The New York Times reports on the dress rehearsal for Siegfried at the Paris Opera, Jan. 1, 1902. Jean de Reszke, widely considered the greatest tenor of his time, sang the title role. You can get a very faint idea of what de Reszke sounded like from Mapleson cylinders — primitive evidence of live performances at the Met in 1901. The tenor did make two recordings for Fonotipia in 1905, after he had retired from the stage, but he was apparently dissatisfied with the results, and the records subsequently disappeared.
