Maria Callas - Callas A Paris: More Arias From French Opera (1964/2014) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/96kHz]

As in her first Callas à Paris recital, recorded two years previously, the diva performs arias of diverse weight, colour and mood - from the darker tones of Berlioz's Marguerite to the brilliant 'Jewel Song' of Gounod's Marguerite, and from the mezzo-ish melancholy of Massenet's Charlotte to the soprano coquetry of the same composer's Manon. 'Simply as an artist,' wrote Gramophone in its review of the recital, 'in her sense of line, her feeling for a word, her command of colour and her mastery of the whole complex art of interpretation - [Callas] is so far ahead of all other contemporary singers, and of all but the greatest past singers, too, that she almost spoils us for the rest.'

The circumstances in which Maria Callas made her post-1960 recordings were anything but easy for her, on either a musical or a personal level. Physically and mentally exhausted after ten years of intense professional activity, Callas had announced back in 1958 that she would be cutting back on her work commitments. That same year, it had seemed as if a number of disputes (with the Rome Opera, La Scala and the Met), in parallel with her prestigious debut at the Paris Opera, would take her career in new directions. It was also the end of a chapter in her private life, as in 1959 she separated from her husband (and de facto manager), Giovanni Battista Meneghini (1895-1981). Meanwhile, her voice appeared to be paying a heavy price for the previous years' punishing schedule.
Callas wanted the luxury of some time to herself, something she had never been able to enjoy before, but as a workaholic, she also wanted to regain control of her voice and so put herself through a thorough vocal retraining process, a significant aspect of which were the 'working' recordings she made in London. It was against this background, as she divided her time between Paris and Monte Carlo (and with one foot still in Milan), that she recorded the two Callas a Paris albums with Georges Pretre. On this second disc, her voice is more fragile than on the first (on which the difference in comparison with the previous decade was already audible): she was suffering from a painful and recurrent sinus infection and was probably troubled by her career's sudden change in pace (almost no stage performances, and just a small number of recitals), even if this were providing her with some vocal respite. And yet, her peerless ability to paint magical musical portraits, without the aid of any dramatic context, was at its height. A born stylist, with an acute awareness of each era and composer, she gave a truly revelatory series of individually drawn performances of this repertoire, bringing as much vitality and naturalness to the French language as she ever did to Italian. A brittle Manon (with her anguished 'c'est inimaginable'), a deeply moving Charlotte - a number she performed again on 5 June at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees (in a wonderful concert issued by EMI), a Marguerite as intensely focused in the ballade as she is brimming with youthful joy in the Jewel Song - all bear witness to Callas's undimmed genius for creating supreme and perfect harmony between music and drama.

Tracklist:

01 - Iphigénie en Tauride: Act 2: "O malheureuse Iphigénie!" (Iphigénie)
02 - La Damnation de Faust, Op. 24: "D'amour l'ardente flamme" (Marguerite)
03 - Les Pêcheurs de perles: 'The Pearl Fishers', Act 2: "Ma voila seule……Comme autrefois" (Leïla)
04 - Manon: Act 2: "Je ne suis que faiblesse… Adieu, notre petite table" (Manon)
05 - Manon: Act 3: "Suis-je gentille ainsi? … Je marche sur tous les chemins" (Manon)
06 - Werther: Act 3: "Werther! Qui m'aurait dit la place… Des cris joyeux" (Charlotte - Air des lettres)
07 - Faust: Act 3: "Il était un Roi de Thulé…O Dieu!que de bijoux…Ah! je ris" (Marguerite - Jewel Song)

Recorded in 1963 at Salle Wagram, Paris, France.

Performers:
Maria Callas - soprano
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Conducted by Georges Prêtre.


Thanks to the Original customer!

Got an extraction error?
- Unpack to the root directory of the disc ("C:\" for example)