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I found three 12" Melotone records by Florence Foster Jenkins when I was in college...

Don't remember every selection, but they include:

Bell Song from Lakme`

Queen of the Night's aria from "The Magic Flute"

The Laughing Song from "Die Fledermaus"

Serenata Mexicana ( by her accompanist Cosme` McMoon )

( I forget what the other two titles are...)


I'm pretty sure mine all have type-written labels, Black with red over-type, which are supposed to be earlier pressings.


Anybody else have 78's by Mme. Jenkins ?


The movie with Meryl Streep is delightful, perhaps slightly romanticized, and Meryl Streep and pianist Simon Helberg (Big Bang Theory) actually do their own performing... no post-production dubbing.

I have one, Charmant Oiseau. It's on eBay right now, at my wife's urging. I suppose it's true that the value is likely to peak in conjunction with the movie. It certainly isn't any fun to listen to.

People were probably giving them away until the movie came out. Now watch the record price soar...but hold up....wait another couple of years and the prices will fall.

I don't think I could bear to part with my copies... even though their price probably will peak with the current buzz about the movie. I found my copies in an album at a thrift store in Wilkes-Barre about 30 years ago...


Is there any extant documentation indicating how many copies were produced ?

I don't find much about Melotone Recording Studios on the internet... most searches lead me to info about the circa 1930 label that was part of the ARC concern.

For what it's worth, Melotone also recorded and cut the lacquers for the Asch/Stinson 78 RPM album by Richard Dyer-Bennett (The 20th Century Minstrel). Of course, those recordings were released as conventional shellac pressings.

Best wishes, Mark

Slightly O/T, but twelve tracks of FFJ recordings have been issued on RCA Victor Gold Seal CD 09026-61175-2. I don't know whether this is still in the catalogue, but if you're dying to hear the undying voice, it might be worth a try. Can't wait to see the new movie!

I recently came across a transcription of a WNYC broadcast of an opera premiered by Hunter College in 1946 on Melotone, discussed in this thread:

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... lit=+opera

Clay

Henry wrote:Slightly O/T, but twelve tracks of FFJ recordings have been issued on RCA Victor Gold Seal CD 09026-61175-2. I don't know whether this is still in the catalogue, but if you're dying to hear the undying voice, it might be worth a try. Can't wait to see the new movie!

Some of those tracks can be heard on YouTube, and all of them are on Spotify.

For those wishing to know more about "The Pride of Wilkes-Barre," there is an excellent and, for all I know, accurate entry on FFJ in the Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Foster_Jenkins.

Undoubtedly the lady's musical problems were exacerbated, if not caused, by syphilis, contracted from her first husband.

Henry wrote:Slightly O/T, but twelve tracks of FFJ recordings have been issued on RCA Victor Gold Seal CD 09026-61175-2. I don't know whether this is still in the catalogue, but if you're dying to hear the undying voice, it might be worth a try. Can't wait to see the new movie!

Henry, it's a delightful, loving look at Mme. Florence.

If it comes to a theatre near you, I would suggest seeing it ASAP; it looks like it might run a second week at Cinemark Moosic, but I doubt it will run very long anywhere outside a major metropolitan area.


There is an excellent documentary about FFJ on You-tube: "Florence Foster Jenkins: A World of her Own", by Donald Collup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcatZDdaIY