Chusid, Martin

English

University of Richmond

Verdi ForumNumber 12 Article 11-1-1984From the Director's DeskMartin ChusidNew York UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vfThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Verdi Forum by anauthorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact scholarshiprepository@richmond.edu.Recommended CitationChusid, Martin (1984) "From the Director's Desk," Verdi Forum: No. 12, Article 1.Available at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vf/vol1/iss12/1From the Director's DeskKeywordsAmerican Institute for Verdi StudiesThis article is available in Verdi Forum: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vf/vol1/iss12/1FROM THE DIRECTOR'S DESK This issue of the Newsletter is the second to be devoted to research at the Archive, an exciting place to be these days. One Friday afternoon this past winter, while treasurer-executive board member David Lawton and stage director, Leland Kimball, were studying materials for a perfor-mance of Aida to take place in Wilmington, Delaware, this coming De-cember, advisory board member Roger Parker was examining materials for Nabucco, which he is editing for the new edition. In a free moment Professor Parker was also following a clue to a previously unknown Verdi insert aria for Oberto which had been referred to in a contemporary Mila-nese periodical. The results of that exciting search also cleared up a mys-tery about an additional cabaletta for Ernani, the opera scheduled to be published next in the new edition, the Works of Giuseppe Verdi. For de-tails, read the first contribution to this issue. The next two articles were written by members of the Summer Seminar for College Teachers spon-sored by the National Endowment for the Humanities last year and the second such program to be held at the Archive. It is particularly gratify-ing to provide opportunities for younger college faculty to pursue re-search on Verdi and especially appropriate to do so under the auspices of the Endowment, in the past one of the major sources of funding for the Archive. I am pleased to report that the Archive has recently proved useful for advisory board member Eve Queler who conducted Nabucco with the Opera Orchestra of New York last spring and Professor Lawton who con-ducted Traviata for the Delaware Opera last winter. Researchers writing for the Cambridge Opera Handbook series have used the Archive as well. These include advisory board members James Hepokoski (for Otelia), David Rosen (for Traviata) and yours truly (for Trovatore). This past year materials were provided for several graduate Verdi seminars taught by members of the advisory board, Professor Harry Powers at Princeton, and Professor John Nadas at the University of North Carolina. Additional materials and information were provided for the editors of the new edi-tion, as well as for other authors, students, and opera companies. I should like to thank long time Institute member Nancy Ford as well as an Institute friend from Italy, Ingegniere Elvio Farello for providing gifts of scores to the Archive, and to Institute member C.M . Sidlo of Framingham, Massachusetts and his employer, General Telephone and Electronics, for participating in a matching gift program benefiting the Institute. 4 In closing, I should like to share with you some ideas that are develop-ing for the tenth anniversary of the Institute in the Spring of 1986. We hope to celebrate with an International Symposium or Congress devoted to Verdi, including events at several East Coast locations. You will recall that the first Verdi congress we sponsored was in Kentucky and the sec-ond in California. Institute members will be kept informed of all develop-ments, and opportunities will be made available for them to attend all functions. Martin Chusid 5 

