French

Recorded in Paris and across France, 1890s–1940s

These published sides gather French song and opera caught on disc between 1900 and 1931. Most are classed pre-1923; the others fall in the 1923–46 gray range. Behind them stands a much larger vault tagged French.

The early years lean on the opera stage. Pol Plancon’s 1902 Toreador song from Bizet stands with Léon Melchissedec and Mario Gilion in Rossini, Victor Capoul in Godard’s berceuse, and Emma Calvé’s Chanson Bohême from Carmen. Gounod runs through later sides: Geraldine Farrar and Marcel Journet in the church scene from Faust, Lucrezia Bori in Juliet’s waltz song, Emma Calvé again in a sérénade. Enrico Caruso appears twice in 1916, once in Saint-Saëns and once in Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles.

By the twenties the set widens. Maurice Chevalier is heard on sides from the operettas Dédé and Là-Haut; the Orchestre du Moulin Rouge plays Cà c’est Paris; the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Paris, contributes two parts of La Valse. Titles across these sides speak plainly of song, air, tango, waltz, and orchestra.