Sounds of Opera 1907

In 1907, exec­u­tives from the Gramo­phone Com­pa­ny head­ed to the base­ment of the Paris Opera and sealed up some wax record­ings of famous opera singers. Now, a cen­tu­ry lat­er, these record­ings have been opened, dust­ed off, and (yes) even com­mer­cial­ized. Lat­er this month, EMI will release the record­ings under the title, “Trea­sures From the Paris Opera Vaults.” If you click on this NYTimes arti­cle and scroll down a lit­tle to the Mul­ti­me­dia sec­tion, you can sam­ple these cen­tu­ry old record­ings. The Times col­lec­tion fea­tures out­takes from Verdi’s Aida, Otel­lo and Rigo­let­to. Find them here.