Jailer

Another terrific thematic collection from those imaginative folks at Omni. Although there have been quite a few albums devoted to country prison songs this is a particularly well chosen collection featuring 28 tracks recorded between 1956 and 1972. It opens strongly with the superb Harlan Howard song The Wall given a powerful performance by Freddie Hart and keeps up the quality with Jaycee Hill's Crash-Out, Marty Robbins is here with one of his most intense performances The Chair - probably inspired by controversial execution of Caryl Chessman whose story is also dealt with in songs by Country Johnny Mathis, Ronnie Hawkins, Hoyle Miller and Jimmy Minor.

This Tosca, made in 1953 with the forces of La Scala, is a landmark in recording history.Conducted with searing intensity by Victor de Sabata, it teams Callas with two of her closest colleagues, the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano and the baritone Tito Gobbi - a performer who could rival Callas in dramatic finesse and power. Tosca's aria 'Vissi d'arte' (I lived for art) has come to be seen as Callas's personal manifesto.

Maria Callas (eigentlich Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou, griechisch Μαρία Άννα Σοφία Καικιλία Καλογεροπούλου; 2. Dezember 1923 in New York City; † 16.September 1977 in Paris) war eine griechische Sängerin. Sie besaß auch die italienische Staatsbürgerschaft.

Maria Callas, soprano américaine d'origine grecque, est née à New York le 2 décembre 1923. Icône même de la diva, tant par la réussite exceptionnelle de sa vie professionnelle que par sa vie privée mouvementée, « la Callas » marquera profondément l'art lyrique du siècle dernier en bouleversant l'approche dramatique du jeu d'acteur. Et sans nul doute la cantatrice la plus célèbre de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, à la fois par le timbre très particulier de sa voix, son registre étendu, son extrême virtuosité alliée à son phrasé à nul autre pareil et son immense talent de tragédienne, lui permettant d'incarner littéralement les personnages qu'elle interprète.

Tosca was the role in which – in 1965, the year this recording was made – Callas gave her last complete performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opéra. This was her final complete recording of an opera, and, 12 years after her first version of Tosca, it reunited her with the Scarpia of Tito Gobbi. They were joined by Carlo Bergonzi as Cavaradossi. Gramophone praised ‘a thrilling and very complete interpretation, with scene after scene, bar after bar, brought to life by sheer intelligence and dramatic insight’.