Maria Callas - Sings Operatic Arias (1955/2014) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/96kHz]

As this recital amply demonstrates, Maria Callas encompassed an extraordinary range of roles. She is as convincing in the pinpoint coloratura of Lakmé's 'Bell Song' ('Her chromatic scale is beautifully done and she sails up to the region known as in alt with the greatest ease,' said Gramophone) as in the sweeping, richly coloured lines of Maddalena's 'La mamma morta' from Andrea Chénier, famously and movingly featured on the soundtrack of the 1993 Hollywood film Philadelphia.'There is great tenderness and simplicity, deep emotion,and the most lovely moulding of the vocal phrases,' wrote Gramophone, 'Madame Callas's characterizations… are nothing less than superb, and altogether there is some of her finest singing yet recorded'.

This programme did not focus solely on her current stage repertoire, but included roles she had not yet broached in the opera house – and indeed one that she never did (the Cilea). In fact at the time, only Elena in I vespri siciliani (Florence, then La Scala, 1951) and Margherita in Mefistofele (Verona, 1954) were part of her stage repertoire; Maddalena di Coigny and Rosina were to follow, at La Scala, in 1955 and 1956. She had also sung, or would soon sing, in concert, the ‘Bell Song’ from Lakmé (Rome, 1952) and Meyerbeer’s ‘Ombra leggera’ (San Remo, late 1954).

On 7 March 1949, not long after her stunning appearances at the start of the year at Venice’s La Fenice (where she had learned, rehearsed and sung the part of Elvira in Bellini’s I puritani at the same time as appearing as Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Die Walküre!), and subsequent performances in Turandot (Naples) and Parsifal (Rome), Maria Callas gave a recital in Turin that featured several of the roles she had played at that point: Norma, Isolde, Elvira and Aida. In November of the same year, she recorded that same programme, minus the Aida excerpts, for Cetra, in what was her first recital recording (and her only 78rpm discs). She went on to record two complete operas for Cetra, in 1952–3: La Gioconda (the opera in which she made her Italian debut in Verona, in 1947), and La traviata.

In the meantime, she had also begun recording for EMI. Lucia, I puritani, Cavalleria rusticana and Tosca in 1953; Norma, Pagliacci, La forza del destino, Il turco in Italia in 1954. The complete opera recordings she made in Milan are particularly striking in terms of their contrast and the short space of time in which they were made – Verdi from 19 to 27 August 1954, Rossini between 31 August and 8 September. And, in that same week in September, she also flew to London to work with Tullio Serafin, her second musical mentor after Elvira de Hidalgo, on her first two recital discs for EMI: the legendary Puccini Heroines and this album of Lyric and Coloratura Arias.

Tracklist:

01 - Cilèa - Adriana Lecouvreur, Act 1: "Ecco: respiro appena…Io son l'umile ancella" (Adriana Lecouvreur)
02 - Cilèa - Adriana Lecouvreur, Act 4: "Poveri fiori" (Adriana Lecouvreur)
03 - Giordano - Andrea Chénier, Act 3: "La mamma morta" (Maddalena)
04 - Catalani - La Wally, Act 1: "Ebben?…Ne andrò lontana" (Wally)
05 - Boïto - Mefistofele, Act 3: "L'altra notte" (Elena)
06 - Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia, Act 1: "Una voce poco fa" (Rosina)
07 - Meyerbeer - Dinorah, '(Le) pardon de Ploërmel', Act 2: "Ombre légère" (Dinorah- Shadow Song) - Sung in Italian
08 - Delibes - Lakmé, Act 2: "Où va la jeune indoue" (Lakmé - Bell Song)
09 - Verdi - I vespri Siciliani, Act 5: "Mercè, dilette amiche" (Elena)

Recorded: September 17,18,20 & 21, 1954 at Watford Town Hall.

Performers:
Maria Callas - soprano
Philharmonia Orchestra, Conducted by Tullio Serafin.


Thanks to the Original customer!

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