It is no exaggeration to say that Pauline Viardot's role in the composition of Charles Gounod's 1851 Sapho was fundamental to the work's very existence. Not only did she urge the young composer to write an opera, she also advocated for his contract, which, given the composer's untested reputation, was issued only because she agreed to perform the title role. Pauline and her husband opened their country home, Courtavenel, to the composer, who lived and worked there throughout the summer and autumn of 1850 while Viardot was on tour. During that time, the two corresponded frequently-Gounod wrote to her nearly every day, often multiple times per day. Viardot's absence from Courtavenel during the summer months, however, as well as the loss of her letters, has led to a somewhat hazy picture of the nature of her influence on the music of Sapho. Gounod's letters to Viardot were emotionally intense, detailed and confessional, and he repeatedly engaged in what I would call a discursive merging with Viardot, as if the two were fused into a single creative force. Throughout the correspondence, the word 'our' occurs with some frequency, as when he refers pointedly to Sapho as 'our oeuvre'. 1 One thorny problem facing Gounod was Sapho's final scene. On 28 June, Gounod wrote of his work on the number, describing Sapho's final moments as a big theatrical climax: 'From the last four lines … to the end, the music becomes turbulent; the roaring of the sea combines with these last expressions of sorrow until the final big orchestral entry, which occurs at the moment when Sapho throws herself into the sea.' 2 Three days later, Gounod wrote to Pauline that he had completed the scene and performed it for 'Maman et Berthe'. The event, he boasted, was a 'Huuuuuuuge success. They found the last number grippingly dramatic and were greatly moved by it. As was I. I can hardly wait to give you all of this: you for whom and a bit by whom [i.e., 'with whose assistance'] I have made it.' 3