Seguin Operatic Troupe Materials in the Tams-Witmark/ Wisconsin Collection: A Preliminary Descriptive Catalog‪.‬

English Abstract During the first half of the nineteenth century, performance of operas in the United States grew from being an occasional occurrence to an established business enterprise. Much of the development took place in New York and the other large cities along the Eastern seaboard, such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston. The Seguin Operatic Troupe played a pivotal role in the transformation of opera production from a system based on the importation of one or two star singers, who were assisted by local talent, into one of established companies that toured as a more or less complete and self-contained unit, a system that became firmly established after mid century. This study comprises a preliminary descriptive catalog of the extant performance materials related to the Seguin's activities in the United States that are contained within the Tams-Witmark/Wisconsin Collection, housed at the Charles H. Mills Music Library of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This material comprises annotated libretti, promptbooks, vocal scores, and instrumental performance parts of European operas, usually in English adaptations, in some cases adaptations made by the Seguins. The manuscript annotations contained in these materials provide valuable and fascinating glimpses into the production values of mid-nineteenth-century opera in the United States.