A photo of Lionel Mapleson, pasted in one of his journals. Alex Teplitzky/NYPL
Alex Teplitzky/NYPL
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Lionel Mapleson, then the librarian at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, did something new: He took an Edison “Home” model phonograph and recorded operas with an orchestra as they were being sung on stage.
He experimented with recording from places like the prompter’s booth, but finally landed on the catwalks high above the stage. Microphones weren’t invented yet, so he used a giant
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