Maria Callas

Maria Callas – Diva by Daisy Goodwin (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:30:22 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Daisy Goodwin’s novel Diva is a beautiful homage to Maria Callas and inspired by her tumultuous life, centered around her passionate romance with Onassis. The author has selected twenty of the most iconic Callas recordings, closely associated with the content of her book, and gathered them on this album.

(more…)

Maria Callas – Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:10:08 minutes | 2,64 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

“We go to II barbiere for refreshment. Here the choice of conductor was as happy as it was unexpected. The veteran Serafin and man-of-the-moment Giulini were the obvious choices, but already critics and public were complaining about the predictability of cast-lists in this wonderful new age of complete operatic recordings. Alceo Galliera had attracted attention as a symphonic conductor and an orchestral trainer of exceptional ability. Walter Legge had picked him out for some early recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra, including a sparkling performance of the Overture from Il barbiere. To the opera itself he brought a light touch, imaginative care for detail and a nice Rossinian feeling of expectancy, of fun brooding in alleyways and lights turned on in corners. It is, of course, an ensemble opera, the whole amounting to much more than the sum of its parts. The famous Rossini crescendo is the embodiment of laughter welling up from all points of the compass. It is as important, for instance, that the “stars” work together in the “Buona sera” quintet as that Figaro should make a success of his “Largo al factotum”; and, however brilliant Rosina’s “Una voce poco fu”, the general joy of the evening depends more upon the success of the Act I finale. Here, each of the principals makes a special contribution (mostly through an individuality of timbre), but each also draws from the centre (that is, the conductor and, I think, the record producer) a sense of a specialness of occasion, almost of history, that Legge was able to impart to every individual session.

(more…)

Maria Callas – Puccini: Madama Butterfly by Maria Callas (1955/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:18:34 minutes | 2,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alexandre Bak – Classical Music Reference Recording

Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is based on the short story “Madame Butterfly” (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti. Long’s version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.

(more…)

Maria Callas – Bellini: Norma (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:41:32 minutes | 3,20 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

This 1960 Norma represents Maria Callas’s final complete documented version of her signature role. Seven recordings of the opera exist with Callas (1950-60), plus numerous snippets and scenes captured between 1949 and 1965. With 89 performances, Norma is Callas’s most performed part; certainly no other 20th-century diva is more closely associated with the role, and no one since has even remotely eclipsed Callas in the perception of opera lovers. Countless moments, too numerous to catalogue here, raise this Callas Norma to the level of genius. From a haunting ‘Casta Diva’ to a final scene of incomparable grandeur and sweep, in every startlingly brilliant detail, Callas is Norma.

(more…)

Maria Callas – The Best of Maria Callas – Her Greatest Roles (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 04:49:33 minutes | 4,11 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

On December 2, 2023, the world will celebrate the 100th birthday of Maria Callas. To mark the occasion, Warner Classics will release a comprehensive box set on September 22, 2023 and numerous digital releases and LPs throughout the year. Known as La Divina, Maria Callas continues to fascinate as an outstanding artist, but also as a woman and style icon. Dramatic gestures and musical authenticity are the unmistakable characteristics of her interpretations. Equally unique is the extraordinary range of her voice, her timbre magical. All this combines to create an aura with which Maria Callas embodies the heroines of opera and makes her the epitome of the prima donna. Maria Callas is not only considered the greatest soprano of all time – she was the most famous woman in the world. Callas’ early fame, her temperament, her marriage to the industrialist Meneghini and her affair with the Greek shipowner Onassis dominated the headlines of the press worldwide for years. She herself became one of the tragic-romantic heroines that she inimitably embodied on stage. For millions of fans around the world who still adore Maria Callas today, there can only be one! Maria Callas is a myth that was created during her lifetime and an exceptional figure who is still as present today as she was then. LA DIVINA – Maria Callas in all her roles is the most comprehensive box set of Callas recordings ever released. It presents the singer in all 74 roles for which sound documents exist. The deluxe box contains her complete studio recordings, an extensive collection of her live recordings, the master classes she gave at the Juilliard School, videos and a bonus CD with world premieres: alternative takes and working sessions of studio recordings from the 1960s.

(more…)

Maria Callas – Puccini: Tosca (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:48:54 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Franco Calabrese – Maria Callas – Dario Caselli – Alvaro Cordova – Tito Gobbi – Melchiorre Luise – Angelo Mercuriali – Giuseppe di Stefano – Chœur & Orchestre de la Scala de Milan – Victor De Sabata, direction.

(more…)

Maria Callas – The Best of Maria Callas – Her Greatest Roles (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 04:51:08 minutes | 4,12 GB | Genre: Classique, Opéra
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover

(more…)

Maria Callas – Verdi: Aida (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:24:41 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

One of the legendary moments in Callas’ career came in 1950 in Mexico City, when she interpolated a stupendous top E flat at the end of the Triumphal Scene in Act II of Aida. In this recording under Serafin she abided by the score, but still prompted Gramophone to speak of her ‘fascinating art and prodigious personality’, observing the way she was ‘rapt in imaginative intensity in the significance of the words’.

(more…)

Maria Callas – Puccini: Turandot (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:58:21 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

“This is not a good recording”: this is how the well-known Viennese theater critic Karl Löbl judges this old Legge production from July 1957, which was originally edited by the EMI. The conductor seems “too good for him”, Maria Callas, according to his impression, “obviously does not feel comfortable vocally in this part” and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf “does not fit in with the rest of the ensemble”.

(more…)