La Bohême - Acoustic

 For opera fans, here's a half hour of some legendary voices of the early 20th century, performing selections from one of the great operas - Puccini's La Bohême. These recordings, drawn from the Victor catalog, were made from 1906 to 1916, so they are all recorded acoustically. There are a few key selections missing, but most of the favorite arias and ensemble pieces from the opera are here. The great Enrico Caruso is heavily featured.

Of particular interest is Caruso's famous rendition of "Vecchia zimarra," the "Coat Song." This is a bass aria, but Caruso's voice was so flexible that he had no trouble bailing out Andrés de Segurola when that singer lost his voice during a Metropolitan Opera performance in Philadelphia; with his back to the audience, Caruso sang the piece while Segurola mimed the performance. The famous tenor was persuaded to record the aria the next day in Victor's Camden, New Jersey studios, but the recording was never intended to be issued. In the late 1940s, radio personality Wally Butterworth obtained a test pressing of the aria and issued it on a privately pressed vinyl 78, with an explanatory talk on the other side.

All of the other records are one-sided, as were all of Victor's Red Seal classical records in those years. The company didn't start making double-sided Red Seal discs until the 1920s. Part of the reason for this was economics. In order to attract the biggest stars of the opera world, Victor gave them lucrative contracts, with generous royalties on each record sold. So the company tried to maximize its profit by charging as much as possible for each issued selection. The royalties demanded by Victor's two biggest stars, Caruso and Nellie Melba, resulted in a duet record priced at five dollars for three and a half minutes of music - and that's the equivalent of over $150 in today's dollars. The star-studded Quartet cost six dollars - nearly $200 when adjusted for inflation. 

So here's a generous chunk of La Bohême, transferred with minimal noise reduction. Apologies for the occasional spots of "blasting" distortion in loud passages.

Act I:

Enrico Caruso: Che gelida manina (Rudoph's Narrative) - Victor 88002, recorded 1906

Frances Alda: Mi chiamano Mimi - Victor 74448, recorded 1915

Nellie Melba & Enrico Caruso: O soave fanciulla - Victor 95200, recorded 1907

Act III:

Geraldine Farrar & Antonio Scotti: Mimi, Io son! - Victor 89016, recorded 1909

Geraldine Farrar: Addio! - Victor 88406, recorded 1912

Geraldine Farrar, Gina Viaforo, Enrico Caruso & Antonio Scotti: Quartet: Addio, dolce svegliare - Victor 96002, recorded 1908

Act IV:

Enrico Caruso & Antonio Scotti: Ah Mimi, tu piu - Victor 89006, recorded 1907

Enrico Caruso: Vecchia zimarra (Coat Song) - RCA Victor 87499 (private pressing), recorded 1916

Wally Butterworth & Frances Alda -Why Caruso recorded the Coat Song - RCA Victor 87499, recorded c. 1949

Stokowsky's 1921 Tannhäuser Overture

Lengthy, complex classical compositions posed difficulties for record companies in the pre-1925 acoustic era. A 12-inch record side could only contain four-and-a-half or (at the most) five minutes of music, so longer compositions had to be split over multiple record sides. And the acoustic recording process was fairly kind to strong vocalists, but was woefully inadequate in terms of capturing the timbre of instrumental ensembles. Orchestral music fared particularly poorly in the acoustic era, with record companies generally limiting orchestras to short, familiar warhorses, often edited to fit on one record side.

But as I've mentioned before, Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, understood the recording process better than most musicians. His are some of the best-sounding orchestral recordings of the acoustic era. And while he mostly offered shorter works and single movements (designed to fit on one record side) for his acoustic records, he was bold enough to record some longer pieces with the Philadelphia Symphony before it was common to do so.

Stokowski had been making records for four years when he recorded Wagner's 13-minute "Tannhäuser Overture" in late 1921. It's spread over three single-sided Victor Red Seal discs - sold separately, since the concept of the record "album" only became common with the advent of electrical recording. Stokowski leads the Philadelphians in a magnificent reading of Wagner's piece; its impact overcomes the limitations of the archaic recording process.

I have combined the three sides into one file below. The original issues are:

Part One - Victor 74758: matrix C-22808, take 10; recorded November 7, 1921
Part Two - Victor 74759: matrix C-22814, take 7; recorded December 5, 1921
Part Three - Victor 74768: matrix C-24999, take 2; recorded November 7, 1921.

All parts were recorded in Victor's Camden, New Jersey studios.

Philadelphia SO/Stokowski: Tannhäuser Overture

Amelita Galli-Curci: Bell Song

Of my early opera records, I love those of Amelita Galli-Curci only slightly less than those by Caruso. (One of her record labels makes up the digital "wallpaper" on the right side of my blog.)  Galli-Curci (1882-1963) was born in Italy and came to the United States in 1916; she caused an immediate sensation among opera lovers.  She performed with both the Chicago Opera Company and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In her prime, Galli-Curci's vocal timbre, range, and control were stunning.  Luckily, she made dozens of recordings for Victor between 1916 and 1930.  Here is one of my favorites, "Dov'e l'indiana bruna," the "Bell Song" from the opera Lakmé by Delibes.  Although the libretto was originally in French, here Galli-Curci sings the aria in Italian.  This is from a one-sided, 12" Victrola Red Seal 78, recorded in 1917.

Amelita Galli-Curci: Bell Song from Lakmé