The recording was made on 23 November 1903 for the Victor Talking Machine & Co.
It's one of the fun things about Youtube, you read about a musician or music you've never heard before and it's possible you'll find something of it you can listen to.
I'd heard of Pol Plançon, one of the most renowned of singers from the "golden age" of opera, but hadn't heard him. When I came across this I realized that his life overlapped Adloph Adam's and both his teacher, Gilbert Duprez and his model in singing, Jean Baptiste Faure would have certainly been the kind of singers that Adam expected to sing his music. Faure had originated some of Adam's roles. And, once I had read that, I was curious to know what Faure's voice was like. Here he is when he was 70, an age when most of us would be lucky to croak out something in tune.
The style is not how you would expect to hear this music today but it is the best evidence we have for how the composers would have expected it to be sung.
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