This time, as ever has been the case, the sequel showed that I was right to wait, to take time in choosing an artist who would have to live my work.
The day after he heard Manon, Carvalho signed the contract.
The following year, after more than eighty consecutive performances, I learned of Marie Heilbronn's death!...
I preferred to stop the performances rather than to see it sung by another. Some time afterwards the Opéra-Comique went up in flames. Manon was not given again for ten years. Dear unique Sybil Sanderson took up the work at the Opéra-Comique and she played in the two-hundredth performance.
A glory was reserved for me on the five hundredth performance. Manon was sung by Marguerite Carré. A few months ago this captivating, exquisite artist was applauded on the evening of the 740th performance.
In passing I want to pay tribute to the beautiful artistes who have taken the part. I will mention Mlles. Mary Garden, Geraldine Farrar, Lina Cavalieri, Mme. Bréjean-Silver, Mlles. Courtenay, Geneviève Vix, Mmes. Edvina and Nicot-Vauchelet, and still other dear artistes. They will pardon me if all their names do not come to my grateful pen at the moment.
The Italian Theatre (Maurel's Season), as I have already said, put on Hérodiade two weeks after the first performance of Manon, with the following admirable artists: Fidès Devriès, Jean de Reszke, Victor Maurel, Edouard de Reszke.
As I write these lines in 1911, Hérodiade continues its career at the Théâtre-Lyrique de la Gaîté (under the management of the Isola brothers) who put on the work in 1903 with the famous Emma Calvé. The day after the first performance of Hérodiade in Paris I received these lines from our illustrious master, Gounod:
Sunday, February 3, '84.
My dear Friend: