Verdi editor gives his library to Juilliard
mainPhilip Gossett – general editor of the complete Giuseppe Verdi for the University of Chicago Press and Ricordi, and of works of Gioachino Rossini for Bärenreiter – has donated his personal library to Juilliard.
Gossett, 75, lives and teaches in Chicago. But he specifically wanted his research material to be kept within easy reach of the Metropolitan Opera so that performers could consult scores at source.
“within easy reach of the Metropolitan Opera so that performers could consult scores at source.”
Uh, so why not the Met? or the NY Public Library literally right next door?
Or just scan everything into a digital library accessible from all over the world by everyone.
It’d seem small provincial opera houses need more access to original sources than the Met or La Scala, which has plenty of resources, not the least of which are conductors and singers in a line of training that goes back directly to Toscanini and Verdi.
So instead of the New York Public Library branch right next door, he gives it to Juilliard, right across 65th Street. Big difference.
And if people from the Met, or from any other company, should need access to the material outside of regular library hours, they’re much more likely to get it from Juilliard than from a NYPL branch, which is part of a big institution bound by more rules.