For decades, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries has held a collection documenting the work of Wilhelm von Wymetal Sr. and Wilhelm von Wymetal Jr., a father and son who worked as opera producers and directors in Europe and the United States in the early 1900s. The Von Wymetal Family Collection includes 14 boxes of music scores as well as correspondence, photographs, clippings, and original set and costume designs. The collection came to CMU through School of Music Professor and opera expert Rudolph Fellner.
Arts and Humanities Librarian Kristin Heath has helped researchers access the collection since a University of Pittsburgh library science student first inventoried the materials in 2003. More recently, renewed interest in the collection by faculty like Assistant Teaching Professor of Musicology Ryan Prendergast has brought it under the stewardship of the University Archives, where the materials can be better preserved and made more discoverable to researchers.
“It’s wonderful that the collection is finally getting the attention it needs,” Heath said. “The artwork is beautiful, and the scorebooks have notations from both Wymetal Senior and Junior that can be so valuable to researchers or conductors. By engaging the Archives, we had the opportunity to make these items even more accessible.”
Contained within the collection are drawings and correspondence documenting Wymetal Jr.'s collaborations with Austrian stage and costume designer Alfred Roller. In March 2026, Theatermuseum Vienna curators Daniela Franke and Christiane Mühlegger-Henhapel discovered the collection's online finding aid while researching Roller for a project.
The curators were particularly interested in identifying Roller's designs for operas like "Carmen," "Madama Butterfly," "Rigoletto," and "La Traviata." But with the original materials located thousands of miles away in Pittsburgh, they needed someone who could investigate the collection on their behalf.
Goal
- Help Theatermuseum Vienna curators identify Wymetal Family Collection materials relevant to their research on Alfred Roller.
- Increase access to a distinctive collection that documents the history of theatrical design, music, and performance.
How We Helped
- Using the collection's finding aid, Heath identified boxes and folders likely to contain Roller designs and correspondence, then visited the University Archives to photograph requested materials and share them with the curators.
- As Franke and Mühlegger-Henhapel studied the images and identified additional leads, Heath returned to the collection to investigate their questions and photograph more materials. She also directed them to other potential sources when the Wymetal papers did not contain the information they were seeking, including the Metropolitan Opera, where Wymetal, Jr. worked from 1930-1935.
- The University Archives is also working to improve the collection's long-term stewardship, including transferring oversized designs to flat storage and working toward migrating the finding aid into the Archives' collection management system.
Results
- The curators identified potentially significant Roller materials in the collection, including handmade costume designs for "Fidelio" that they believe were created by Roller. “They are smaller handmade copies of the designs Roller made for the Viennese court opera in 1904,” they pointed out.
- The CMU materials offered resources the curators had not encountered elsewhere. After a research trip to Cologne, they told Heath that the institution they visited "hadn’t as much original material on or by Alfred Roller as you have in Pittsburgh."
- Franke and Mühlegger-Henhapel plan to continue their research as they work toward a publication in 2028, and may return to the Libraries for preservation-quality scans of materials.