Yvette GUILBERT / Letter, signed autograph / About her career and successes

  

Autographed letter signed "Yvette Guilbert" to a Mr. Petit, in-8°, in black ink on gray vellum.

An old repair with adhesive tape on the central fold (see scans). A rare letter from the late-century performer about her career and successes.

"You ask me for the recipe I found to become a star.

My God, it’s quite simple. First, I asked for a louis per evening: they gave it to me.

They gave me those too! They offered them to me! And it is Monsieur Ducarre, the director of the Alcazar d'été on the Champs Élysées, that you need to go find to make a small fortune.

Moreover, you take a pair of very black gloves, but real long black gloves. You put in them two long arms. You let them hang carelessly on your belly at a suitable height. That’s the big deal... You hardly use those long black arms. There’s no need to tire them out. You take, among other things: a very annoyed expression, and the audience, which is good, very good, thinks: Oh look. A woman who is very nice. This little woman is terribly annoyed, and she still comes to sing us a little tune, that’s really very nice!

You also need to nasalize just right; when you use your nose, you spare your throat, that’s a gain. You have to think of everything. There’s no need to study your songs. Nor even to understand them. That’s the audience's business.

You also need to pause sometimes between the lines. At the Comédie Française, they call that taking breaths.

Make sure that the time taken doesn’t cut off a word. That’s not really important...!

In the end, it’s nothing at all, just a bit of intelligence and still! Serenity, calmness, that’s all.

Assure the director that you are overwhelmed with talent. That it’s under your skin, that it’s about to come out. That’s all there is to it.

You bow, smile, and leave. A thousand compliments, dear sir, Yvette Guilbert."

The year 1892 marks the beginning of glory and fame in Yvette Guilbert's career. After a difficult start, she performs in Liège then Brussels in the summer, makes her return to Paris at the beginning of September, and asks for a raise at the Éden-Concert, which refuses. She then breaks her contract at great cost and subsequently (at the end of September) secures a contract at the Moulin Rouge. She meets Sigmund Freud in 1889, who came to hear her at the Eldorado, and maintains a sustained correspondence with him. A card featuring Yvette Guilbert immortalized by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.