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COVER FOR DETAILS FEATURES INCLUDE: A detailed
chronological discography of all 496 published and unpublished
Caruso recordings, including recording dates and locations, matrix
and take numbers, accompaniment details, correct playing speeds,
and all known issues in cylinder and 78-rpm format ($60 postpaid elsewhere)
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The Opera Disc Story By Allan Sutton  The early 1920s were boom years for Victor's prestigious Red Seal records. Victor advertised its classical records on a lavish scale and spared no expense in recruiting the brightest stars of the concert hall and opera house. A few companies attempted,
without much success, to challenge Victor's success in the classical
field by importing material from European studios. In 1921, the
General Phonograph Corporation, makers of Okeh and American
Odeon records,
began to reissue decade-old Odeon and Fonotipia masters recorded
in Europe by John McCormack and other performers who had since
signed exclusive Victor contracts in the United States. Victor
undoubtedly looked askance at the practice, although sales of
the classical Okehs and Odeons seem to have been negligible.
However, there was little Victor could do about the situation.
General Phonograph had licensed the material its German affiliate,
Carl Lindström Aktien-Gesellschaft (Berlin) and apparently
was operating lgeally With the outbreak of European hostilities in Europe, Alexander Lucas took charge of DGA, and on August 14, 1914, he seized the Victor and Gramophone Company matrices in DGA's possession as spoils of war. Having severed relations with the Gramophone Company and Victor, DGA was reorganized as the independent Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG). In March 1917, Lucas licensed the Victor and Gramophone Company masters to DGG's newly created Polyphonwerke subsidiary, which produced records for export. The war over, Polyphone tried to enter the booming American record market in the early 1920s as an import label specializing in German popular material and light classics, but it had little success. However, the company found a ready customer in Hesslein's Opera Disc Company. Polyphone agreed to supply Opera Disc with pressings from the Victor and Gramophone Company masters in its possession, which included material by Frances Alda, Lucrezia Bori, Enrico Caruso, Feodor Chaliapin, Julia Culp, Marcel Journet, Fritz Kreisler, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Antonio Scotti, and many other celebrities who were then under exclusive Victor contracts in the United States. A few of DGG's and Polyphone's own masters rounded out the series.  Opera Disc also made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the lucrative ethnic record market in the U.S., as this rare Arabic issue shows. Polyphone's masters were duplicated from the original parts and, because Opera Disc did not use sunken labels, Victor's original recording data often can be seen inscribed under the label area. However, stampers were reworked with the addition of an outer raised ring and a crude raised run-out spiral, so the pressings bear no resemblence to their Victor counterparts. Most labels are multicolored, with their lyre-playing nude rendered in a flat, fleshlike tone. One rare variation (pictured on the left at the beginning of the article) is known, in gold on purple or black and pasted over the original German labels. The first Opera Discs were ready for market by the spring of 1921. Hesslein filed a trademark application on the Musica brand, with seated lyre-playing nude, on June 21, 1921, claiming use of the trademark on records beginning March 25 of that year. Opera Disc sales seem to have been lackluster, although pressing quality was good, prices competitive, and the artist roster first-rate. As a result, many Opera Disc issues are far rarer than the corresponding original issues. Some remarkable rarities were also reissued, including several of Caruso's 1903 G&T sides. Victor lost no time in
bringing legal action against the Opera Disc venture, but the
company continued to issue catalogs into 1922, their last year
of operation. In that year, the matter was referred to the Anglo-German
Mixed Arbitral Tribunal in London. The tribunal ordered that
DGG and Polyphonwerke be restrained from exporting Victor- and
Gramophone Company-derived pressings. However, it did allow continued
sale of such material in Germany and did not issue a ruling against
the New York-based Opera Disc Company, which was outside its
jurisdiction. At the same time, Victor brought suit against Opera
Disc in the U.S. District Court at Brooklyn, New York. Yet another pirate label of this period was Pan-American, which once again drew on pre-1914 Victor and Gramophone masters. The distributor of this obscure and very short-lived brand remains unknown, but its masters appear to have plated illegally from commercial pressings, rather than being supplied by Polyphonwerke.
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