Now at the centre of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama's special collections, the Foyle Opera Rara Collection is free to access and open to everyone. Reflecting the interests of Patric Schmid and Don White who founded Opera Rara in the early 1970s, the collection focuses on the great Italian bel canto tradition and features a wealth of material which provides a unique insight into opera production in the nineteenth century.

 

It includes an extensive collection of operatic manuscripts –many handwritten by the composers themselves, first and early editions of nineteenth-century opera scores, letters written by composers and singers, and a large array of other opera-related archival resources such as pictures, postcards, programmes, playbills, costume designs, and press cuttings.

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For more information and for details of how to access the collection, please click here.