Cetra Records was an Italian company which produced opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 recordings from the 1930s onwards. Its roster of artists included Maria Callas

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...

, Renata Tebaldi

Renata Tebaldi

Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period...

, Lina Pagliughi

Lina Pagliughi

Lina Pagliughi was an Italian-American opera singer. Based in Italy for the majority of her career, she made a number of recordings and established herself as one of the world's finest lyric coloratura sopranos of the 1930s and '40s.-Career:Pagliughi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian...

, Ebe Stignani

Ebe Stignani

Ebe Stignani was an Italian opera singer, who was pre-eminent in the dramatic mezzo-soprano roles of the Italian repertoire during a stage career of more than thirty years.-Career:...

, Carlo Bergonzi, Galliano Masini

Galliano Masini

Galliano Masini was a leading Italian operatic tenor, particularly associated with the spinto roles of the Italian repertory.Masini was born in Livorno in humble circumstances...

, Giovanni Malipiero

Giovanni Malipiero

Giovanni Malipiero was an operatic tenor who enjoyed a prominent career on stage and on radio in his native Italy during the 1930s and '40s.-Career and recorded legacy:...

, Ferruccio Tagliavini

Ferruccio Tagliavini

Ferruccio Tagliavini was an Italian operatic tenor mainly active in the 1940s and 1950s...

, Carlo Tagliabue

Carlo Tagliabue

Carlo Tagliabue was an Italian baritone.After studies with Leopoldo Gennai and Annibale Guidotti he made his debut in Lodi, Lombardy, in Loreley and Aida. His debuts in Genoa , Torino, La Scala , Rome , and Naples were all in Tristan und Isolde...

, Rolando Panerai

Rolando Panerai

Rolando Panerai Italian baritone, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, he enjoyed a long and distinguished career in both comic and dramatic roles.Rolando Panerai was born in Campi Bisenzio, near Florence, Italy....

, Giuseppe Taddei

Giuseppe Taddei

Giuseppe Taddei was an Italian baritone, who performed mostly the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi....

, Tancredi Pasero

Tancredi Pasero

Tancredi Pasero was an Italian bass who enjoyed a long and distinguished singing career in his native country and abroad.-Career & recordings:...

 and Cesare Siepi

Cesare Siepi

Cesare Siepi was an Italian opera singer, generally considered to have been one of the finest basses of the post-war period. His voice was characterised by a deep, warm timbre, and a ringing, vibrant upper register. On stage, his tall, striking presence and elegance of phrasing made him a natural...

, among other leading sopranos, tenors, mezzo-sopranos, baritones and basses.

The company achieved something of a triumph in the early 1950s when it produced many recordings of rare or under-rated Verdi operas to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the composer's death in 1901. Cetra recordings are often now reissued by the company Warner Fonit Cetra. Cetra opera albums were distributed in the United States on the Cetra-Soria label (founded by Dario and Dorle Soria, who later founded Angel Records

Angel Records

Angel Records is a record label belonging to EMI. It was formed in 1953 and specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score...

).

Cetra Records also produced popular music recordings from at least the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

years through the 1960s. One of their instrumental artists is accordionist Michele Corino, a soloist with Italy's prominent "Orchestra Angelini" until he moved to San Francisco, California, in 1948. "Mike" ran a prominent accordion studio in "North Beach Music" (a.k.a. Corino Music) and taught, worked and recorded with brothers Fabio and Gianfranco Giotta, part of the San Francisco based Caffe Trieste. Gianfranco shared the studio with Mike on the 1963 Cetra album titled "Rome to Paris".