Description

As is well-known, opera scores, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, were generally passed on in manuscript form available only to collectors or traders and therefore risked being damaged or destroyed. On the other hand verbal texts were delivered to audiences in printed form before a performance or after it, to record and celebrate it. These printed programs, containing more or less extensive information on the productions, make it possible to reconstruct the actual development of the drama for or with music, and preserve the variations in performance, including handwritten changes and sheets added or pasted in at the last minute. The goal of our enterprise, certainly too ambitious and in any case always in progress, is to make available to scholars growing parts of this material in the form of digital filecards. The digital filecards, developed on the basis of the paper formats, are made up of three sections, which recreate the structure of the libretto and of the performance it documents: transcription of the title-page and description of the piece; survey of the names (places, authors, characters and actors, scenographers, costume designers, machine operators, choreographers, conductors, etc.); and observations by Rolandi himself, at times brought up to date with the findings of more recent historiography.