The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I recently bought a "pig in a poke" lot of 78s from a Goodwill thrift store in the town of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, via on-line auction. They were sold by weight, 26 pounds. I was the only bidder and the price was low. They arrived today and included something of a curiosity, a 6 12" acetate recording set of the complete opera King Harald, a 3 act opera written by two faculty members of Hunter College, Anders Emile of the Music Department and Pearl C. Wilson of the Classics Department. They are dated January 7, 1946, which was the date the opera premiered at the Hunter College Playhouse of Music. The typewritten material on side 2 mentions WNYO, which is now a student run radio station at SUNY Oswego and an NPR affiliate, so I suspect the set is a transcription of the broadcast of the event. The recordings include an extensive introduction, which has a broadcast-like quality to it, as well as a continuing narration describing the setting of various scenes as the opera progresses. Whether the opera ever amounted to much in the wider world I do not know, nor do I have any idea how this set might have turned up at a Minnesota Goodwill.

Clay

A postscript. In a PM, a member suggested that the radio station in question may have been WNYC rather than WNYO. After further investigation I believe he is correct. While the letter looks to be an O on the first disc, on subsequent ones it is clear that it is really a C and that makes sense given Hunter's location.

I am also aware that a volume on Google Books, "Operas in English: A Dictionary," lists the premier date as January 7, 1948, rather than 1946. However that is an error and the 1946 date on the record labels is correct. The event was announced for January 7, 1946, in the November 1945 edition of Hunter's "Alumni News" and excerpts were played during Hunter's June 1946 commencement exercises. By the way, ticket prices for the premiere ran from 60 cents to a high of $2.40. Don't we wish that were still the case!

Clay