From the Director\u27s Desk

Verdi ForumNumber 13 Article 11-1-1985From the Director's DeskMartin ChusidNew York UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vfThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Verdi Forum by anauthorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact scholarshiprepository@richmond.edu.Recommended CitationChusid, Martin (1985) "From the Director's Desk," Verdi Forum: No. 13, Article 1.Available at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vf/vol1/iss13/1From the Director's DeskKeywordsAmerican Institute for Verdi StudiesThis article is available in Verdi Forum: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vf/vol1/iss13/1From the Director•s Desk This issue marks the tenth year of publication of the VeJLcli.. New~!e;tteJL and a full decade of AIVS activ-ities. During this period we have been both productive and fortunate, fortunate in our archivists and admin-istrative staff, our Executive and Advisory Boards, and in the support of New York University and our members. Among our achievements, most significant, I think, has been the growth of the Verdi Archive from a dream of the director to a reality in Bobst Library. As a result of acquisitions, gifts, and grants, today it is perhaps the best balanced Verdi research collection in the World: unparalleled in numbers of musical scores and parts, librettos, and production materials, to-gether with an impressive number of letters and docu-ments both from and to Verdi, his wife Giuseppina Strepponi, and their circle, and with much archival ma-terial from opera houses and elsewhere. Most of these items as well as the Institute's many 19th century periodicals and chronicles of opera houses are, of course, on microfilm. Materials have been gathered from Italy, France, England, Belgium, Austria, and the United States, with the splendid cooperation of such institutions as the Casa Ricordi, the Istituto di Studi Verdiani, the British Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Nationalbibliothek of Vienna, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini of Venice; of conservatory libraries such as those of Brussels, Milan, Rome, Naples, Parma, Florence, Turin, Padua, and our own Juilliard; American university libraries such as those of Berkeley, Columbia, and Princeton; of theatrical libraries, museums, and archives such as those of the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, l'Opera in Paris, La Fenice in Venice, La Scala in Milan, the Teatro Regio in Parma, and the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste; of city and state libraries such as those of Brussels, Florence, Parma, Venice, Rome, Naples, Turin, Palermo, and Milan; as well as, finally, the generosity and kindness of individuals: the Carrara-Verdi family, Andrew Porter, David Lawton, David Rosen, Sidney Cox, George Martin, H. Robert Cohen, Marcello Conati. Elvie Farella, Nancy Ford, and many others. These generous contributors have either allowed reproduction of their 3 materials or donated materials outright. Funding has been received from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Music Fund, the Ford · Foundation, New York University, and our members, several of whom have enabled us to receive matching donations from the corporations employing them. With the support of several of these grants, and including a gift from Ben Meiselman, during this. tenth year we have purchased an IBM Personal Computer and begun the important task of creating a Verdi database. This will make information about the materials in our archive more readily available to all persons (members and nonmembers alike) interested in the life or music of the greatest 19th century Italian composer, the incomparable Verdi. To date we have entered complete bibliographic information for more than 2,000 librettos of Verdi's operas, including casts where given, as well as begun entering letters and documents either verbatim or in abstract. To facilitate matters for users of the archive, these are being indexed as they are entered. By the time this Newsletter reaches you, we should have loaded upwards of 1,000 letters in the machine. However, this is not the sum total of our activ-ities. We have either mounted or cosponsored two International Congresses of Verdi Studies, an annual series of scholarly papers, and several Verdi exhibi-tions. While observing restrictions placed on use by donors, we have assisted opera companies and individual performers with Verdi materials and, when requested, information; have provided scores, librettos, and pro-duction materials to the individual volume editors of the new Verdi edition, and made available information, materials and access to the archive to scholars, stu-dents, college teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars, and others seriously interested in the composer or his music. Furthermore, we have sponsored or cosponsored operatic performances (staged or in concert form), as well as concerts and recitals of Verdi's music and, finally, have enabled Institute members to attend rehearsals of Verdi's operas, and private showings of video performances. To celebrate our dynamic decade we are inaugurat-ing a new series of lectures combined with the showing of . video tapes of significant Verdi performances. The first of these will begin in June at the new Music and 4 Media Center of Bobst Library, New York University. At that time the Verdi Archive will move into new quarters in the same location. As a bonus for members and subscribers, in this issue of the New~le;ttVL we are reprinting a piano solo arrangement of a chorus by Verdi "Sorge un canto," written by the composer for a revival in Genoa of his first opera, ObeJLto. This music, whose text was known from the libretto, till now has been unknown both to modern audiences and to Verdi specialists alike. It was discovered at the library of the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan by our Archivist, Luke Jensen, during a Fulbright year in Italy, while he was con-ducting research for his doctoral dissertation. With regard to previously unpublished materials, we are pleased to bring to your attention the recently printed "GaUopevtdo Waltz," edited by Institute member, scholar, and teacher, Stephen Casale, who, as you may recall, enabled us to print a previously unknown letter from Verdi to his French publisher, Leon Escudier, and wrote a fine article about that document in N~v~le;ttVL 11 (1983). Should you be interested in this composi-tion, first heard in the Visconti film The. Le.opevtd--therefore the title--it is published by Musica Obscura Editions (Post Office Box 2586, Quincy, Massachusetts 02269) and may be ordered from the Joseph Patelson Music House (160 West 56th St., New York, NY 10019) for $2. Interest in the Institute continues to grow. With the guidance and advice of our Executive and Advisory Boards coupled with your continued support and enthusi-asm, we look forward to another decade of vigorous activity and substantial achievement. MaM:.ln Chuo.id "The Royal Opera House's ill-fated engagement of Placido Domingo, the Italian tenor, was abruptly halted yesterday when the singer cancelled his performance in Shnon Boccane.gJta at Covent Garden hours before re-hearsals were due to begin .... He is to be replaced by Gabriele Adorno, who will fly to · London from Rome tomorrow and go straight into rehearsals." --(London) Sunday Thn~ s 

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