The tenor and the sound merchant: A history between operas, phonographs and popular scenes (Mexico City, 1901)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2025.647Keywords:
phonograph, recordings, opera, theatre, popular cultureAbstract
In 1901, the tenor Miguel Lelo de Larrea entered into various agreements and commercial operations with the talking machine businessman Joaquín Espinosa. In addition to buying him a phonograph and more than a dozen cylinders with national and foreign pieces, he made 203 recordings under his supervision. In this article, I reconstruct a microhistory of the functioning of the phonographic market in Mexico City, at the beginning of the 20th century, using as the axis of analysis the relationships established between both individuals. The questions I address on this journey are as novel as they are fascinating. First, explore the price of phonographs and the different Espinosa competitors dedicated to selling them. As a second contribution, I reveal new titles of popular and cultured recordings that were part of the catalogs of the time and I expose their meanings, social uses and costs in relation to other basic consumer products. Finally, it examines the payments received by the tenor for recording hundreds of pieces, contrasting these figures with the salaries of his contemporaries. This practice allows me to demonstrate that operatic recordings heard in Mexico are not always imported from the United States and Europe.
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