Tag Archive: 0opera

This is a copy of the first edition of My Jubilee or Fifty Years of Artistic Life (1889), the published memoirs of John Sims Reeves (1818–1900), one of the leading English tenors of the nineteenth century.  ‘He made his début at La Scala in 1846 as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor [featured in one of the plates […]

On this day, in 1908…  This is an opera bill, printed on silk, for a charity relief performance of Umberto Giordano’s opera Siberia at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta (one of the oldest working theatres in the world), staged just two days after the SS Sardinia, en route from Liverpool to Mecca, sank just outside Malta’s […]

Just back from Minneapolis, and the RBMS Preconference, where the theme, as I mentioned before, was “Performance in Special Collections”.  I like to try and find material relating to the history of performance, both in music and the theatre, and my library customers in particular are always looking for things they can use for exhibitions, […]

Next week, I shall be attending the annual RBMS Preconference, this year in Minneapolis where the theme is “Performance in Special Collections”.  I thought this little book may be timely.  It’s the catalogue of the celebrated Zimin Opera Museum in Moscow, published in 1916, just a year before the Bolshevik Revolution led to the Museum’s […]

This week, in 1882, saw the first London cycle of Wagner’s Ring, the complete work’s first performance outside the German-speaking world. The Austrian impresario Angelo Neumann secured the performing rights for the Ring (and the Bayreuth stage equipment) from Wagner himself, intending to give 36 cycles in nine months.  He planned to open his campaign […]

George Herbert Buonaparte Rodwell (1800–1852), professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy and musical instructor to Queen Victoria when she was still a Princess, had for years been advocating a ‘Grand National Opera’ for the performance of English music and in 1833 laid out his plans, which included a library.  His scheme never […]