The Center for Italian Opera Studies (CIAO) received a five-year grant from the Packard Humanities Institute to produce critical editions of Works of Gioachino Rossini in collaboration with Bärenreiter-Verlag and develop the database OperaCat. 

“This is the fourth and largest award we’ve received from our long-time supporters at the Packard Institute. We will be able to produce new Rossini volumes through 2019, along with a new web resource called OperaCat that should launch later this year,” said Phillip Gossett, Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and director of CIAO.

An ongoing project since 2005, OperaCat will be a tool for research into the background of 19^th- and early 20^th-century Italian opera by tracking every manuscript (music, letters, sketches, and signed photographs) of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, or Puccini that has been sold either by a dealer or auction house.  Once launched, the searchable database will be a free resource for musicologists as well as the general public.