Listening to a full length opera on vinyl is a commitment.  Not only are you listening to a work of art two and a half to five hours in length, but you are also required to flip the record over and over.  Something as short as Puccini’s “La Boheme” or “Tosca” presents a fairly easy task not only in the listening department but also in the vinyl maintenance department.  A work as dense and lengthy as Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” or “Die Walkure” will take up a considerable amount of brain and vinyl maintenance energy.

One of the highlights of listening to opera on vinyl is the amount of information contained within the vinyl packaging.  Liner notes are often presented in booklet form that provides the reader/listener with a vast amount of information about the history of the work, the composer, and the historical happenings of the world when the piece was composed.  This sort of information is rarely seen when purchasing a CD and never when purchasing a download from iTunes.

I believe that listening to opera on vinyl brings you closer to the work.  I love hearing the scratching sound at the beginning of a record and the hush just before the first note.  The listener can often hear the sounds of the bow scratching on the screen and the shuffle of chairs on the orchestra pit floor.  The notes of the singers sound as if they are in the same room with you and you can hair the intake of a new breath between phrases.  It’s a matter of listening closely and having the volume at a level that is appropriate for accurate listening.  Opera should not be background music when vinyl is being used.

I’m grateful that my mother was passionate about opera and collected a great number of vinyl recordings during her years of collecting.  Opera trips to San Francisco, Chicago and New York produced some of the finest opera recordings on vinyl ever made.  I’ve taken the time to rejuvenate these old vinyl records and catalogue them in a way that will preserve their quality along with their place in recording history.