Gaîté, M. O. de Lagoanère. My dear Paul Vidal, leader of the orchestra at the Opéra and professor of composition at the Conservatoire, was also there.