Throughout our Supervia series, we are following a chronological sequence by recording date and matrix number. In the first two volumes, we deviated slightly from this order when it made musical sense to do so. In this third volume, we have combined all of Supervia’s Carmen excerpts into one group even though they were recorded during two sessions nine months apart. We have also included Gaston Micheletti’s recording of the “Flower song” for the sake of musical cogency.

Concerning the remaining recordings contained in this volume, There are a few points that need to be mentioned. Supervia’s Barcelona sessions of 24 and 25 February 1931 produced six published sides. These are all exceedingly elusive due to the fact that they were issued only in Spain and received limited circulation. In fact, one of these recordings, “Boires baixes” by Granados (Matrix SO6942) has so far proved to be unfindable. We will continue searching for this record and if it surfaces, we will include it in our fourth and final Supervia volume. Since we had extra space on the first CD of this volume, we have included two takes of the Spanish song “¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay!” both of which were published. Take 1 seems to have been issued only in Argentina, whereas take 3 was widely available on Parlophone and American Decca.

During her Paris sessions of October and November 1931, Supervia recorded 18 sides, of which six were unpublished during the 78 rpm era. Her recording of the “Air des larmes” from Werther exists only as a test pressing in private hands. We are grateful that we were permitted to borrow the disc for inclusion here. Supervia also recorded “Mon Coeur” from Samson et Dalila, and two songs by Gounod, “Sérénade” and “Le soir,” but no trace of these has ever been seen. The two “Roi de Thulé” arias from Gounod’s and Berlioz’s Faust were not released in 78 rpm format until the early 1970s when Historic Masters LTD. issued them on opposite sides of a 12 inch 78 rpm vinyl disc, pressed from original Odeon masters. At the same time, Historic Masters also issued two Supervia song recordings that had not been released during the 78 rpm era, John Alden Carpenter’s “When I bring to you color’d toys” and Cyril Scott’s “Lullaby.” Would that we could listen to all of Supervia’s records on such quiet pressings. Sadly, masters no longer exist for most of the rarest Supervia recordings and in some cases, we have had to work with discs that were not in perfect condition. With careful choice of stylus size and judicious use of digital noise reduction technology, we hope to have minimized some of the inherent flaws in these recordings without compromising Supervia’s unique vocal timbre. In order to achieve the best results, all of the material in this volume was transferred directly from original 78 rpm sources. we have not used any second generation copies of original discs. We look forward to producing the fourth and final volume, which will contain the rest of Supervia’s Odeon recordings, as well as her stunning Ultraphone recordings from Lehar’s Frasquita.