ROBERT TUGGLE

Robert Tuggle, the Director of Archives for the Metropolitan Opera, is an expert on opera and great voices- you may have enjoyed his well known book The Golden Age of Opera, published in 1983. He is currently a Contributing and Consulting Editor of "The Opera Quarterly" (Oxford Univ. Press), a publication you will especially want to watch for in your local bookstore this spring. Part of OQ's issue 16:2 will feature "Jussi Björling: A Remembrance" by members of their Board of Contributing and Consulting Editors, as well as Andrew Farkas' article "Björling and Ballo: `The Most Unkindest Cut of All'" (Andrew read a version of this at our June conference), as well as reviews of several new Björling CD releases.

A native of Virginia, Mr. Tuggle studied musicology at Princeton University and wrote a thesis on early Verdi. He then worked as Director of Education for the Metropolitan Opera Guild for twenty years, before assuming his present position in 1981. As the Director of Archives, he oversees a uniquely rich and valuable resource documenting the entire history of the Metropolitan Opera. The holdings of the archives include correspondence, programs, playbills, contracts, pay books, photographs, costumes, memorabilia, realia, and many other materials that are invaluable to a researcher. You undoubtedly will recall that Jussi contains many acknowledgments "courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera Archives."