It’s 1903 in New York City. Freezing winter winds funnel through the city as women in elaborate evening gowns and long white gloves and men in long dark tailcoats make their way to the Metropolitan Opera house on 39th Street. Tonight, for only the third time, the Met’s production of Tosca will be taking the stage. But the audience filing into the elaborate theater has no idea that suspended above them in the rafters is the Met’s librarian, Lionel Mapleson, and his state-of-the-art wax cylinder phonograph. From audience reactions to…
