Classical Music

Maria Callas in Paris (Live)

Maria Callas in Athens (1952, 1957)

2014 Maria Callas re-mastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96 kHz re-master, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. 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 her conductor was again Tullio Serafin (he originally tutored her in the role in 1948), and the venue was again La Scala - where the opera was premiered in 1831. By 1960, Callas brought a wealth of new nuance to her interpretation, and she is aptly partnered by the creamy-voiced Christa Ludwig (in a rare recording of an Italian role) and the towering Franco Corelli.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. This collection from one of the most renowned and influential Opera singers of the 20th century features Callas in a glittering selection of Opera favorites by Bizet, Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini, Rossini, Verdi and many more showcasing her unique voice & her heartbreaking portrayal of tragic heroines.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. Callas never sang the role of Mim� on stage, but this did not prevent her recorded interpretation from being, as described by Philip Hope-Wallace in Gramophone, 'brilliantly realized, This Mim� comes alive and later haunts you in the most extraordinary way, one of the most moving I have ever heard.' Giuseppe di Stefano is an ardent Rodolfo and the young Anna Moffo makes a delectable Musetta.

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. Her interpretations were as compelling for their dramatic truth as for their musical integrity. Her voice, with it's extraordinary range, was as distinctive as her infallible sense for a phrase. A magnetic presence, she brought operatic heroines to vivid life, magically shaping and colouring her tone, and making insightful use of the text of the libretto.

Classical Music

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. This Tosca, made in 1953 with the forces of LaScala, 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.

2014 Maria Callas re-mastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz re-master, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. Callas only sang Gilda in Rigoletto in one run of performances, in Mexico City in 1952, and she recorded the role three years later. She moves beyond the girlish tone and sparkling coloratura of the character's first scenes to create a figure of tragic stature as events unfold. 'Once heard, this rendering is never likely to be forgotten, ' was Gramophone's judgment on her interpretation, and the same could apply to Tito Gobbi's, embodying every aspect of the accursed court jester.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. Callas sang the role of Turandot 24 times on stage, in the late 1940s. It was the role originally planned for her US debut, but the opera company went bankrupt and the performances (scheduled for Chicago in 1947) never took place. She brings unusual subtlety to Puccini's icy princess, while Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - more readily identified with Fiordiligi and the Marschallin - is surprise casting as the self-sacrificing Liu.

2014 Maria Callas re-mastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz re-master, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. A famous backstage photo was taken in Chicago after one of just three performances that Callas gave of Madama Butterfly; it shows the soprano in her Japanese costume, snarling furiously at a bailiff who had served a writ on her - the very image of the tempestuous diva. By contrast, in her recording of the role, 'it is, miraculously,' as the critic John Osborne observed, 'the 15-year old girl and not the great Callas who stands before us.' Her genius for vocal characterization finds an apt complement in Herbert von Karajan's conducting: 'a wholly sympathetic rendering [that]brings out more of the detail of the score than I have ever heard before', wrote Gramophone.

Deluxe 70 CD box set including each individual release (complete opera or recital CD) presented in it's original artwork, 136 pages hardback book containing essays, a biography and chronology, rarely-seen photos and also reproductions of revealing correspondence between Maria Callas, Walter Legge and other EMI executives. Librettos and texts are included on a CD-ROM, and individual albums carry new notes on the specific recording.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96 kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. 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 Opera. 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'.

2014 Maria Callas re-mastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz re-master, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. 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 it's stars - Callas, Tito Gobbi and Luigi Alva - reassembled in London the following year for this recording. Callas sang the role of Rosina at it's 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.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. 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. With Georges Pretre, one of her favored conductors, and the ever-stylish Nicolai Gedda as her Don Jose', she captured every facet of the role. As Gramophone said when the set was first released: 'Hers is a Carmen to haunt you. '