100 BEST OPERA
100 Best Opera Classics [6 CDs special price] Beverly Sills, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballe, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Maria Callas, etc [ Warner Classics / 6 CD Box Set - released 20/Jun/2019 ] A 6-CD collection at a special price which offers a hundred greatest operatic arias. The programme includes all the popular favourites from 'Tosca', 'La Boheme', 'Carmen' 'Norma', 'Samson et Dalila' and even selections from Wagner and Richard Strauss |
GASPARE SPONTINI
Spontini: La Vestale (complete opera remastered recorded live 1954) Maria Callas, Franco Corelli, Ebe Stignani, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni / Teatro alla Scala, Antonino Votto [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] The central character in La Vestale, as in Norma, is a priestess who transgresses her holy vows for love. Spontini's nobly-conceived opera, composed for Paris in the Napoleonic era, brought Callas' first collaboration on a new production with the... |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: Il Trovatore (Complete Opera recorded 1956) Maria Callas, Rolando Panerai, Giuseppe di Stefano, Fedora Barbieri / Teatro alla Scala di Milano, von Karajan [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 2 CD - released 10/Oct/2014 ] "The combination of Karajan and Callas is formidably impressive. There is toughness and dramatic determination in Callas's singing, whether in coloratura or in dramatic passages." Penguin Stereo Guide |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: Rigoletto (Complete Opera recorded in 1955) Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, Giuseppe di Stefano, Nicola Zaccaria / Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 2 CD - released 10/Oct/2014 ] "There has never been a more compelling performance of the title-role in Rigoletto than that of Gobbi on his classic La Scala set. Callas is compellingly imaginative throughout." Penguin Stereo guide |
CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK
Gluck: Alceste (complete opera recorded live in 1954) Maria Callas, Enrico Campi, Giuseppe Zampieri, Paolo Silveri / [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] Alceste, in 1954, was the first of two Gluck operas that Callas sang at La Scala, followed three years later by an Italian version of Iphigénie en Tauride. It was in the 1953-54 season that she rose to become 'Queen of La Scala', also singing Medea.... |
MOZART / GOUNOD / GLUCK / MASSENET / ROSSINI / PUCCINI / VERDI / etc
100 Best Opera Classics Maria Callas, Roberto Alagna, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Luciano Pavarotti, Nicolai Gedda, Placido Domingo, Boris Christoff, Kiri Te Kanawa, Christa Ludwi [ EMI Classics / 6 CD Box Set - released 6/Mar/2006 ] This set offers 100 opera tracks, 6 CDs at a super special price! |
Various Composers
La Divina (Gatefold LP) Maria Callas [ Warner Classics / LP - released 22/Sep/2023 ] Maria Callas is credited with changing the history of opera. Known as La Divina, she continues to fascinate as a supreme artist, but also as a woman and an icon of style. |
VERDI
Arias & Mad Scenes Maria Callas [ Alto / CD - released 12/Sep/2011 ] "This CD encapsulates the essence of Callas's genius. Recorded in 1958, the last year her voice was wholly reliable, every track is something to wonder at." |
GEORGES BIZET
Bizet: Carmen (3 LP) Maria Callas, Nicolai Gedda, Andréa Guiot, Robert Massard / Orchestre du Théâtre National de L'Opera, Georges Pretre [ Warner Classics LP / 3 Vinyl Box Set - released 19/May/2023 ] Towards the end of Callas's career, there were many rumours that she was planning to perform Carmen on stage. This was never to be, but Carmen became her penultimate complete recording of an opera. |
VINCENCO BELLINI
Bellini: Norma [complete opera] (LP) Maria Callas, Franco Corelli, Christa Ludwig, Nicola Zaccaria [ Warner Classics Vinyl / 4 Vinyl Box Set - released 10/Mar/2023 ] This 1960 Norma represents Maria Callas's final complete documented version of her signature role. Seven recordings of the opera exist with Callas (1950-60), plus numerous snippets and scenes captured between 1949 and 1965. With 89 performances,... |
DONIZETTI
