Simon Trezise, The Mapleson Cylinders: Wagner at the Met, 1900–1904

For a short period at the start of the 20th century a miracle was taking place at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. It had no antecedents and, to my knowledge, there was no reprise until the advent of electrical recording more than two decades later. From 1900 to 1904 the English-born librarian of the opera house, Lionel Mapleson (1865–1937), set up a recording device during regular performances at the Met and made cylinders of many of its greatest singers in roles for which they were internationally famous.