GREAT BOOKS ON OPERA AND MUSIC

Exhibition/Sale, July 3 through September 7

This exhibition features a rare collection of first edition piano vocal scores,  printed in very small numbers to coincide with the premiere of an opera. The collection consists of 85 operas, many of which are signed, annotated copies, often belonging to a singer performing in the particular opera and/or to noted personalities in the music world at the time of the premiere.

Included are first editions of Donizetti’s L’Elisire d’Admore, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Tristan und Isolde signed by Richard Wagner, Stravinsky’s L’Ooiseau de Feu, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Ein Sommernachtstraum von Shakespeare, Verdi’s Otello and Aida, and more!

The first edition of Somerset Maugham’s The Casurina Tree (1926), in which the story, The Letter, first appeared is also available. The opera based on this story by composer, Paul Moravec, and librettist, Terry Teachout, with costumes by Tom Ford, made its world premiere in Santa Fe on July 25. Other rare books on music include a signed program, Louis Armstrong and His Concert Group, 1924; the score from South Pacific, A Musical Play, 1949; Rhapsody in Blue for Jazz Band and Piano, 1924; and various ephemera.

VIEW MORE OF THESE SPECTACULAR WORKS