Anna Bolena (complete opera recorded live in 1957) Maria Callas, Giulietta Simionato, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni / Ambrosian Singers & London Symphony Orchestra, John McGlinn [ EMI Classics / 2 CD - released 20/Feb/2012 ] Live Recording - La Scala, 1957 |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: La Traviata (Complete Opera recorded in 1955) Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Ettore Bastianini / Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano, Carlo Maria Giulini [ Warner Classics The Opera Series / 2 CD - released 10/Jul/2011 ] The brand new series celebrates EMI - The Home of Opera with Giulini's legendary recording of La Traviata with Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano. Includes complete libretto and synopsis on a bonus CD ROM. |
GIACOMO PUCCINI
Puccini: La Boheme (Complete Opera recorded in 1956) Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Rolando Panerai, Anna Moffo, Nicola Zaccaria / Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan, Antonino Votto [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 2 CD - released 20/Oct/2014 ] Callas never sang the role of Mimì on stage, but this did not prevent her recorded interpretation from being, as described by Philip Hope-Wallace in Gramophone, 'brilliantly realised … This Mimì comes alive and later haunts you in the most... |
GIACOMO PUCCINI
Puccini: Manon Lescaut (Complete Opera recorded in 1957) Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Giulio Fioravanti / Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 2 CD - released 10/Oct/2014 ] "In general this is Callas at her most girlish: light-voiced, lyrical and with the power to make the dramatic climaxes thrilling." MusicWeb |
GIACOMO PUCCINI
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Puccini: Tosca (Complete Opera with full libretto) (Recorded 1953) Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi / Teatro alla Scala, de Sabata [ EMI / 2 CD Box Set - released 20/Nov/1995 ] "There has never been a finer recorded performance of Tosca than Callas's first, with Victor de Sabata conducting and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia." - Rosette Penguin Stereo Guide |
GIACOMO PUCCINI
Puccini: Tosca (Complete Opera) (Recorded 1953) Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi / Teatro alla Scala, de Sabata [ EMI Historical / 2 CD - released 20/Nov/2003 ] "There has never been a finer recorded performance of Tosca than Callas's first, with Victor de Sabata conducting and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia." -Rosette Penguin Stereo Guide |
GEORGES BIZET
Bizet: Carmen (complete opera recorded in 1964) Maria Callas, Nicolai Gedda, Andréa Guiot, Robert Massard, Nadine Sautereau / Orchestre du Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Apr/2015 ] Towards the end of Callas's career, there were many rumours that she was planning to perform Carmen on stage. This was never to be, but Carmen became her penultimate complete recording of an opera - and her only complete recording of a French opera.... |
GIACOMO PUCCINI
Puccini: Turandot (3 LP) Maria Callas, Nicolai Gedda, Eugenio Fernandi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Giuseppe Nessi / Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Tullio Serafi [ Warner Classics LP / 3 Vinyl Box Set - released 8/Sep/2023 ] "To have Callas, the most flashing-eyed of all sopranos as Turandot, is the most natural piece of casting. With her Turandot was not just an implacable man-hater but a highly provocative female" Gramophone |
PUCCINI / BIZET / DVORAK / OFFENBACH / DONIZETTI / VERDI / etc
40 Most Beautiful Arias Maria Callas, Placido Domingo, Cecilia Bartoli, Kiri te Kanawa, Jose Carreras, José Cura, Angela Gheorghiu, etc [ Warner Classics / 2 CD - released 10/Feb/2009 ] Nothing stirs the soul and tugs at the heartstrings more than an inspired operatic aria. Warner Classics CD set 40 MOST BEAUTIFUL ARIAS collects forty of the most moving ones the world has known on this star-studded collection. |
MARIA CALLAS
Maria Callas - Magic Moments of Music Maria Callas (soprano) with interviews with Antonio Pappano, Rolando Villazon, Rufus Wainwright, Thomas Hampson & others [ C Major DVD / DVD - released 20/Nov/2018 ] "Pappano says illuminating things about Callas's voice and what she did with it…Kristine Opolais is interesting about her acting…Tito Gobbi is his expansive self…The performance itself remains miraculous, however often you see it." BBC Music |
BELLINI / BIZET / CATALANI / CILEA / DONIZETTI / PUCCINI / etc
Maria Callas: Pure Maria Callas (soprano) with various orchestras & conductors [ Warner Classics / CD - released 10/Oct/2014 ] One of the 20th century's most legendary and enduring icons, Maria Callas was both a glamorous diva and a global superstar who captivated audiences worldwide with her vivid and passionate performances. This disc features Callas in a glittering... |
