Giorgio de Maria

"Prossimo al matrimonio e spronato da un amico, l'anonimo protagonista del romanzo decide di aderire ai Trasgressionisti; come suggerisce il nome, questa setta si propone, attraverso trasgressioni man mano sempre più eversive, di sovvertire le consuetudini, l'ordine sociale, il potere costituito e l'egemonia del pensiero dominante. Riuscirà il nostro antieroe a sfuggire alle nozze abbandonando la sposa all'altare? Avrà il coraggio di varare una nuova esistenza all'insegna di piccole e grandi ribellioni? La risposta agli interrogativi sarà svelata in questo stesso libro, ma solo alla fine, quindi meglio non sbirciare o barare sfogliando veloci le pagine, anche se forse sarebbe abbastanza trasgressivo. […]". (Giovanni Arduino)

Le venti giornate di Torino erano iniziate a luglio, in un’estate terribilmente afosa: siccità, insonnia collettiva, cittadini che vagavano come fantasmi per le strade del centro storico, grida misteriose, statue che sembravano aver preso vita e una orribile catena di omicidi. Poi tutto era finito, all’improvviso, e nessuno aveva più voluto parlare di quella storia. Dieci anni dopo, un anonimo investigatore dilettante decide di scrivere un libro su quella vicenda. Perché l’insonnia di massa? Chi erano, e da dove venivano, le mostruose figure di cui troppe testimonianze raccontano? E soprattutto, che nesso c’era tra quanto accadde e la biblioteca aperta presso la Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza?

Tosca was the role in which – in 1965, the year this recording was made – Callas gave her last complete performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opéra. This was her final complete recording of an opera, and, 12 years after her first version of Tosca, it reunited her with the Scarpia of Tito Gobbi. They were joined by Carlo Bergonzi as Cavaradossi. Gramophone praised ‘a thrilling and very complete interpretation, with scene after scene, bar after bar, brought to life by sheer intelligence and dramatic insight’.

The fame and legacy of Maria Callas are nearly unsurpassed in the modern history of opera. Her fame has transcended the usual boundaries of classical music, and she has been the inspiration for several movies as well as the successful Broadway play "Master Class." Her extensive catalogue of recordings remains among the most coveted and controversial for both her fans and detractors.

Until she achieved a triumph in the delicate coloratura role of Elvira in I puritani - in Venice in 1949 under the tutelage of maestro Tullio Serafin - Maria Callas had been making her name in dramatic roles, such as the epically scaled title role in Die Walküre, which she had been singing just days before. Her success in Bellini's final opera set her firmly on the path to bel canto supremacy. Joining her as Arturo in this 1953 recording is one of her best-loved colleagues, the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano.

Blind from the age of two, a prodigiously gifted student, Jean Langlais (1907-91) produced an immense quantity of music. His organ works alone exceed in number those of of JS Bach. Many have hardly ever been performed. Perhaps not more than half a dozen works are regularly played or recorded today, which is what makes this new complete survey of his organ music – the first ever attempted on record – both unique and invaluable, as the authoritative document of a high point in the distinguished lineage of the French organ heritage.

Blind from the age of two, a prodigiously gifted student, Jean Langlais (1907-91) produced an immense quantity of music. His organ works alone exceed in number those of of JS Bach. Many have hardly ever been performed. Perhaps not more than half a dozen works are regularly played or recorded today, which is what makes this new complete survey of his organ music – the first ever attempted on record – both unique and invaluable, as the authoritative document of a high point in the distinguished lineage of the French organ heritage.

Maria Callas was born to a Greek family in New York in 1923. Her vocal training took place in Athens, where her teacher was the coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who had sung with Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin. After early performances in Greece, Callas’s international career was launched in 1947 when she performed the title role in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona in Italy. Her voice defied simple classification and her artistic range was extraordinary. In her early twenties she sang such heavy dramatic roles as Gioconda, Turandot, Brünnhilde and Isolde, but over the course of her career her most famous roles came to be: Bellini’s Norma and Amina (La sonnambula); Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata); Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, Cherubini’s Medea and Puccini’s Tosca. Though her timbre was not always conventionally beautiful, Callas’s musicianship and phrasing were in a class of their own. She brought characters to vivid life with her skill in colouring her tone and making insightful use of the text.