Maria Dugenas

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".

It was as Ponchielli's long-suffering ballad singer, La Gioconda, that Callas made her Italian debut, in 1947 at the Arena di Verona, and it proved crucial to her career. Five years later, La Gioconda became her first studio recording of a complete opera. It showcases both the dark-hued splendour of her voice at this period - she was still in her twenties - and her inimitable intensity and insight.

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").

Callas's second studio recording of La Gioconda was made in 1959, six years after her last stage performances of the role, which in 1947 has been the vehicle for her Italian debut (at the Arena di Verona).The recording came at a turning point in Callas's life - when her relationship with Aristotle Onassis led to her separation from her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini. Writing in Gramophone in 1960, Philip Hope-Wallace said: 'I simply cannot imagine anyone getting more out of the role than she does this time…the total effect is riveting.' Joining Callas were two young Italian singers destined for great careers: the mezzo-soprano Fiorenza Cossotto as her rival, Laura, and, as the sinister Barnaba, baritone Piero Cappuccilli.

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'.

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.

As she demonstrated in both Il barbiere di Siviglia and Il turco in Italia, Callas, the great tragedienne, could also turn her skills to comedy. As it happened, the 1956 La Scala production of Rossini's most popular opera did not prove a great success with audiences, but its stars - Callas, Tito Gobbi and Luigi Alva - reassembled in London the following year for this recording. Callas sang the role of Rosina at its original mezzo-soprano pitch and her version of 'Una voce poco fa' - punctuated by an unforgettable 'ma' ('but') in the cabaletta - is a miracle of both elegance and wit.

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer is a Balearic singer from the island of Majorca. Bonet studied ceramics in the school of arts, but eventually decided to dedicate herself to music. She arrived in Barcelona in 1967, where she began to sing with the group Els Setze Jutges. She has published many Rock music albums in Catalan, in spite of the ban on the Catalan language and its music during Francisco Franco's dictatorship. She has performed throughout China as well as in Japan, the former USSR, Tunisia, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Brazil, Sweden, Switzerland, Venezuela, Mexico, and the United States.

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer is a Balearic singer from the island of Majorca. Bonet studied ceramics in the school of arts, but eventually decided to dedicate herself to music. She arrived in Barcelona in 1967, where she began to sing with the group Els Setze Jutges. She has published many Rock music albums in Catalan, in spite of the ban on the Catalan language and its music during Francisco Franco's dictatorship. She has performed throughout China as well as in Japan, the former USSR, Tunisia, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Brazil, Sweden, Switzerland, Venezuela, Mexico, and the United States.

Music is always the best way to bridge distances and promote great partnerships. And to prove this theory, Europe will be the witnessing the great gathering between Portuguese singer Maria João and Brazilian pianist and composer André Mehmari. A concert full of surprises and dreams, which promises to create a new chapter in the history of this duo. Mehmari's repertoire includes new songs composed especially for his duo with Maria João, which will be released on an album on 19th July 2024, by Galileo Music Germany, with lyrics created by Maria João.