To heck with the record companies. My sister, a classically trained mezzo soprano with several world tours under her belt as well as a stint as 'Tituba' in The Crucible at the Kennedy Center, has put out her own album and made it available on the digital music sites. She has had some sales of the CD, but gets downloads of her music all the time. She is paid royalties for the downloads. People use MP3 players; they want to quickly download what they want rather than buy the CD and copy it over to their player.
It's not just file sharing that's an issue; it's how the music is packaged (Granted, there may be less choice with a classical piece such as an opera than deciding which songs to put on a rock or country CD) People will pay for what they want. The record companies still haven't figured it out.
The one problem with downloads, which I wish recording companies would work to solve is the lack of liner notes. I wish classical music downloads had an accompanying acrobat file with those wonderful liner notes of the past with translations, bios of the performers, historical and musical analysis, etc. They add so much to the recording.