Allas Sings Arias From Verdi Operas Callas Remastered Maria Callas, Nicola Rescigno, Orchestre de la Société Des Concerts du Conservatoire, Orchestre du Théâtre National de L'opéra de Paris

Callas’s first stage appearances in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera came at La Scala in 1957, a year in which Milan also saw her in La sonnambula and Anna Bolena. As in this recording, made the year before, she shared Verdi’s most spectacular soprano-tenor duet (in Act II) with Giuseppe di Stefano. This was the last time Callas and Di Stefano appeared together in opera, though they reunited in the 1970s to direct I vespri siciliani in Turin and to give a series of joint concerts in Europe, the USA, Canada,South Korea and Japan. Gramophone judged this recording of Ballo to be ‘one of Callas’s most compelling assumptions’.

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'.

Callas's two comic roles were both in operas by Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia and Il turco in Italia. She first played the capricious and flirtatious Fiorilla - a married Neapolitan woman who takes up with a visiting Turk - in Rome in 1950. Five years later, at La Scala, she appeared in a production by Franco Zeffirelli, also, famously, the director of her Covent Garden Tosca and Paris Norma. Gramophone wrote: 'Callas acts vividly, chiding, boasting, melting, and when in typical Rossinian style she is given a 'key' figure, each repetition of it carries, so one thinks, a slightly different meaning. I found myself teased by memories of these little phrases for hours afterwards'.

Digitally remastered 3 discs collection of American-born Greek soprano, Maria Callas. She 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'. This compilation features mono and stereo recordings from 1952 to 1982 and includes a 64 pages booklet with many photos.

One of the legendary moments in Callas's career came in 1950 in Mexico City, when she interpolated a stupendous top E flat at the end of the Triumphal Scene in Act II of Aida. In this recording under Serafin she abided by the score, but still prompted Gramophone to speak of her 'fascinating art and prodigious personality', observing the way she was 'rapt in imaginative intensity in the significance of the words'.

Callas only sang Gilda in Rigoletto in one run of performances, in Mexico City in 1952, and she recorded the role three years later. She moves beyond the girlish tone and sparkling coloratura of the character's first scenes to create a figure of tragic stature as events unfold. 'Once heard, this rendering is never likely to be forgotten,' was Gramophone's judgement on her interpretation, and the same could apply to Tito Gobbi's, embodying every aspect of the accursed court jester.

Although Maria Callas considered herself a bel canto and Verdi soprano, through recordings and video documents her name is inextricably linked with that of Puccini. This extraordinary album of Puccini arias was aptly named Puccini Heroines, as it is indeed a collection of portraits of many of the composer’s powerful creations for soprano. By September 1954, Callas had reinvented herself as a slim, elegant diva; the weight loss brought a new slenderness to the voice as well, while the instrument retained flexibility and plushness.

Callas never sang the role of Mimì on stage, but this did not prevent her recorded interpretation from being, as described by Philip Hope-Wallacein Gramophone, 'brilliantly realised… This Mimì comes alive and later haunts you in the most extraordinary way … one of the most moving I have ever heard.' Giuseppe di Stefano is anardent Rodolfo and the young Anna Moffomakes a delectable Musetta.

Callas first sang at Milan's legendary La Scala for the opening of the 1951-1952 season (in Verdi's I vespri siciliani) and she became closely identified with the theatre, notably in productions directed by Luchino Visconti and his protege Franco Zeffirelli. Spontini's La vestale was staged for her there in 1954, Bellini's Lasonnambula in 1955, and her final La Scala performances came in 1962 with Cherubini's Medea. 'This wonderful record gives us… Callas at her most spell-binding and enthralling,' wrote Gramophone. 'Callas at La Scala… shows the diva at her most exciting and most beautiful'.