Bellini Callas

Callas & De Hidalgo: The Pupil and Her Teacher
EAC RIP | FLAC CUE LOG | 254 MB | No COVER
Classical | 1 CD | Label: Fono Enterprise | Catalogue: FONO 1010 | Release Date: 2003 | RAR 1% Recovery | RS.com

Maria Callas (December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the twentieth century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini; further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, the music dramas of Wagner. Her remarkable musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina.

Elvira de Hidalgo (1892 - 1980), was a Spanish soprano and singing teacher, whose best-known student was Maria Callas. Of all Callas's teachers, de Hidalgo probably had the greatest influence on her technique and career. She was born in Valderrobres, Teruel Province (Spain). She had a significant singing career as a coloratura soprano before becoming a teacher at the Athens Conservatoire. She made several recordings for Columbia and Fonotipia. Her "Una voce poco fa" from Rossini's The Barber of Seville is typical of the singing of the excellently-trained singers of the turn of the century. Her timbre, ease of production and great agility are all hallmarks of the kind of singing technique which such teachers as Mathilde Marchesi taught in the late 19th century. She was not, however, a pupil of Marchesi but of Melchiorre Vidal, who also taught Maria Barrientos, Graziella Pareto, Julián Gayarre, Fernando Valero, Francesco Vignas and Rosina Storchio. She died in Milan, Italy in 1980.

Marking the 40th anniversary of Maria Callas’ death (16th September 1977), Maria Callas Live captures the legendary soprano in action on the stages of the world’s great opera houses and concert halls. Thanks to new audio remastering from the best available sources, this set reveals Callas’ compelling genius as a singing actress with a new truthfulness and immediacy. Containing 20 complete operas – including 12 works she never recorded in the studio – and five complete filmed recitals (with two different stagings of Act 2 of Tosca) on Blu-ray, Maria Callas Live is the indispensable complement to Callas Remastered, Warner Classics’ landmark collection of her studio recordings.

Drawn in all but one instance from material issued previously on DVD by EMI, this video tribute to Maria Callas, marking the 30th anniversary of her death in September 1977, does its job for the most part strikingly well. In fact, there’s one item—a film of Callas singing “Casta diva” from an RAI-Rome New Year’s Eve telecast at 9 p.m. on December 31, 1957—that may in itself warrant your purchase of this DVD. Missing from the chronology of filmed performances in the final edition of John Ardoin’s The Callas Legacy (4th edition; Amadeus Press, 1995), and missing also from some of the “complete” performance chronologies elsewhere in the Callas literature, it appears here, “for the first time on DVD,” as a “special bonus feature”. This is a historic document.

A true Callas cornucopia, this 70-CD set gathers together everything Maria Callas ever recorded in the studio. That's 26 complete operas (four of which are studio repeats), plus the complete studio recitals made during the legendary soprano's recording career, which lasted from 1949-69. The bonus CD-ROM contains libretti and translations in English, French and German, plus a Callas photo library, while remastered treats include Callas's first recital recording, originally made for the Fonit-Cetra label and featuring arias by Wagner and Bellini. –Barnes & Noble

1000x thanks for this!!!! –bungynik
Thank you fot this great collection!!! –gerelsalaito
Thank you, wonderful collection you are giving us. –joseph
Thank you, this is an awesome release. –thebaroninthetrees
WOW! The gems that keep appearing on AvaxHome! Thanks. –jobanx (AvaxHome Users)

Maria Callas: The Complete Studio Recordings (1949-1969) - CD 55 of 70
Classical, Opera | CD55 | FLAC LOG CUE | 295 MB | RS |
EMI Classics (3959182) | Release Date: Sep 25, 2007

A true Callas cornucopia, this 70-CD set gathers together everything Maria Callas ever recorded in the studio. That's 26 complete operas (four of which are studio repeats), plus the complete studio recitals made during the legendary soprano's recording career, which lasted from 1949-69. The bonus CD-ROM contains libretti and translations in English, French and German, plus a Callas photo library, while remastered treats include Callas's first recital recording, originally made for the Fonit-Cetra label and featuring arias by Wagner and Bellini. – Barnes & Noble

Maria Callas: The Complete Studio Recordings (1949-1969) - CD 56 of 70
Classical, Opera | CD56 | FLAC LOG CUE | 135 MB | RS |
EMI Classics (3959182) | Release Date: Sep 25, 2007

A true Callas cornucopia, this 70-CD set gathers together everything Maria Callas ever recorded in the studio. That's 26 complete operas (four of which are studio repeats), plus the complete studio recitals made during the legendary soprano's recording career, which lasted from 1949-69. The bonus CD-ROM contains libretti and translations in English, French and German, plus a Callas photo library, while remastered treats include Callas's first recital recording, originally made for the Fonit-Cetra label and featuring arias by Wagner and Bellini. – Barnes & Noble

Maria Callas: The Complete Studio Recordings (1949-1969) - CD 57 of 70
Classical, Opera | CD57 | FLAC LOG CUE | 313 MB | RS |
EMI Classics (3959182) | Release Date: Sep 25, 2007

A true Callas cornucopia, this 70-CD set gathers together everything Maria Callas ever recorded in the studio. That's 26 complete operas (four of which are studio repeats), plus the complete studio recitals made during the legendary soprano's recording career, which lasted from 1949-69. The bonus CD-ROM contains libretti and translations in English, French and German, plus a Callas photo library, while remastered treats include Callas's first recital recording, originally made for the Fonit-Cetra label and featuring arias by Wagner and Bellini. – Barnes & Noble

With two official EMI versions and five complete live recordings, Norma is at the top of the Callas hit parade, but choosing a single version is a nightmare as each has its virtues, based on the state of the soprano's voice or the surrounding cast. My second choice lies with the 1955 live recording in Roma where nearly perfect performance is sustained by a correct if not excellent sound quality.
Once we get the obvious out of the way–that from 1950 to 1964 (and arguably both before and since) Maria Callas was the greatest Norma available–we have at least a half-dozen of her performances to choose from. Two were recorded in the studio, there's another from London, one or two from Milan, and a couple of others (along with this 1955 performance) from Rome. Here she was in her vocal prime. The voice is in control at all volumes, and from blazing top to cruel/tragic low notes her coloratura is flawless, idiomatic, and always at the service of the music and text. And this security allows her to "read" the role with searing insights, offering us equal parts Norma the Woman and Norma the Warrior. In short, it's as nearly perfect a performance of this role as we're ever going to hear. Her fury and hatred in her last-act confrontation with Pollione is as terrifying as her tenderness with her children is touching.
Partnering her is the somewhat brutal Mario del Monaco, who as usual makes up with vocal splendor what he lacks in nuance, and if the truth be known, he seems to try harder here to vary his approach than in most other recordings we have of his work. Ebe Stignani's Adalgisa is the best combination of girlishness and knowing; she partners Callas well. Giuseppe Modesti's Oroveso is properly booming. Tullio Serafin was a master of the score, and he brings both tautness and lyricism to it. The sound is good enough. This epic performance has been available on many labels (and still is); this is the only one I know of that is pitched properly–the others are sharp.
Robert Levine