(This is a deluxe box set including: Each individual item ...)
This is a deluxe box set including: Each individual item (complete opera or recital CD) presented in its original artwork, 136 pages hard-back 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.
(The crown jewels of the EMI catalog: the cr+¨me de la cr+...)
The crown jewels of the EMI catalog: the cr+¨me de la cr+¨me of Maria Callas's recordings, deeply affecting performances that made her an icon and made an opera lover out of millions! She sings arias from Bizet's Carmen ; Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Turandot and La Boheme ; Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro , plus Verdi, Saint-Saens and more!
(The New Sound of Maria Callas Opera singers come and go, ...)
The New Sound of Maria Callas Opera singers come and go, but just a few the legends live on. And Maria Callas was the greatest legend of them all, though not just for the wonder of her voice. She changed the way people thought about opera, but she also became famous as the glamorous celebrity who fell in love with Aristotle Onassis, leaving her elderly husband to live with him on his yacht Christina and enjoy the high life with the international jet set. Of course it ended badly. She lived her life like one of her own tragic heroines who (as women tend to do in opera) sing, suffer and die. And her own death came at just 53, after a dazzling but short career that took in heavy roles alongside decorative, nightingale-like ones ignoring the established rules of vocal health and probably explaining why her voice finally gave out as it did. But in that time she did extraordinary things, using the muscle of those heavy heroines to empower the nightingales with strength and depth of feeling nobody had thought to offer them before. She gave them credibility as drama. Her performances were absolute and self-exposing: she held nothing back. And she was even tougher on herself than she could be on others which is why her voice was never quite the flawless instrument singers are meant to cultivate. Her personality was far too volatile and too self-sacrificing in its love affair with risk. In the mythology of opera, though, that is what the audience demands. We want the diva to be both a goddess and a slave: to give her life for art. We thrill to the dimension of that sacrifice. And Callas dutifully obliged.
(Tosca was the role in which - in 1965, the year this reco...)
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 Operaand 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'.
(Bellini's Norma is an epic and multi-faceted role, often ...)
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 years after her last performance in the role (Paris, 1965) she remains the point of reference for any soprano who aspires to it. Sutherland).
(Marking the 40th anniversary of Maria Callas death (16th ...)
Marking the 40th anniversary of Maria Callas death (16th September 1977), 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 Callas compelling genius as a singing actress with a new truthfulness and immediacy.
(Featuring Callas in a glittering selection of opera favou...)
Featuring Callas in a glittering selection of opera favourites by Bizet, Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini, Rossini, Verdi and many more, this disc showcases her unique voice and her heartbreaking portrayal of tragic heroines.
Maria Callas was one of the great coloratura sopranos of the twentieth century.
Background
Maria Callas was born in New York City, New York, United States on December 3, 1923, just four months after her parents, George and Evangelia (Litza) Kalogeropoulos, arrived in New York harbor after emigrating from Greece. Callas was formally baptized Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria. It was around the time of her birth that her father shortened the family name to Callas, and Maria Kalogeropoulos was known as Maria Callas by the time she started school. Callas and her sister, Jackie, grew up enmeshed in bitter sibling rivalries. Jackie, the elder by five years, was tall and slim-everyone's favorite. Maria was not short, but she was not as tall as Jackie, and so appeared plumper in comparison. When Callas was only five years old, she suffered a concussion and was hospitalized for over three weeks, after being dragged unconscious by an automobile. She quickly learned to appreciate the attention she received from concerned family and friends during her recuperation.
Education
At age seven Callas began her musical studies by taking piano lessons. She loved opera music even as a youngster, and she had a beautiful voice. She especially loved to sing La Paloma. She took great comfort in listening to the many opera records in her family's collection. Young Callas soon discovered that she had a natural talent and a flair for the dramatic. She won several amateur talent contests while she was in elementary school, and was a popular performer on children's radio shows. When Callas graduated from the eighth grade in 1937, her mother decided to return to Greece in order for Callas to receive voice training in the classical tradition. Once in Greece, Callas never resumed her academic studies. Instead, she studied with popular voice coaches. First with Maria Trivella at the National Conservatory in Athens, and then with Elvira de Hidalgo at the Odeon Athenos. Callas also studied French and drama. She was a dedicated pupil, driven by a spirit of excellence.
Career
As Callas matured, she developed a close relationship with her music coach, Elvira de Hidalgo, and it was de Hidalgo who arranged for Callas's first professional performance at the National Lyric Theater in Athens in November of 1940. While her performance would be a success, life in Athens soon changed; the outbreak of World War II and the Nazi occupation of Greece had a profound effect on everyone in the country, including the young soprano. Stories are told that during the occupation Callas sometimes performed for enemy soldiers in return for food and security for herself, her mother, and her sister. Her career, meanwhile, was stifled.
After the occupation, de Hidalgo encouraged Callas to move to Italy to establish her career. However, against all advice, Callas returned to the United States in 1945, determined that she could make a name for herself on her own terms. Although she remained in America for the next two years, it was at the Arena in Verona, Italy where she finally got her start. After rejection and failure in the United States, she finally went to Verona, on a contract. Her Italian debut, held on August 3, 1947, was a performance of La Gioconda at the Verona Arena. She went on to perform Tristan and Isolde and Turandot in Venice in 1948. She sang the title role in Bellini's Norma, her most popular role, for the first time in Florence in 1948. Initially, Callas received minimal acclaim, although audiences in Italy were receptive to her talent. It was a quirk of fate in 1949 that finally brought her to prominence. When another diva fell ill during a run of I Puritani, Callas agreed to sing the part of Elvira on one week's notice. Callas, who was performing as Brunhilde in Die Walkure at the time, managed to perform both operas, alternating between the two works from one night to the next. The public was duly impressed at her versatility. Critics took note, and her career began to soar.
