Vintage Opera-related Items

As you may have noticed from my blog music, I am on opera and classical music fan. I am a classically-trained singer as well, and my office---from which I usually blog---is also my voice studio, where I practice, and occasionally teach voice lessons. It is a lovely room, with french doors, right off the main entrance so students can come right on in.

So, I wanted to share a couple of vintage things from my studio. First of all, I have some vintage sheet music that I got from a wonderful music store in Charlotte, North Carolina called Brodt. You go in and it is like a warehouse, and all the vocal music is stored in this one little basement hall, on one side. They have inventory from since forever...it's like they just keep it until it sells, or maybe they buy out old inventories from stores that close. So, I was able to find some pretty-looking old sheets, which I framed for the walls.

The fun part is that I have actually sung all of these pieces. The one below all of my students used to want to sing when I was teaching at Southern Virginia University. It's "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls," from The Bohemian Girl. They all knew it because the Irish singer Enya sings it!

I also have this lovely thing, a vintage art-deco record player. It still worked when I bought it for about $25, but now needs a couple of minor repairs. Why would I want to keep it working, you ask, in the day of CD's and iPods?

Why, because of this set of vintage opera recordings! Can you imagine being more connected to history than listening to singers from the Golden Age of Opera, singing under the baton of conductors like Toscanini, singers who were the contemporaries of composers like Puccini? As a freebie, there was also an old Bob Wills record stuck in one of the books.

And here are some knick knacks and such from on top of the piano. First, a funny little vintage lamp that my mom gave me made from a bottle shaped like a violin. The anatomical picture next to it looks vintage but isn't. My teacher gave me a copy of a picture of the resonance areas of the pitches of the soprano range from a vintage singing book she owns (she is a retired opera singer in her 80's.) I wanted to keep it handy for reference, so I copied it on brown paper and framed it.

So those are some of the vintage thingies in my music studio! Sorry about the glare in some of the photos; I have no direct lighting in this room, so photography is tricky.

I am linking to Vintage Thingie Thursday.