09.6

//Source(s): WHEN OLD TECHNOLOGIES WERE NEW: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century by// Carolyn Marvin Oxford University Press 1988 ISBN 0-19-504468-1 pages 209-210 "The most popular feature of the Paris Exposition Internationale d'Electricite of 1881 was such an arrangement, variously described as the theatrophone and the electrophone. From August to November crowds queued up three evenings a week before two rooms, each containing ten pairs of headsets, in the Palais d'Industrie. In one, listeners heard live performances of the Opera transmitted through microphones arranged on either side of the prompter's box. In the other, they heard plays from the Theatre Francais through ten microphones placed at the front of the stage near the footlights. Not only were the voices of the actors, actresses, and singers heard in this hammer, but also the instruments of the orchestra, the applause and laughter of the the audience == 'and, alas! the voice of the prompter too.' "Efforts to reeach extended audiences by telephone required elaborate logistical preparations. Its application to entertainment, therefore, remained experimental and occasional. In Europe entertainment uses of the telephone were often an aristocratic prerogative. The president of the French Republic was so pleased with the theatrophone exhibit at the Paris Exposition that he inaugurated a series of telephonic soirees with theatrophonic connections from the Elysee Palace to the Opera, the Theatre Francais, and the Odeon Theatre. "The King and Queen of Portugal, in mourning for the Princess of Saxony in 1884 and unable to attend the premiere of a new Lisbon opera, were provided with a special transmission to the palace through six microphones mounted at the front of the opera stage. The same year the manager of a theatre in Munich installed a telephone line to his villa at Tutzingen on the Starnberger Sea in order to monitor every performance and to hear for himself how enthusiastically the audience applauded. The office of the Berlin Philharmonic Society was similarly connected to its own distant opera house. In Brussels, the Minister of Railways, Posts and Telegraphs and other high public officials listened to live opera thirty miles away at Antwerp. "Beginning in 1890, individual subscribers to the Theatrophone Company of Paris were offered special hookups to five Paris theatres for live performances. The annual subscription fee was a steep 180 francs, and 15 francs more was charged to subscribers on each occasion of use. "In London in 1891, the Universal Telephone Company placed fifty telephones in the Royal Italian Opera House in Covent Garden, and another fifty in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. All transmittted exclusively to the estate of Sir Augustus Harris at St. John's Wood, with an extension to his stables. By 1896 the affluent could secure private connections to a variety of London entertainments for an inclusive annual rent of ten pounds sterling in addition to an installation fee of five pounds. The queen was one of these clients. In addition to having special lines from her sitting room to the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Board of Green cloth, and Marlborough House, Her Majesty enjoyed direct connections to her favorite entertainments."
 * Dead medium: the theatrophone; the electrophone**
 * From: bruces@well.com Bruce Sterling**