Scope and arrangement
The Graziella Sciutti collection holds scores, photographs, and subject files containing correspondence, set and costume designs, clippings, programs, and biographical essays and interviews. It documents her career as a performing vocalist in opera, musicals, and solo recitals from the 1950s to the early 1980s, and as an opera director from the 1980s to the mid-1990s.
Subject files mainly document productions of various operas and musicals, primarily in Europe, though also including a few American companies. The scores contain opera piano reductions and pieces for vocalist and piano or orchestra. Most contain Sciutti's performance notes. Later opera scores contain directorial notes on staging and costumes. A few of the vocal/piano scores are autographed by the composers.
The photographs primarily hold prints of Sciutti in performance from the 1950s to the early 1980s, but also document productions Sciutti directed in the 1980s and 1990s, and contain a few publicity and informal photographs.
The collection contains two video recordings. One is a 1963 recording of Sciutti performing in La Nozze di Figaro in Salzburg, the other an undated performance of Tra Conquista e Destino. Inquiries regarding visual materials in the collection may be directed to the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound (rha@nypl.org). Visual materials will be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.
The Graziella Sciutti collection is arranged in three series:
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1950-19988.5 boxes
This series contains correspondence, contracts, clippings, biographies, photographs, programs, and set and costume designs. It is arranged by subject.
Many of the files are for opera companies in Europe and America that Sciutti worked with as a either performer (1950s - early 1980s) or director (1980s - mid-1990s). Companies with significant content include Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Canadian Opera Company, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Salzburger Festspiele, and the Theater der Stadt Koblenz. Some of the company files hold contracts and programs, but most contracts and programs are filed under their respective headings. Files fo companies Sciutti worked with as a director, particularly Teatro Massimo, hold set and costume designs in addition to correspondence. Some costume designs include fabric samples and full-color drawings.
Other files hold general correspondence with Sciutti's managers, S. A. Gorlinsky, Columbia Artists Management, and Interart Establishment Vaduz. Most of the correspondence with presenters in Italy is in Italian.
The programs span Sciutti's career and include opera performances, solo recitals, and her later role as director. The news clippings mostly document her work from the mid-1960s onward.
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1951-19953.5 boxes
This series is comprised mainly of production photogrphs (arranged by presenting organization), and also holds publicity headshots and informal photographs (arranged chronologically). Most are prints, but in some cases negatives are present as well. Photographs can also be found in Series I.
The opera companies with the most photographs in the series are Teatro alla Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Salzburger Festspiele, and the Festival International D'art Lyrique et de Musique in Aix-en-Provence. Most of the photographs are from Sciutti's performance career, but some from the 1980s and 1990s document productions she directed, such as those at the New York City Opera and the Juilliard School. Other Sciutti-directed productions are concentrated in the photographs of unknown location, housed at the end of the series.
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1950s-1990s7 boxes
This series holds autographed scores, manuscripts, published opera scores and libretti, and songs, arias and other works. It is arranged alphabetically by score type.
The autographed scores, which are mostly published, include music by Eugene Conley, Marcel Godart, Friedrich Karl Grimm, Willy Hess, John Mooran, Lodovico Rocca, Geni Sadero, and Wladimir Vogel.
The manuscripts are written by Sciutti (and unknown others), and include music by Donizetti, Franck, Enro Masetti, Mendelssohn, Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini, and Hugo Wolf, as well as many unidentified or illegibly-written composers.
The opera scores and libretti, all published piano reductions, contain Sciutti's performance or directorial notes. Titles include Il Marito Disperato, L'Amante di Tutte, Le Astuzie Femminili, I Due Baroni di Rocca Azzurra, L'Idolo Cinese, La Finta Semplice, Cosi Fan Tutte, Die Walzerkönigen, La Vera Costanza, I Tre Amanti, L'Osteria di Marechiaro, Rigoletto, La Cambiale di Matrimonio, Don Giovanni, Lucia di Lammermoor, L'Elisir d'Amore, La Vera Costanza, The Threepenny Opera, La Sonnambula, Il Matrimonio Segreto, and Chiome d'oro.
The songs, arias, and other works, all published, contain Sciutti's performance notes and include music by Bach, Barber, Bellini, Donizetti, Hindemith, Honegger, Moussorgsky, Mozart, Poulenc, Purcell, Ravel, Rossini, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, and Weill, among others.