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Here is a flashback on la Divina’s glory years on the Milanese stage and the legendary operas she stared in. In Pagliacci, the terrible tragedy of jealousy, she portrays the femme fatale Nedda/Colombina.

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 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.

Maria Callas’s recital discs occupy a central place in her recorded legacy, alongside her complete opera recordings. The Verdi featured three roles she had sung in the opera house: Abigaille, brimming with youthful and impressive vocal grandeur at the San Carlo in Naples in 1949 (her earliest complete live opera recording to have survived); Lady Macbeth at the opening of the 1952–3 La Scala season, one of her greatest triumphs (the live recording was reissued by EMI); and Elisabetta (Élisabeth de Valois) at La Scala in 1954 (of which we have no recording), a character whose aria ‘Tu che le vanità’ would become a central feature of the concerts she gave between 1959 and 1962.

The character of Gioconda is one of the most tragic in the whole history of Italian opera: an altruistic cantatrice who sacrifices everything, to the death, to secure the escape of the man she loves with her rival. Who was better suited than Maria Callas to assume such a role? La Gioconda, the only opera by Ponchielli that has not fallen into neglect, is a stunning transitional work between Verdian romanticism and verismo. La Divina particularly liked this opera.

The character of Gioconda is one of the most tragic in the whole history of Italian opera: an altruistic cantatrice who sacrifices everything, to the death, to secure the escape of the man she loves with her rival. Who was better suited than Maria Callas to assume such a role? La Gioconda, the only opera by Ponchielli that has not fallen into neglect, is a stunning transitional work between Verdian romanticism and verismo. La Divina particularly liked this opera.

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’.

The role of Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore was one that Maria Callas performed some 20 times in the theatre, and this recording was her leave-taking of it. Callas's Leonora was praised by the critics for its vocal and dramatic artistry. Cecil Smith in Opera magazine said: "For once we heard the trills fully executed, the scales and arpeggios tonally full-bodied but rhythmically bouncing and alert, the portamentos and long-breathed phrases fully supported and exquisitely inflected".

Recorded in 1949 when Maria Callas was just 25, this debut recital encapsulates the young soprano's astonishing maturity, versatility and technical finesse. She had already sung all three roles showcased here - Wagner's Isolde and Bellini's Norma and Elvira (I puritani) - in the theatre. As Gramophone, which described the recital as 'incandescent and spellbinding', wrote: 'The Liebestod is a beautiful example of sustained interpretation, with a long line running through the whole piece, each phrase finding part-fulfilment in the next until the climax is reached,' concluding overall that: 'The eloquence of phrase and the technical control put at the service of a discerning heart and mind are obvious to hear'.

In 1939, as a 15-year-old student in Athens, Maria Callas made her stage debut in the demanding role of Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. Five years later she sang it professionally with the Greek National Opera Company. In 1953, when she was already a star - shortly to record Tosca - Tullio Serafin enlisted her as the last-minute replacement for an indisposed colleague at the sessions for Mascagni's one-acter at La Scala. The result was a recording in which full-blooded verismo was raised to new interpretative heights.