[TR24][OF] Maria Callas - Callas sings Operatic Arias by Puccini [1954] (Maria Callas, Philharmonia Orchestra, Tullio Serafin) - 2014 (Classical, Opera)

Although Maria Callas considered herself a bel canto and Verdi soprano, through recordings and video documents her name is inextricably linked with that of Puccini. This extraordinary album of Puccini arias was aptly named Puccini Heroines, as it is indeed a collection of portraits of many of the composer’s powerful creations for soprano. By September 1954, Callas had reinvented herself as a slim, elegant diva; the weight loss brought a new slenderness to the voice as well, while the instrument retained flexibility and plushness. Listening to this disc 60 years on, one is struck immediately by the sheer beauty in much of the singing. Callas’s bel canto skills, combined with her musical genius, add a host of ravishing touches: perfectly weighted portamentos, exquisite melismas, stunning diminuendos – all essential ingredients for Puccini, often omitted by singers less gifted, all used here for expression.
Callas offers a gallery of characters, each with her own voice – an effect never accomplished in an applied manner, always organic-sounding. One senses Manon’s pampered melancholy in ‘In quelle trine morbide’, and her exhausted desperation in ‘Sola, perduta, abbandonata’. Brilliant storytelling and keen observation of Puccini’s markings make the familiar ‘Un bel dì vedremo’ anything but routine. Going from Butterfly’s death to Mimì’s narrative is akin to a splash of cold water on the listener’s face, so profound is the change. Callas balances perfectly the parlando and legato in both arias from La bohème, while ‘Senza mamma’ is as extraordinary for its sense of loss as ‘O mio babbino caro’ is for its directness. And what other soprano could so fully capture both Liù and Turandot? But then, this is what makes Callas… Callas.
Producer: Walter Legge
Recording engineer: Robert Beckett
Newly remastered from the original tapes at Abbey Road Studios.