During the late 1940s and 1950s, Callas toured Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. She worked with famed Maestro Tullio Serafin and noted directors Franco Zefferelli, Francesco Siciliani, and Luchino Visconti. Highly professional, Callas performed 47 roles during her brief career. Her greatest role was that of Norma, which she performed 90 times. Callas developed a strong identity with the Druid priestess of the operatic tale. Whenever Callas performed in Norma, she reportedly became exhausted and drained from the physical intensity of her emotion.
Callas's first performance at La Scala in Milan was in Aida, in April of 1950, as a stand-in, a replacement for famed soprano Renata Tibaldi. On December 7, 1951, she made her official debut at the noted Italian opera house as Elena in I Vespri Siciliani. She went on to perform there for ten years, a total of nearly 200 performances. She interpreted nearly two dozen roles, including her most famous, Norma.
Callas's U. S. debut was at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1954. On October 19, 1956, she debuted at the New York Metropolitan Opera where she performed in Norma. Coinciding with her Metropolitan Opera debut, Callas was featured on the cover of Time, on the issue dated October 27, 1956. She continued to perform, and her career exploded into greatness. She added new operas to her repertoire, including Madame Butterfly, which she had previously avoided because she felt awkward and ungraceful.
After the mid-19506 Callas successfully resurrected the macabre operas, including Cherubini's Medea, Verdi's Macbeth, and Donizetti's Anna Bolena, each of which required exceptional vocal range and acting talent. The list of Callas's performances is lengthy: Tosca, La Traviata, Abduction from the Seraglio, Parsifal, Aida, Nabucco, Il Trovatore, and many more.
In 1951 she performed the world premiere of Hayden's Orfeo ed Euridice. Surviving tapes and recordings of Callas include her 1952 La Gioconda, the complete opera, with Fedora Barbieri. Miscellaneous tapes also remain from a series of master classes she gave at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where Callas taught briefly before her death.
During the late 1950s, the vocalist's personal life began to deteriorate, and this tragically affected her career. The stresses of jet-set living, as well as the strain she had put on her voice throughout her career, began to take their toll. Callas canceled a performance at the Edinburgh Festival in 1957. In 1958 she answered to breach of contract charges from the American Guild of Musical Artists. A downward spiral was in motion. Her former manager, Richard Bagarozy, sued her for back commissions. She canceled a performance in Rome after the first act. She was dismissed from the Metropolitan Opera. Although she returned briefly to perform at the Met between 1964 and 1965, she never resurfaced as the great talent of her youth.
Callas died unexpectedly in Paris on September 16, 1977, shortly before her 55th birthday. Just as no record exists of Callas's birth, her death also remains shrouded in mystery, the cause of her death never fully explained. (Her body was cremated without an autopsy. ) Such facts serve to intensify the mystique of the soprano's life.
Quotations:
"It Norma will never be as good as it is now in my mind unsung. "
Personality
As an actress, Callas was known for her timing and spontaneity, as well as for her incredible vocal range. At times Callas observed David, her pet canary, and attempted to learn from his warble. Her other bird, Elmina, was known to faint and fall off her perch from the intensity and pitch of Callas's high notes. It was all fun to Callas, who seemed happy only when she was singing. Callas's teachers, and later her directors and producers, were continually amazed at her exceptional memory. She easily learned music and lyrics in a matter of days, where others would require weeks or months.
She attributed her extraordinary stage presence to myopia: She was rarely nervous, she claimed, because she could not see the audience. In fact, Callas insisted she could barely see the conductor and was free therefore to lose herself in the composer's work to the exclusion of all else. Callas's timing and spontaneity even extended to curtain calls. After one memorable performance, she was showered with flowers. She took one and handed it to famed conductor Arturo Toscanini who had attended the performance. The audience was ecstatic. Even during the years of her decline, when some of the audience threw vegetables instead of flowers, to express their annoyance, Callas retained her composure. She kept the flowers for herself and tossed the vegetables down to the orchestra.
During the peak of her career Callas easily fit the stereotype of a portly and highly emotional diva, but in 1952 she experienced a dramatic weight loss. By 1954 she was 65 pounds lighter.
Quotes from others about the person
"She brought 'finish' back to the music: each phrase, each word was meticulously weighed . .. she never allowed it to become meaningless embroidery. " - Ariana Stassinopoulos
"Her strange, haunting, beautiful . .. voice was complemented by an unerring dramatic sense. " - Michael Mark
"Callas presented to the . .. public a phenomenon of sheer capacity, . .. she revived a repertory based on capacity. High notes and low, power in full cry and delicacy in pianissimo, fast passagework and sustained legato had not been completely present in one soprano in generations. " - Will Crutchfield
Connections
Almost immediately upon her arrival in Verona in 1947, she met Giovanni Battista Meneghini, a wealthy Veronian industrialist. He was 30 years her senior, and his family did not approve of Callas or her profession, yet the two fell in love. They married on April 21, 1949. The couple lived mostly in Verona. Meneghini withdrew from his business interests to manage Callas's promising career and generally devoted his life to fulfilling her every need.
During the late 1950s, she became acquainted with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, and the couple's friendship soon developed into an extramarital affair. This was not the first time that Callas's name was associated with illicit liaisons, and she and her husband separated in 1959, divorcing finally in 1971. Onassis eventually divorced his wife, Tina, and married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the late President John F. Kennedy, but he also remained involved with Callas. The intrigues of Callas's personal life soon overshadowed her professional life.