Opera Buff’s Hobby Kept Him on Spins and Needles

Ed Durbeck wants to sing a different tune.

For nearly four decades, he has been collecting opera records, as a hobby, as a business and, finally, as he is the first to admit, as an obsession. He has an estimated 25,000 opera records in his private collection at his home in Oceanside--along with 60,000 to 70,000 opera records that are inventory for his rare-record dealership, RoundSound West.

“Where else would you have 45 different versions of ‘Rigoletto’?” Durbeck asks.

The entire downstairs of the house is given over to opera records. Plus, classical vocal recital records, choral music records, opera movies (including the first opera talkie, a 1931 version of “Pagliacci”), and assorted opera memorabilia, such as a bust of Verdi, a poster of Caruso and a framed RCA album cover of the Russian soloist Alexander Kipnis.

The upstairs is for living--and 3,000 opera books.

“I just love the ambiance of phonograph records,” explains Durbeck, 53. “I love to handle them, feel them, look at them, look for them, and, of course, listen to them. I’m kind of a record-obsessive person.”

But all obsessions must end, and now Durbeck is willing to part with his private collection, which he asserts is the world’s largest, for $1.6 million. Somewhere, he feels, there is a corporation or well-heeled collector who will be interested, possibly as the first step toward donating the collection to a university or museum.

“It is time for a change in life style,” Durbeck said.

A never-ending part of his current life style is The Hunt.

“I go everywhere records are likely to be--record stores, garage sales, thrift stores, swap meets,” Durbeck said. “Every chance I get, I’m off to somewhere. I have to go through a lot of chaff to get a piece of wheat.”

Yes, but what wheat. Durbeck says his rarest item is an autographed copy of a 10-inch album on Paul Robeson’s Othello label.

It began innocently enough with a trip to the movies in the early 1950s.

“I was a teen-ager when I saw the movie ‘The Great Caruso,’ with Mario Lanza,” Durbeck said. “Something just seemed to snap for me.”

Durbeck has operated record stores in Boston, Sorrento Valley and, until recently, Leucadia. He also tried singing, teaching, and working as a librarian, but his record collection has been his true love.

Durbeck and his third wife, Klara, 34, a former opera singer, want to sell the private collection but keep the business inventory. The two met as panelists on an opera quiz show sponsored by the San Diego Opera Guild.

As dedicated as he is to changing his life, Durbeck has one reservation.

“I’m 99% dedicated to selling the collection, but I’m still devoted to Wagner,” he said. “I’ll sell everything, but I’ll start all over again to get back Wagner.”

Beverly Shills

Take that, you bargain hunters!

A Beverly Hills real estate firm, worried about erosion of that city’s reputation as a bastion of exclusivity, released figures Tuesday contradicting a previous survey showing homes there are cheaper than in La Jolla.

A survey conducted by Mike Silverman & Associates found that a single-family home in Beverly Hills sold for an average $1.8 million between Aug. 18 and Nov. 18, $700,000 more than a similar home in La Jolla.

“Having the distinction as the most expensive suburban community in the country adds even more to the wonderful mystique and appeal of this area,” Silverman said.