B. J. Lang (Salem, Massachusetts, 1837 - 1909, Boston)
Visiting Card, 1903
Printed and handwritten ink on paper
This visiting card on cream colored personalized stationery is a handwritten note in ink. The handwritten note is across the center of the card at an angle. Faintly under the handwritten note appears, in personalized cursive italic script, "B.J. Lang". To the viewer's far left on the bottom of the card, in faint italic print, is the address 8 Brimmer St.
Vatichino
Commentary
For Christmas in 1902, conductor B.J. Lang gave Isabella a libretto for Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal. He gave Isabella this libretto in anticipation of a private performance of Parsifal he was conducting at the recently-constructed Symphony Hall two weeks later. His note on this card accompanying the gift reads: “It seems as if you ought to have a better Parsifal than ordinary folk.”
Isabella admired Wagner’s work and went to great lengths to see his performances. She traveled many times to Bayreuth and attended his operas in the United States and Europe. Isabella’s libretto from Lang, along with a second libretto for Parsifal that she collected, are both housed in the Vatichino.