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Re: [ARSCLIST] Met Opera Reocrd Club - was "Other memorable record stores"
David Hamilton wrote:
Contrary to popular belief, the Met does not own the Metropoliitan Opera
Record Club recordings, nor did they ever hold the masters. The entire
project was carried out under the auspices of the Book of the Month
Club, working with Columbia and RCA (the matrix numbers reveal which
company did the engineering and pressing). The "Metropolitan Opera
Record Club" was a b brand name for BOMC. The Met merely lent its name
(for a consideration) and BOMC was supposed to use Met performers (they
began near the bottom of the barrel, then discovered that names DID make
the recordings sell better. RCA later arranged with the BOMC to issue
the Périchole and the abridged Boris sung in English (in Karel Rathaus's
"realization" of Mussorgsky's orchestration), which they had recorded,
on RCA retail discs (IIRC, Bing complained in his memoirs that the Met
got none of the money from that.) Last I heard, nobody seems to know
where the masters are. And, AFAIK, all Met Opera Guild CD tracks drawn
from that series have been dubbed from LPs.
David
Again, my understanding is that regardless of who published the
recordings under what licensing, the copyright was and is held by the
Metropolitan Opera itself.
Mike
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