Anna Moffo collection
Scope and Contents
Memorabilia, programs, publicity materials, contracts, reviews, recordings, interviews, biographies, business and personal correspondence and documents, scrapbooks, degrees, honors, awards, and photographs collected and curated by coloratura soprano Anna Moffo (Voice '54) throughout her lifetime. Her operatic roles included:
Dates
- Creation: 1932 - circa 2005
Creator
- Moffo, Anna, 1932-2006 (Person)
Biographical / Historical
Born on 27 June 1932 in Wayne, PA, Anna Moffo was an accomplished athlete and excellent student at Radnor High School before winning a place at the Curtis Institute of Music to study voice in 1950. Following her 1954 graduation, she traveled to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship, where, soon after, her operatic career took off after a televised appearance as Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly. By the early 1960s Moffo had cemented her reputation as a leading lyric-coloratura soprano, performing at, among others, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Teatro di San Carlo, The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Royal Opera House. Celebrated as much for her beauty as for her voice (she was christened “La Bellisima”), Moffo dominated the operatic stage for nearly a decade, particularly in her signature role as Violetta in La Traviata. However, a grueling opera schedule coupled with weekly appearances on her namesake variety show led, in 1968, to serious injury to her voice from which she never fully recovered. After formally retiring from singing in 1983, Moffo served as a board member on the Metropolitan Opera Guild and taught master classes around the world until her death in 2006 at age 73.
Extent
5.43 Linear feet
Language of Materials
English
Italian
German
French
Separated Materials
(3) performance programs unrelated to Moffo added to approriate vertical file: Phila. Orchestra to Ormandy file; Phila. Orchestra to Steinberg file; Main Line Symphony Orchesta to Kincaid file
Processing Information
This collection is currently being processed. Please contact the archivist.
Subject
- Moffo, Anna, 1932-2006 (Person)
Geographic
Occupation
Topical
- Title
- Anna Moffo memorabilia (MSS 62)
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Kristina Wilson
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Curtis Institute of Music Archives Repository