On Display:
Highlights of Italian Opera and Theatre 

Descriptions of the Items on Display

This August, as the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library continues its monthly rotation of collection highlights, there will be a mini-exhibition showcasing items from the library’s impressive holdings related to Italian opera and theatre. Curated by Laura A. Lucci, a GSLA at Fisher and a PhD candidate at the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, this exhibit considers opera in its larger historical context, with items demonstrating the form’s roots in the activities of the nobility and intelligentsia of late 16th- and early 17th- century Florence and traces its development through the period of Italian unification known as Il Risorgimento. Among the items of note is a pair of libretti representing the earliest works which might be called operas, illustrations representative of developments in Italian scenic design, and a reproduction of a recent addition to the library’s holdings – a poster for an 1869 memorial service dedicated to Gioachino Rossini in his birthplace of Pesaro.

Free and open to the public, this mini-exhibit can be viewed during the Fisher Library’s normal hours of operation. Please be advised that between August 13th and approximately August 21st, this exhibit will be unavailable as our new display case, occupied by the library’s copy of the First Folio, will be in Stratford, Ontario.

Listen as Laura provides a brief introduction to the display. 

Laura would also like to extend her gratitude to Alessandro Bison of the Villa Contarini in Piazzola sul Brenta, Padova for his kind assistance in demystifying some of the details of Item #13, and Philip Oldfield, for making heraldry terminology seem much easier to understand than it actually is.