METROPOLITAN OPERA SORIA SERIES HISTORIC BROADCAST **9 VOLUMES**

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In 1974 the Metropolitan Opera Guild issued the 7 December 1940 broadcast of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro as a fund-raiser. This was the first Met broadcast recording to appear in an official, authorized release. The performance was chosen because it had been the first Metropolitan Opera broadcast sponsored by Texaco. The three-LP set was packaged in a conventional LP box with a single booklet containing the cast listing (a reproduction of the original program), photographs and biographical information on the performers, plus a plot synopsis and libretto with translation. Each LP box was affixed with a round gold seal marked "Limited Edition" stamped with an individual serial number. The catalog number chosen for this release was inauspicious, and appeared only on the individual records. As noted in the discography (below), there were two small gaps in the source recording of this performance.

Sales of the recording were sufficiently successful that the Met decided to establish the Metropolitan Opera Historic Broadcast Recordings as a series, with the goal of issuing one performance per year. The following year the Met released the 19 January 1946 broadcast of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. For this, and seven subsequent releases, Dario Soria served as producer. The packaging was in the style of the deluxe RCA Victor Soria Series releases--velvet-covered slipcase editions with an inner box that held, in addition to the records, an illustrated booklet with background on the opera's Met history, photos and biographies of the artists, plus a second booklet containing a libretto with translation. This second release was given the catalog number MET 2, a numbering format that would be retained for the remainder of the series. The sixteen-page stapled booklet was rather austere compared to subsequent releases; beginning with MET 3, the 8 February 1941 broadcast of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, the booklets were expanded to include recollections by the principal artists, more detailed historical background and biographies, and printed on heavier stock with a deluxe binding.

Sadly, Dario Soria died of a heart attack in 1980 while he and Tom Owen were preparing the final scene for MET 8, the 14 December 1940 broadcast of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. Subsequent releases were produced by Soria's widow Dorle and David Hamilton. Their last jointly-produced release was MET 23, the 24 February 1951 broadcast of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (Dorle Soria died in 2002 at the age of 101). Hamilton assumed sole production responsibilities in 2001 with the release of MET 24, devoted to highlights from The First Texaco Season 1940-41, and Paul Gruber joined him as co-producer for MET 26 and MET 27, the 20 April 1983 broadcast of Wagner's Parsifal and the 9 March 1974 performance of Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani.

Audio engineering on the early releases was divided between Sam Sanders, of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and RCA Records personnel under the supervision of John Pfeiffer. In 1979, for the production of MET 7, the 17 April 1937 broadcast of Bizet's Carmen, Tom Owen, Chief Engineer at the R&H Archives and successor to Sam Sanders, assumed the duties of audio engineer for the series. Owen's arrival coincided with the discovery of an alternate source for Le Nozze di Figaro containing the sections missing from the first release, so the Met decided to reissue this performance in an entirely new transfer. The reissue was given Soria-style packaging and assigned catalog number MET 1, thus filling a significant--and to some a mysterious--gap in the numbering sequence for the series. The Met's conversion to Compact Discs, their brief flirtation with analog cassette tapes, along with accompanying changes in packaging, are documented in the discography. .....

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