Pierpaolo Polzonetti, assistant professor in the Program of Liberal Studies and Nanovic Institute Faculty Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded the 2012 Lewis Lockwood Award for his book, Italian Opera in the Age of the American Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The book looks at how revolutionary America appeared to European audiences through the medium of opera.
The Nanovic Institute for European Studies is mentioned in the acknowledgments for supporting the book's research funds, and microfilm acquisition, and hosting of a faculty discussion group that participated heavily in the review of the book. The Institute also provided support in the acquisition of the copy of L'orfanella americana, a rare Italian opera manuscript from 1787 that scholars had believed lost, but resurfaced in 2008 in Genoa, Italy.
The Lewis Lockwood Award honors each year a musicological book of exceptional merit published during the previous year in any language and in any country by a scholar in the early stages of his or her career who is a member of the American Musicological Society or a permanent resident or citizen of the United States or Canada.