"Un Ballo in maschera" - INSCRIBED TO DIMITRI MITROPOULOS

Milan: G. Ricordi & C. [Franco Columbo]. 1959. Partitura (nuova edizione riveduta e corretta). 4to.  Hardcover, green cloth.  Lithograph.  [PN P.R. 159].  527 pp. Inscribed by the publisher/editor on the front free endpage to the Greek conductor, translated from the Italian, "To Dimitri Mitropoulos / with much affection  / Franco Columbo/ 12/6/1959."  Light wear to cover and spine, else in fine condition.

Mitropoulos conducted Un Ballo in Maschera at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955.  A recording of that production, which starred Marian Anderson among others, has been released by multiple record labels in the ensuing years. 

Dimitri Mitropoulos was Greece’s most prolific conductor and New York Philharmonic Music Director from 1949-1958.  Widely regarded as one of the most significant conductors of the twentieth century, he is best remembered for his significant recorded legacy and for his commitment in bringing new compositions to the stage of major symphony orchestras.  Indeed, it is thanks to his efforts that many of our current symphonic standards made their way into the repertory.  He gave World and American premiers of seminal works such as Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, as well as other major works by Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and many others.  His personal collection has been held in private hands since his death in 1960, when it passed to conductor James Dixon, his student and protégé.  Mitropoulos came to consider Dixon his son, introducing him to conductors and performing arts institutions around the world, jumpstarting his career.  When Mitropoulos died in 1960 he left all his belongings, including his scores, to Dixon.  The bulk of the musical library has been subsequently gifted to the University of Iowa’s music library, but a selection of rare items have been selected to be offered for sale exclusively by Schubertiade Music & Arts.  These examples, many inscribed to the conductor from composers or associates, have only occasional markings from the conductor himself who committed all music to memory before his first rehearsal of the repertoire - a highly unusual method!  Some of these scores, however, were also subsequently used by James Dixon as part of his working reference library for many years and include his occasional markings.

Composed to the libretto by Antonio Somma (after the play "Gustave III" by Eugene Scribe), the opera was first performed at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on February 17, 1859. Verdi had intended it for production at the San Carlo in Naples in fulfilment of his contract with the management, but the authorities there "insisted on the transformation of the original Gustavus III of Sweden into an imaginary Earl of Warwick and the locale of this fantastic and bloody melodrama to the Puritan city of Boston in New England! It was during the popular demonstrations attending the preparation of this opera that crowds in front of his hotel shouted "Viva Verdi " - a cry of double meaning, for the letters of the composer's name formed the initials of "Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia," and thus he came to be identified with the cause of Italian national unity as a symbol." (Grout, "A Short History of Opera. p. 365) (20152)

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