The potential sale of a sampler CD containing three tracks from John Paul Jones’ unstaged opera “The Ghost Sonata” has been blocked after Discogs removed a sales listing for the item.

LedZepNews reported in January that a copy of a promotional sampler CD for Jones’ opera had been found in a New York record shop.

The owner of the CD initially asked for $50,000 for the item before dropping his asking price to $30,000 weeks later.

However, Discogs has now removed the sales listing for the CD, presumably after the publisher of the opera’s soundtrack requested its removal.

“This release is blocked from sale on Discogs. It is not permitted to sell this item in our Marketplace,” the Discogs website listing for the CD now reads.

Chester Music, Jones’ classical music publisher, previously took down a 49-second YouTube video the seller uploaded that included clips from two of the disc’s three tracks.

The now-removed Discogs sales listing previously claimed the CD “might be the ultimate John Paul Jones or Led Zeppelin related collectable disc of rare music.”

The demonstration recordings heard on the CD were performed by the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera and a group of opera performers. There is no indication that Jones performed on any of the tracks.

Discogs explains on its website that it removes sales listings due to “copyright infringement” or “unacceptable content”.

“From time to time, we are either legally required to block a release from sale, or we will block a release which violates our Offensive Marketplace Item Guide,” the site explains.

Jones has spent years working on an opera version of “The Ghost Sonata”, a play by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Jones’ opera remains unreleased, despite previous interviews and documents claiming it would be staged as early as 2016.

Jones has spent years perfecting his opera. He began talking about it publicly in 2013, but evidence online shows Jones has been in talks about the project since at least 2010.

Jones has explained in interviews that his opera is an adaptation of “Spöksonaten” (“The Ghost Sonata,”) a play written by Strindberg in 1907.

The play is about a student and the people who live in a fancy apartment building in Stockholm. A mysterious character in a wheelchair named Jacob Hummel allows the student into the building, but then the student finds that everything inside the apartment is nightmarish.

“The Ghost Sonata” explores themes like the supernatural and the class divide. In an interview with Tight But Loose published in June 2016, Jones described the play as “a psychological drama — it’s very dark there are a few comic moments in it but not too many.”

It’s unclear whether there are any plans to stage Jones’ opera. The project was mentioned in an updated biography of Jones published in 2023 ahead of his performances at the 2024 Big Ears music featival, however.

An archived copy of the now-deleted web page reads: “John has recently been finalising the orchestration of his first opera, entitled ‘The Ghost Sonata’ which is based on the play written by August Strindberg.”

Spokespeople for Discogs and Chester Music did not respond to a request for comment.

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