Il Silenzio Del Giusto

This unique 70CD box set includes all the studio recordings Maria Callas ever made. It contains 26 complete operas, four of which are studio repeats, plus the complete studio recitals made during her recording career, from 1949 to 1969.

Early Rossini has something buoyant, vibrant, youthful about it – even when it is a “dramma per musica” such as “Sigismondo”, a dark swirl of an opera revolving around a mad king and his delusions, his wife who is allegedly dead but very much alive, the fate of Poland and much more. Premiered in 1814 but rarely played thereafter, the work deserves to be resurrected, if only for its many beautiful and original arias and ensembles, some of which were such brilliant little masterpieces that he reused them in his later successes such as “Il turco in Italia”, “La Cenerentola” and “Il barbiere di Siviglia”. The work was given its first performance from the critical new edition at the 2010 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. The press hailed the production as a “perfect symbiosis of music and stage work” that yields “truly brilliant theater”.

It's pretty simple-this boxed set contains EVERYTHING La Divina recorded in the studio, including newly-licensed and newly-remastered material! That's the first 69 CDs; the 70th CD is a CD-ROM containing the tracklists and photos. And the set comes inside a hardcover slipcase containing a color booklet packed with even more photos of this most photogenic of opera singers. As for the contents, well, again, it's EVERYTHING she did in the studio.

Some listeners might find the gimmick of “original jackets” sort of foolish, particularly when a) you cannot read the copy on the back if you are older than 15, and b) some of the CDs (taken, of course, from the original LPs) have as little as 40 minutes of music on them and only a couple have more than an hour. But the packaging is slim and nice (taking up the space of about 5 CDs), nostalgia sets in, the enclosed booklet reproduces the original essays (or excerpts from them) and includes track listings if not translations. And the low price for these 15 CDs (under $80.00) makes it very appealing from an entirely different angle.