Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

million albums of the first edition of the Treasur)' were sold. During this month, the second Treasur)\ consisting of seven volumes of classical music and twelve volumes of popular music is being published. Among the classi- cal albums there will be, of course, another Caruso album. For rhe first time, both John McCormack and Rosa Ponselle will be featured in individual albums. The other albums are Famous D//ets. Pianists of the Past Play Chopin, Stars of the Golden Age, and a new idea, Aida of Yesterday, a presentation of excerpts from the world's most popular opera sung by Caruso, Homer, Martinelli, Ponselle, Gadski, Amato, Pinza, Rethberg and Gigli. Among the artists represented in the popular series are Benny Goodman, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Lionel Hampton, Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine. Several curiosities are featured among these records. In the McCormack album there is one record in which the great John sings an excerpt from Tristan and Isolde. He never sang Tristan in any opera house. In fact, he made this record merely as an experiment and for his own amusement. No master of it could be found for a long time. We appealed to Mrs. McCormack. who started a search in her home in Ireland and after some time disclosed a test pressing. This rarity, now published for the first time, makes it possible for the public to listen to McCormack's art in all of its facets, from Irish Lucrecia Bori and the late John McCormack as they appeared for a broadcast in the early Twenties. songs such as / Hear You Calling Me to Adeste Videles. and to arias from Lucia to the Tristan excerpt. In the Caruso album will be found the last record that he made. It was recorded in Camden on September 16, 1920, less than a year before his death. Appropri- ately enough it is a church aria, the Domine Deus from Rossini's Mass. But the album also contains an aria from La Boheme — not Puccini's famous La Boheme but Leoncavallo's forgotten opera, an opera which Leoncavallo wrote to spite Puccini. Caruso scored one of his early great successes in the Leoncavallo Boheme. Realism Enhanced by New Theatre Screen A NEW and radically diflFerent motion picture pro- lection screen, hailed as the first major improvement in film projection in 25 years, has been placed on the market by the Radio Corporation of America. The first installation was made in the Plaza Theatre, New York. Designed by theatre architect Ben Schlanger and his associate, William Hoffterg, the screen features side wings and a top panel which together pick up and reflect diffused light from the picture. When color pictures are shown, reflected hues appear on the wings and panel. This effect gives a dramatic sense of realism by making the screen action appear to occupy a larger portion of the viewer's field of vision. The screen is made of RCA Snowhite screen material, a heavyweight Firestone "Velon" plastic. Because the projecting wings are not directly lighted, but pick up only the illumination from the screen, the intensity of light and the predominant color reflected by these panels vary in proportion to these same factors present in the screen picture. The optical impression is that of viewing a "live" scene, where vision is concen- trated on a particular object or in a certain direction, but the viewer is conscious of the surrounding area at which he is not looking directly. The new RCA screen allows for this peripheral vision, or "seeing out of the corner of the eye," in contrast to the sharp cut-off necessary in the conventional screen, which gives a pic- ture sharply outlined against a black background. The RCA wide-vision screen consists of the image screen on which the picture is actually projected, narrow (9-inch) flanges set at a relatively acute angle to the screen, and wings projecting from the flanges at the sides and from the top of the projection screen. The pic- ture image is actually "framed" on the screen by the flanges, which perform the same function as the usual black masking to eliminate fuzzy edges, but diffused light and color from the projected picture are picked up by the wings at sides and top of the screen. Reflection of light on these wings eliminates the sharp, contrasting outline of the screen image and makes it appear to taper off in the outer portions of the spectator's field of vision. 22 RADIO AGE