BELLINI / PUCCINI / BIZET / CATALANI / VERDI / CILEA / GLUCK / etc
The New Sound of Maria Callas [3 CD set] Maria Callas (soprano) with various orchestras & conductors [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 3 CD - released 1/Nov/2016 ] Maria Callas - Unforgettable arias sung by the most iconic diva of all time - remastered for the first time in high-definition sound from the original tapes, for an unprecedented sound quality that shines new light on the voice of Maria Callas. Allan... |
ROSSINI / DONIZETTI / BELLINI / SPONTINI
Sings Bel Canto Maria Callas (soprano) with various orchestras & conductors [ ALTO / CD - released 12/Mar/2012 ] Works by Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaspare Luigi Spontini |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
100 Best Verdi [6 CD set - special Price] Various artists including Angela Gheorghiu, Rolando Villazon, Maria Callas, Placido Domingo, Natalie Dessay & Victoria de los Angeles [ Warner Classics / 6 CD Box Set - released 20/Jun/2019 ] This 6CD set contains 100 tracks from the most familiar and best-loved works by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, performed by many of the world's leading singers, orchestras and conductors. |
VERDI / PUCCINI / ROSSINI / DONIZETTI / MOZART / etc
Maria Callas - The Studio Recitals Maria Callas (soprano) with Franco Corelli, Georges Pretre, Joseph Rouleau, Tullio Serafin, Monica Sinclair, etc [ Warner Classics / 14 CD Box Set - released 25/Jan/2018 ] This outstanding collection of studio recitals provides fascinating insights into Maria Callas's career and her unique artistry and musicality. Encompassing the core operatic repertoire for which she was most revered, as well as roles that she never... |
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Rossini: Armida (complete opera recorded live in 1952) Maria Callas, Francesco Albanese, Mario Filippeschi / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] Rossini is a pillar of bel canto opera, but he was less central to Callas's art and career than Bellini and Donizetti. She performed two of his comic works - Il barbiere di Siviglia and Il turco in Italia - and in 1952, with her mentor Tullio Serafin... |
LUIGI CHERUBINI
Cherubini: Medea (complete opera recorded live in 1953) Gino Penno, Maria Callas, Maria Luisa Nache, Fedora Barbieri, Giuseppe Modesti, Enrico Campi / Teatro alla Scala, Leonard Bernstein [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] The character of Medea became closely associated with Maria Callas. In 1969, several years after she had left the opera stage, she even played the betrayed and finally infanticidal sorceress in a film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: Rigoletto (complete opera recorded live in 1952) Maria Callas, Piero Campolonghi, Giuseppe di Stefano / Orquesta del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Umberto Mugnai [ Urania / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] Callas only sang Gilda in Rigoletto twice on stage, in Mexico City in 1952, and this recording was taken from the first of those performances. She brought tonal substance and deep interpretative insight to a role that had sometimes been treated by... |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: Aida (Complete Opera recorded live Mexico, 1951) Maria Callas, Mario del Del Monaco, Oralia Dominguez / Fabritiis [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] Aida held an important place in the earlier years of Callas's career, and in 1950 it brought her debut at La Scala, Milan, the theatre where she soon became reigning diva. That same year, she sang the role of the Ethiopian princess in Mexico City,... |
RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO
Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci (Complete opera recorded in 1954) Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, Rolando Panerai / Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / CD - released 10/Nov/2014 ] While Pagliacci's regular companion piece, Cavalleria rusticana, figured prominently in Callas's early career, Leoncavallo's one-acter had no place in her stage repertoire. But as Gramophone wrote of this recording: 'When Callas [as Nedda] and Gobbi... |
GAETANO DONIZETTI
