Autograph Letter Signed, "Degas", 4pp, in French, on bifold black-bordered mourning stationery measuring 4" x 6.5", [Paris, France], no date. Expected folds and creases, minor ink smudging scattered throughout, else very fine.

Degas writes to a friend discussing the opera, with mentions of French composer and music critic Ernest Reyer (1823-1909) and French operatic soprano Rose Caron (1857-1930). An intriguing if somewhat mysterious letter. In full and translated to English: 

"It's there, I looked at it again this morning, with its [...] clefts on its red loins - as Goncourt thought and wrote when his friend Bartholome sent him a pumpkin. We will eat it on Sunday, in a soup, my dear friend, I and a few people who care for opera, and who know how to eat. I'll try not to eat more than they, but less, instead.

So when are you coming back? I'm asking you that, forgetting that you like the open fields, and that you are a garden-lover; it is there that I shall come one of these days to drop a Wagnerian cobblestone on your head. Thus, 'twas I, the boor - subtly dominating the domain of modern plasticity, but more usually the imbiber of the honey of Hymettus from the opera Sigurd [the bees of Hymetto supposedly alighted on Plato's lips, and were thus responsible for his honeyed speech]. I saw it again, and failed to meet Reyer at Muller's cafe, to the right of the monument. The divine Mademoiselle Caron; I compared her, to her face, to the figures of Puvis de Chavanne, who she didn't know about.

Le Rhythm, Le Rhythm! I hope that your good wife will give it back to me some day soon, in front of the infamous Reyer, the lord of the score. That pumpkin is finely etched, isn't it? Ah! If one could only draw like that. A noble basin with rounded shoulders. If there are no adults who wish to allow themselves to be seen (Sabine?) there are children there too. I've written a short note to your sister-in-law. Please give her my best. My respects to both of you. I should like to hear from you, as long as you don't talk about vegetables." Postscript: "Wednesday - any news?"

The French composer and critic Ernest Reyer was heavily influence by Berlioz and Wagner, wrote several religious songs, and operas, among them Sigurd in 1884. 

From 1885, the French soprano Rose Caron "became closely associated with the Paris Opéra, rivaling Lucienne Bréval as the reigning prima donna, and winning the respect of musicians for her avoidance of showy effects or violent emotions, cultivating instead ‘un art sobre, propre à la rêverie et à la douceur’. She was Paris’s first Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello and Sieglinde in Die Walküre. At the Opéra-Comique she sang in the first performances there of Fidelio and Iphigénie en Tauride, and was also a noted exponent of Gluck’s Orpheus. She also sang in the stage première of La damnation de Faust at Monte Carlo in 1893. After 1895 her appearances became less frequent, and from 1902 she was Professor of Singing at the Conservatoire, nevertheless preserving her voice so well that she was still singing to great acclaim as late as 1923. Her recordings date from 1903 and 1904; they are few and of extreme rarity but include an excerpt from Sigurd which gives some hint of the qualities so greatly admired by the composer." (Grove)

Regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, Degas rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist. His frequent visits to the opera, ballet, and concerts provided him with plenty of subjects for his artwork. Two of these subjects are mentioned in the present letter: rough drawings of Reyer can be found in Degas's sketchbooks circa 1877; Degas painted a portrait of Caron circa 1892.