The 100 Year Old Voices of The Phantom of the Opera

In 1910, Gaston Leroux wrote the following words in his dark-and-famous novel, The Phantom of the Opera: "It will be remembered that, later, when digging in the substructure of the Opéra, before burying the phonographic records of the artist's voice, the workmen laid bare a corpse."

This simply sounds like a dramatic moment in a melodramatic story: The Phantom of the Opera, full of mystery, music, love, and death. So music lovers all over the world were recently stunned to learn that the famous death of The Phantom of the Opera hid a real truth. There actually were phonograph records buried deep below the Palais Garnier (the Opéra). Twenty-four 100-year-old phonograph records were found carefully packed inside two large metal urns. These were the long-dead voices of some of the world’s most famous operatic singers: Mebla, Patti, Calvé, Caruso.

Not all of the music world, however, was surprised by the discovery. Some already knew about the long-sealed room several stories beneath The Phantom of the Opera's famous theatre. This room was a time-capsule, marked with a plaque: “The room in which are contained the gramophone records,” a name “M.Alfred Clark” and a date, “June 28, 1907.” The room was not to be opened until 2007-- a request that the opera company intended to respect. A room with a mystery to be solved.

The question was, who was Alfred Clark, and why did he place a “time capsule” inside the Palais Garnier? Clark, apparently, ran the Gramophone Company’s Paris offices-- and was a leader in phonograph discs. It was clear that, inside the sealed room were records… very old records of the beautiful voices from The Phantom of the Opera's famous theatre. And that they needed protection and restoration.

And while the opera company was determined to respect the wishes of Clark and wait to unseal the room, it was opened two years later by the opera company’s technical supervisor. Inside were found a metal urn containing 100-year-old records from The Phantom of the Opera's height. Still, the opera company wished to respect the time limit placed on Clark’s gift, and transferred the urns to the museum to await the time to open them.

One of these mysterious urns was opened in March of 2008. Sure enough, inside the urn were found recordings of some of the most famous voices in opera. To learn more about The Phantom of the Opera records, which will soon be digitally recorded and made available to all, visit the Smithsonian Magazine Website at the following link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/