The University of Chicago Press is excited to share that The Works of Giuseppe Verdi series has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH grant recipients for the final round of funding in 2022 were announced on August 16, and as part of this, the Verdi series will receive $251,257 in support from the NEH.

The grant will specifically support a project led by Francesco Izzo, general editor of the series, which will enable the preparation for print publication of a critical edition and score of Le trouvère, Un ballo in Maschera, Juvenilia, and Lombardi alla prima Crociata by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), and to continue work on four additional Verdi operas: Falstaff, Otello, Romanze, and Les vêpres siciliennes. 

The Works of Giuseppe Verdi (WGV) is a joint publication of the University of Chicago Press and Casa Ricordi. Established in the mid-1970s under the early leadership of Philip Gossett, in cooperation with Verdi scholars Julian Budden, Martin Chusid, Francesco Degrada, Ursula Günther, and Giorgio Pestelli, it is the first critical edition of the composer’s oeuvre and upon completion will include his songs, choral music and sacred pieces, string quartet and other instrumental works, as well as the operas. Since its inception, WGV has aimed to make available editions that are rigorously faithful to authentic sources and eminently suitable for performance. In addition to the full score, each publication includes a separately bound critical commentary that gives an account of the source research underpinning the edition, along with page-by-page critical notes to accompany the score. Piano-vocal reductions of the operas are also made available, as well as orchestral and choral parts prepared for rental by our partners at Casa Ricordi.

NEH grant awards support collaborative and individual humanities research, preservation of historic collections, humanities exhibitions and documentaries, and education programs for teachers, and more information about the most recent round of recipients can be found here.

For more information about the series, please contact acquiring editor Marta Tonegutti.