Letter from H. W. Henze to C. Kallman, August 6, 1964

[Typescript]

Hans Werner Henze

Castel Gandolfo (Rom)
Via dei Laghi 18

August 6, 1964 * Dearest Chester,

It was wonderful to hear from you after you seemed
to have completely disappeared and I did miss your and
Wystan’s news enormously.* I am glad you found love in
Greece and I wish you happiness from the center of my
heart.* I imagine you sunburned and in [the] best of spirits,
and your hair constantly growing by means of those damned
pills you recommended to me which made me fall ill. And
did not one hair come out of my skull, although I admit
some came out of my nose.

I have had quite a good time in Berlin and finished
the first half of "The Young Lord" there.* Then I con-
ducted two concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic who
I’ll never forget for the beautiful sweetness of the
orchestra and the enormous success I completely un-
expectedly got (more calls than Karajan ever had in
Berlin).*

Then I had a not so good time in a not so good
place called Düsseldorf where I staged and conducted
a difficult opera called "The Prince of Homburg." *
On weekends I went to Amsterdam and had a thing with
a Dutch baby, or the Dutch baby came for the weekend
to Düsseldorf but in the meantime it turned out not to
be too glorious, submitting to the erroneous conviction
of being terribly clever and desirable and that was that.
Then I gave up being subsidized by the Ford Foundation
and went back to Italy.* "The Young Lord" is almost
finished* and I have started to complete my planning of
"The Bassarides," about which I am writing to both of
you today. But now to the most important thing of the
moment:

Darling, I promise to do what I can for Kosta,*
and in fact I wrote a letter today to Mr. Klaus Nick-
stadt who is the owner of Nick’s Men Shop in Munich
and in Berlin. He is very nice and he is also the
only person I know in the whole world who has to do
with advertising and therefore with models. I hope
my attempt will be successful and I asked Nickstadt to
write to you directly. Renate was really very ill a
month ago and very unhappy and also she went away from
Munich for awhile, so she might have forgotten to send
you information. But now perhaps you could write to
her again, after all she adores you and also she
certainly knows more about those things in Munich than
I do. Folker I cannot ask because he is on a tournee
HWH ‡ –2– in South America and later the southern part of the
U . ‡S.A., and will be back only in the beginning of
December.* I miss him with such pain that it’s almost
physical and also understand better than when he was
always around, that he is the noblest, most honest,
and most mannerly hearted friend in the world and I
thank God that he exists. I still don’t know how to
stand all those lonely months until he comes back,
just whoring around and disliking it. Anyway, I shall
work very hard and I am determined to make "The Bassarides"
very, very good. I’m quite satisfied with what I did
nel genere dell’opera buffa , and of course your pre-
dictions that it would be difficult were right but now
it’s getting very serious.

Thinking of a job for Kosta I keep wondering why
he should take a job which is so insecure and also
limited in the future as a photo model. Usually, as
far as I know, young actors or other professionalists
are models for｜‡ ‡ the sake of some extra money; especially
in a country like Germany which is not very remarkable
where advertisement is concerned. On the other hand,
in a town like Munich, any kind of job should be available
because of the we l ‡l known lack of available people.
He could be, I don’t know, for instance, a driver.
He could of course work in a restaurant, just to mention
the simplest things and it also might make him happier
to have a steady job and in the long run to be able not
to feel himself kept, which would be better for both
of you. Please think about that and I’m pretty sure of being right.

Letter from H. W. Henze to C. Kallman, August 6, 1964

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