It has been nearly 25 years since Ed Tapper opened Orpheus, one of the country’s only stores devoted to opera and classical music. Among the many collections he has purchased for the Commonwealth Avenue shop, Ed came into a vast library of live opera performances on cassette in his first few years of business.The collector who amassed them corresponded and traded with opera and vocal enthusiasts from throughout the U.S. and the world, amassing roughly 20,000 tapes in total.

Given the volume of the collection, and the limited space of Orpheus, several thousand tapes remained boxed in storage for decades. Recently, Ed completed the Herculean task of going through the tapes, and separating the operatic wheat from the chaff.  Having culled some of the most tantalizing morsels for our edification, he will return to the New England Opera Club as our May speaker, presenting a program of these hand-picked “pirate treasures.”

His presentation will include a sampling of this diverse, monumental collection, which included live, in-house opera and gala performances from houses throughout the globe, American and European radio broadcasts, and compilations of some wonderful, but lesser known artists, as well as several famous singers performing roles and repertoire they seldom sang or recorded commercially. Almost all the selections have never been made available, either on record---or even on Youtube. They will feature singers of every vocal range, spanning the 78 RPM era to some of the great singers of today; and, as always, we will be treated to a number of pleasant surprises.