Product Description
TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Format: large format Number of Pages:208 Paper: weighing 220 grams, has been created by the Cartiere Miliani di Fabriano with a particular composition enriched with vegetable fibers. This special composition reproduces the characteristics of antique paper and is guaranteed to last for centuries. Binding: entirely sewn by hand and bound in leather, with gold-leaf designs. Container: in wood, finished in walnut and leather with embossments. Iconography: about 200 images, the most interesting of which are full-page reproduction
CONTENTS
In this volume we have reproduced all the documents pertaining to the relationship between the composer and the Venetian Theater. Rough drafts of scenery, costumes and stage designs--all belonging to La Fenice’s Historic Archives-- are published here in annoted form. The book is divided into two parts: 1)Rough draft designs for stage sets and costumes. Following an essay of introduction written by Maria Ida Biggi, is the presentation of the graphic materials which were almost all lost in the 1996 fire.The images, which had fortunately been reproduced before the fire and added to the scholar’s personal archives, therefore constitute a unique testimony of the lost materials. Costume and set designs are subdivided by operas; this part of the volume is then subdivided into sections, each one relating to an opera composed by Verdi. 2) Resources and documents. With an essay of introduction written by the director of the Historic Archives at the Teatro La Fenice, Franco Rossi, (who was responsible for the selection and the indexing of the materials), the entire corpus of the Verdian paper documents from the Archives are herein published: autographed letters by Verdi, playbills for premiere operas, photographic material realting to Verdi, and the most famous interpretations of his operas, frontispieces of the original libretti, the first pages of music scores with hand-written notes by the composer himself, etc. All of the documents, for the most part previously unpublished, regarding the operas composed by Verdi for the Fenice (Ermani, Attila, Rigoletto, Traviata, Simon Boccanegra) have been temporarily conserved at the Levi Foundation along with other informative records.
AUTHORS
Franco Rossi, director of the Archivio Storico della Fenice and Maria Ida Biggi, professor of History of Scenography at the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice.
INSTITUTIONS
This volume was commissioned by the Historical Archives of Il Teatro La Fenice.