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Maria Callas Live: Remastered Recordings 1949-1964 (CD + Blu-ray) | Warner 9029584470

Maria Callas Live: Remastered Recordings 1949-1964 (CD + Blu-ray)

£107.59

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Label: Warner

Cat No: 9029584470

Barcode: 0190295844707

Format: CD + Blu-ray

Number of Discs: 45

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 15th September 2017

Contents

About

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 45-disc set reveals Maria Callas’s 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 on Blu-ray, Maria Callas Live is the indispensable complement to Maria Callas Remastered, Warner Classics’ landmark collection of her studio recordings.

This deluxe box set comprises 42 CDs (20 complete operas) and three Blu-ray discs (five recitals).

 Twelve of the operas were never recorded by Callas in the studio:
- Verdi: Nabucco, I vespri siciliani, Macbeth
- Wagner: Parsifal
- Donizetti: Anna Bolena, Poliuto
- Rossini: Armida
- Bellini: Il pirata
- Gluck: Alceste, Ifigenia in Tauride
- Spontini: La vestale
- Giordano: Andrea Chénier

The eight other operas in the box result from performances which have made the legend of Callas on stage:
- the historic performance of Verdi’s Aida (when she sang an interpolated high E flat at the end of the Triumphal Scene to ecstatic applause from the audience);
- La traviata (Lisbon 1958, conducted by Franco Ghione with Alfredo Kraus);
- her only incarnation of Rigoletto on stage;
- Bellini’s Norma at the height of her voice in London;
- Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in the legendary perfomance with Karajan in Berlin;
- Cherubini’s Medea and Bellini’s La sonnambula under Leonard Bernstein at La Scala;
- and the heartbreaking Puccini Tosca from Covent Garden, 1964.

Each recording in this edition has been newly remastered, using the latest audio technology; great care has been taken to assure accuracy of reproduced pitch, which has been corrected in various instances.
 
Some performances presented in this boxset (Nabucco, Armida, La Vestale, Alceste) were recorded under difficult technical circumstances and this remains evident in the audio quality. That being said, Warner Classics has made a conscious choice in including them, since they offer the only opportunity to hear Maria Callas in roles that she did not perform in the recording studio.
 
This set makes use of the best available source material, which includes tapes recently discovered by Tom Volf (director of the forthcoming film Callas in her own words) in the archives of the Italian collector, Oscar Costellacci.
 
As a result, Callas’s voice, as heard in the opera house and concert hall, can be experienced with unparalleled authenticity in all its stunning presence. While the imperfections inherent in vintage recordings of live productions have not disappeared, the majority of the performances in this collection can now be enjoyed in sound of unprecedented quality and fidelity.

Each of the 20 complete operas (CD) and the three Blu-ray recitals in the box set is presented in a digipak, and will also be available as an individual release.

Contents:

Verdi - Nabucco (20/12/1949, Napoli, Teatro San Carlo)
- Gino Bechi, Amalia Pini, Gino Sinimberghi, cond. Vittorio Gui

Wagner - Parsifal (sung in Italian; 20-21/11/1950, Rome, Auditorium della Rai)
- Rolando Panerai, Africo Baldelli, Boris Christoff, cond. Vittorio Gui

Verdi - I vespri siciliani (26/5/1951, Firenze, Teatro Comunale)
- Giórgios Kokoliós-Bardi, Enzo Mascherini, Boris Christoff, cond. Erich Kleiber

Verdi - Aida (3/7/1951, México, Palacio de Bellas Artes)
- Mario del Monaco, Oralia Domínguez, Giuseppe Taddei, cond. Oliviero de Fabritiis

Rossini - Armida (26/4/1952, Firenze, Teatro Comunale)
- Francesco Albanese, Mario Filippeschi, Alessandro Ziliani, cond. Tullio Serafin

Verdi - Rigoletto (17/6/1952, México, Palacio de Bellas Artes)
- Giuseppe di Stefano, Piero Campolonghi, Ignacio Ruffino, cond. Umberto Mugnai

Bellini - Norma (18/11/1952, London, Royal Opera House)
- Mirto Picchi, Ebe Stignani, Giacomo Vaghi, cond. Vittorio Gui

Verdi - Macbeth (7/12/1952, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Enzo Mascherini, Italo Tajo, Gino Penno, cond. Victor de Sabata

Cherubini - Medea (10/12/1953, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Gino Penno, Maria Luisa Nache, Giuseppe Modesti, cond. Leonard Bernstein
  
Gluck - Alceste (4/4/1954 Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Renato Gavarini, Paolo Silveri, Rolando Panerai, cond. Carlo Maria Giulini

Spontini - La vestale (7/12/1954, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Franco Corelli, Enzo Sordello, Nicola Rossi, Lemeni, cond. Antonino Votto

Giordano - Andrea Chénier (8/1/1955, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Mario del Monaco, Aldo Protti, Maria Amadini, cond. Antonino Votto

Bellini - La sonnambula (5/3/1955, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Cesare Valletti, Giuseppe Modesti, Gabriella Carturan, cond. Leonard Bernstein

Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor (29/9/1955, Berlin, Städtische Oper)
- Giuseppe di Stefano, Rolando Panerai, Nicola Zaccaria, cond. Herbert von Karajan

Donizetti - Anna Bolena (14/4/1957, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Gianni Raimondi, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, Giulietta Simionato, cond. Gianandrea Gavazzeni

Gluck - Ifigenia in Tauride (1/6/1957, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Francesco Albanese, Anselmo Colzani, Fiorenza Cossotto, cond. Nino Sanzogno

Verdi - La traviata (27/3/1958, Lisboa, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos)
- Alfredo Kraus, Mario Sereni, Laura Zannini, cond. Franco Ghione

Bellini - Il pirata (27/1/1959, New York, Carnegie Hall)
- Pier Miranda Ferraro, Costantino Ego, Glade Peterson, cond. Nicola Rescigno

Donizetti - Poliuto (7/12/1960, Milano, Teatro alla Scala)
- Franco Corelli, Ettore Bastianini, Nicola Zaccaria, cond. Antonino Votto

Puccini - Tosca (24/1/1964, London, Royal Opera House)
- Tito Gobbi, Renato Cioni, cond. Carlo Felice Cillario

Callas on video (3 Blu-ray discs):
- Callas at Covent Garden (London, 1962 & 1964)
- Callas in Concert (Hamburg, 1959 & 1962)
- Toujours (Paris, 1958)

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