Carmen-Kartenlied / Carmen-Habanera

This recording features the Swedish contralto Karin Branzell, a renowned fixture of the Metropolitan Opera during the 1920s and 1930s. CRS Historical Records, or Collectors Record Shop, was a boutique label founded in the mid-20th century by record enthusiast William H. Seltsam. The label was established specifically to preserve and reissue rare, out-of-print vocal recordings from the acoustic era, providing collectors with access to performances by legendary artists that had long since disappeared from standard commercial catalogs.

The recording captures Branzell's interpretation of the Habanera and the Card Song from Georges Bizet's Carmen. Branzell was celebrated for her rich, dark timbre and dramatic authority, traits that made her an ideal interpreter of the Carmen repertoire. These reissues were produced with the intent of maintaining the integrity of original shellac pressings, appealing to opera aficionados who valued historical fidelity and the specific stylistic nuances of the early twentieth-century vocal tradition.