Donizetti: Lucia Di Lammermoor (complete opera recorded in 1955) Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Rolando Panerai, Nicola Zaccaria / [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Sep/2018 ] Lucia di Lammermoor - like La sonnambula - had become associated with light-voiced sopranos, so when Callas took on the title role in the early 1950s she proved revelatory with her combination of visceral power, technical refinement and... |
VINCENZO BELLINI
Bellini: Il Pirata (complete opera remastered recorded live 1959) Maria Callas, Pier Miranda Ferraro, Costantino Ego, Chester Watson, Glade Peterson / American Opera Society, Nicola Rescigno [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] The titular character of Bellini's Il pirata is the tenor, Gualtiero, but it is the soprano, Imogene, who leaves the most powerful impression, thanks above all to her lengthy and dramatic closing scena. Il pirata had fallen into obscurity before it... |
VINCENZO BELLINI
Bellini: Norma (complete opera recorded in 1960) Maria Callas, Christa Ludwig, Franco Corelli, Nicola Zaccaria / Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 3 CD - released 18/Nov/2014 ] Callas first sang Bellini's Norma in 1948, when she was just 25. She went on to perform the role of the heroic, but vulnerable Druid priestess - the ultimate embodiment of bel canto - more frequently than any other. In this second studio recording... |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: La Traviata (complete opera recorded live in 1958) Maria Callas, Alfredo Kraus, Mario Sereni, Laura Zannini, Maria Cristina de Castro / Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisboa Franco Ghione [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] Callas sang La traviata more frequently than any other opera, apart from Norma. She performed it over 60 times between 1951 and 1958, most famously in Luchino Visconti's production at La Scala in 1955/56. Her only studio recording of the role was... |
GAETANO DONIZETTI
Donizetti: Lucia Di Lammermoor (complete opera recorded in 1959) Maria Callas, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Piero Cappuccilli, Bernard Ladysz / Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 2 CD - released 18/Nov/2014 ] In the six years that had passed since 1953, and her first recording of Lucia di Lammermoor, Callas's voice had maybe become less robust, but her singing had become still more perceptive. As Gramophone said: 'Mme Callas has refined her interpretation... |
RICHARD WAGNER
Wagner: Parsifal (complete opera recorded live in 1950) Maria Callas, Rolando Panarai, Boris Christoff, Africo Baldelli / RAI Roma, Vittorio Gui [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 3 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] In her early years as a dramatic soprano, Callas sang three Wagner roles: Isolde, Brünnhilde (Die Walküre) and Kundry in Parsifal. |
VINCENZO BELLINI
Bellini: Norma (complete opera recorded live in 1952) Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Mirto Picchi / Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Vittorio Gui [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] 'Bellini's Norma is an epic and multi-faceted role, often considered the ultimate vocal challenge for an operatic soprano. Callas sang it on stage 92 times, more often than any other heroine, and her achievement casts a long shadow: more than 50... |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: I Vespri Siciliani (complete opera remastered recorded live 1953) Maria Callas, Boris Christoff, Enzo Mascherini, Giorgio Kokolios-Bardi / Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, Erich Kleiber [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 3 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] "Callas is terrific in the Act 1 aria and cabaletta, as well as in the long duet with Arrigo in Act 4… Boris Christoff is magnificent as the gloomy, unforgiving Procida… Erich Kleiber… leads a vigorous performance…" (Gramophone) |
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Gioachino Rossini Edition (50 CD set) Gabriel Bacquier, Montserrat Caballé, Nicolai Gedda, Maria Callas, Cecilia Bartoli, Joyce DiDonato, Rockwell Blake, Beverly Sills, Thomas Hampson, etc [ Warner Classics / 50 CD Box Set - released 25/Oct/2018 ] The Rossini Edition is the most comprehensive edition devoted to Rossini ever produced. |
ROSSINI / GOUNOD / BIZET / VERDI / PONCHIELLI / etc
Callas in Concert - The Hologram Tour Maria Callas (soprano) with various singers & conductors [ Warner Classics / CD - released 18/Sep/2018 ] Official Hologram Tour soundtrack, featuring legendary Callas recordings |