Maria Callas Arias From Verdi Operas

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.

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.

Maria Callas (born Maria Anna Cecilia Sophie Kalogeropoulou), was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini and, further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina ("the Divine one").

THE FIRST OF THE TWELVE discs in this collection of Anna Moffo’s RCA recital recordings begins with a 1960 performance of the jewel song from Gounod’s Faust, and that selection, along with the others on this disc, sets out the singer’s basic assets and liabilities. It’s a fresh lyric sound—Moffo was twenty-eight that year—even throughout the range, accurate in pitch and coloratura, with a good try at a trill. She phrases with musicality but not much nuance or variety of color. These qualities serve her and the music well in the coloratura fireworks of the shadow song from Meyerbeer’s Dinorah; “Bel raggio,” from Rossini’s Semiramide; and the bell song from Delibes’s Lakmé, all of which she tosses off with ease. Micaela’s aria from Carmen, however, demands more emotional thrust, while her Mimì and Liù are bland and anonymous.

Rosa Ponselle - The Columbia Acoustic Recordings (1992) {2CD Set Pearl GEMM CDS 9964 rec 1918-1923}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 444 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 377 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 24 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1918-23, 1992 Pearl / Pavilion Records | GEMM CDS 9964
Classical / Vocal / Opera / Historical

Those early Ponselle records have unique qualities. She was at the age of the characters she was portraying, in her impulsiveness (incredibly controlled by technique and taste) singing every note and emotion with the freshness of youth in life's spring. This with the most glorious voice that ever came from any woman's throat in the Italian repertory, with a precocious sense of line, style, and emotional honesty…