Mary Jane Phillips-Matz collection

1948-1993

The Mary Jane Phillips-Matz collection consists of research files on Giuseppe Verdi, Adelina Patti, Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, and other topics. The bulk of the collection consists of Verdi research files, arranged by topic. Four topics, The Uttini and Verdi families, Giuseppina Strepponi, Emanuele Muzio, and the province Piacenza, are covered most thoroughly in these files. Many other topics are also present, though covered less extensively.

This collection documents Phillips-Matz’ book Verdi: A Biography with copies and transcripts of Verdi’s letters, usually annotated with Phillips-Matz’ English translation and summary; family trees; biographies; articles; notes; copies of parish registers, census reports, tax records; and exhibition programs. Phillips-Matz’ correspondence with archivists and other scholars is often included in her research files. In addition to illuminating Phillips-Matz’ research process, this collection also documents the process of writing and editing a major scholarly work with multiple annotated drafts of the book. Unsorted notes Phillips-Matz kept while conducting her research are also present.

The Uttini family were Verdi’s relatives on the maternal side. Both the Uttini and Verdi families are represented in this collection extensively with copies of family documents and correspondence with members of both families and with Phillips-Matz’ notes on the families. Files relating to Verdi’s second wife, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, cover her family in Italy and the United States, her conservatory training, early career, prime career, and relationship with Verdi with copies and transcripts of letters, documents, and articles.

The composer and conductor Emanuele Muzio was a protégé and lifelong friend of Verdi’s. The extensive correspondence the two composers maintained over many years is represented here with copies and transcripts of their letters, often annotated by Phillips-Matz. Also of particular interest is an index Phillips-Matz created of the Verdi/Muzio correspondence, dating and briefly describing each letter. There is also a copy of a manuscript for Almerindo Napolitano’s book, Emanuele Muzio and Giuseppe Verdi.

From 1848 to his death in 1901, Verdi lived in a villa in the village Sant'Agata in the city Villanova sull’Arda in the province Piacenza, a region his family had inhabited for generations. He composed many of his most famous works there and took an active role in local politics and civic concerns. His activities as a Piacenza land-owner and provincial council member are documented with copies of articles, correspondence, and documents such as parish records, census reports, tax records, farm tenants’ accounts, and pay books. Correspondence discusses such topics as hospitals, schools, churches, farm management, railroads, architecture, and Verdi’s estate.

Other subjects covered in less depth in the Verdi research files include individuals such as Antonio Barezzi, Giovanni Duprè, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Ada Giachetti, Alessandro Lanari, Primo Levi, Donnino Mingardi, Francesco Luigi Morini, Giovanni Ricordi, Teresa Stolz, Margherita Tizzoni, Luigi Vestri, and Richard Wagner; and cities such as Bologna, Brescia, Busetto, Florence, Genoa, and Roncole. There are also files on Verdi’s major works, such as Aida, Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Corsaro, Don Carlos, Ernani, Falstaff, La Forza del Destino, Macbeth, Otello, Stiffelio, and La Traviata. In a few cases these files are arranged by format, such as biographies and contracts.

There is one microfilm reel containing materials pertaining to the opera Elisabetta di Valois (a historical figure who is also a character in Verdi’s Don Carlos) by composer Antonio Buzzolla and librettist Francesco Maria Piave.

Materials collected or created by Phillips-Matz while conducting research on the nineteenth century soprano Adelina Patti document the singer’s personal, professional, and family history. Phillips-Matz annotated copies of Patti’s correspondence and other related documents from her and her family as well as articles and extracts discussing Patti’s career. Manuscripts for Phillips-Matz’ unpublished biography, titled The Prima Donna as Goddess: A Life of Adelina Patti, are also included. Three microfilm rolls containing Patti’s correspondence and contracts, and the correspondence of her sister, Carlotta Patti, are held here.

During the late 1990s Phillips-Matz was working on a biography of composer Gian Carlo Menotti, a close friend of hers. This book was never published and perhaps never completed, but she collected research materials relating to Menotti’s personal and professional life. These files include copies of Menotti’s letters and telegrams from the 1920s through the 1940s to Rosario Scalero, who had been Menotti’s music professor at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Phillips-Matz also created chronological files on Menotti, documenting his life and career from the 1930s to 1994, consisting of copies of articles written on Menotti, brief biographies, and chronologies of his work. Research files on Menotti also contain materials pertaining to the life of Menotti’s partner of 50 years, American composer Samuel Barber, most notably copies of Barber’s letters to family members including his parents and his aunt and uncle, Louise and Sidney Homer, from 1929 to 1964.

Articles and Other Projects document Phillips-Matz’ shorter form nonfiction writings with drafts of articles, notes, and research materials. The subjects covered here usually relate to the world of opera and to cities in Italy; and they overlap somewhat with the topics covered in her Verdi biography. Other individuals about whom she wrote included Nedda Casei, Francesco Cavalli, Gaetano Donizetti, Antonio Carlos Gomes, Jenny Lind, Angelo Mariani, and Giacomo Puccini. Topics covered include bel canto singing, black American theater, dynasties in music, Italian dance, and the Venice Theatre Festival. Copies and notes for a few articles by Phillips-Matz that do not concern music can be found in the other research topics. These articles cover topics in history and home organization.

There is one folder of personal items, which contains one letter, a draft of her will and three passport photographs.

Materials in this collection are in English and Italian.