Record of Singing

During breakfast this morning, listening to NPR radio, up came a nice surprise -- a feature on the history of opera as presented by NPR's classical music producer. He was discussing a new 20-CD (!) collection of recorded opera from 1899 to now, the latest in EMI's "Record of Singing" series.

You can hear a podcast of this piece and read the story here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102728168.

This inspired me to immediately drag out my EMI CD of Enrico Caruso's Milan recordings of 1902-1904. And I plugged Ivi and her headphones into Caruso's "Elixir of Love" so she could listen from my FLAC library at her own computer. I came in late to the NPR broadcast, and didn't realize that they had played that very piece a bit earlier, until I fully read the page linked above.

Definitely listen to the podcast and also learn more about the collection at EMI's own site:
http://www.emiclassics.com/releaseabout.php?rid=47773#

The two set collection includes (1) earliest recordings from 1899 until about 1952, the end of the 78rpm era, and (2) 1953 - present, encompassing the vinyl era to CDs and the digital era.

Looks like this one has to go on my wish list immediately. I see that the each of the two sets of the collection is priced around $60 (what a bargain!), based on a quick look at Barnes & Noble:
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/The-Record-of-Singing-The-Very-Best-of-Vols-1-4-From-1899-to-the-End-of-the-78-Era/e/5099922895622
and Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Record-Singing-1899-1952-Very-Vols/dp/B001PPLJAE/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1238865473&sr=8-1