Autograph letter signed "Bellini" to Count Rodolphe Apponyi

2 pp. of a bifolium. Octavo. Dated Monday morning. Postmarked [?]January 12, 1835. With "Weynen Superfin" blindstamped to upper portions of leaves. Integral address panel with the recipient's name and the address of the Austrian Embassy in Paris to final page. With fully intact red wax seal. In Italian and French (with translation).

Bellini tries to secure the Count a place at the première of his latest opera and invites the Count's wife to one of its dress rehearsals.

"... I met your cousin at Madame Graham's and I begged him to tell you that I had gone to the Bureau des Italiens to try to grant your wish ... therefore, if the day of the first performance falls on a day when the halls are occupied almost entirely by subscribers, you'll get priority ... Tell [the Countess] I am sorry I am not yet able to leave my desk, since I'm always working on the opera. I hope she will want to honor me by coming to some dress rehearsal, to give me advice with her delicate musical taste ... "

Slightly worn and stained; creased at folds and overall; small perforation to upper edge of first leaf; lacking small portion of right edge of second leaf with no loss of text. The opera to which Bellini refers is undoubtedly I puritani, his last work. Commissioned by the Théâtre Italien in Paris in 1834, I puritani premièred there on 24 January 1835, just twelve days after the writing of this letter. Bellini died later that year, on September 23.

Apponyi was a member of a Hungarian noble family associated with many important musicians of the day.