Sometimes, working with the vast resources of the Ward Collection brings up more questions than it answers. Recently while scanning some libretto volumes for “key content,” I ran across some intriguing illustrations in Le theatre italien de Gherardi, a collection of 55 comedies and scenarios performed in Paris by the Comédie-Italienne (one of the precursors Read More

Our recent Hidden Collections sheet music project has continued to produce treasures from the Historical Sheet Music Collections of Houghton and the Harvard Theatre Collection. (Yes, as Susan Sarandon would say in Bull Durham, we need a nickname.) We have now identified 29 different issues of Hawaiian Butterfly. Even as familiar with the vagaries of Read More

It’s official: I adore the Illustrated London News [this is a Harvard resource I fear, and password-protected]. Once again, it has come to my rescue when I’ve needed solid visual clarification about a historical event. This time (regular readers will remember my earlier Crimean adventure) as a part of the clean-up after our Historical Sheet Read More

Dance notation is one of those tricky subjects which has been discussed for centuries: no matter how you write it down, you’re sure to miss something important. I’ve discussed some examples here in in the blog, particularly regarding Feuillet notation (which was a particular interest of Professor Ward’s). But sometimes folks just take things into Read More