Maria Callas, Fiorenza Cossotto, Irene Companeez, Ivo Vinco, Pier Miranda Ferraro, Piero Cappuccilli, Leonardo Monreale, Carlo Forti, Renato Ercolani, Aldo Biffi, Bonaldo Giaiotti, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Antonino Votto – Ponchielli: La Gioconda (1959) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Maria Callas, Fiorenza Cossotto, Irene Companeez, Ivo Vinco, Pier Miranda Ferraro, Piero Cappuccilli, Leonardo Monreale, Carlo Forti, Renato Ercolani, Aldo Biffi, Bonaldo Giaiotti, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Antonino Votto - Ponchielli: La Gioconda (1959) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Maria Callas, Fiorenza Cossotto, Irene Companeez, Ivo Vinco, Pier Miranda Ferraro, Piero Cappuccilli, Leonardo Monreale, Carlo Forti, Renato Ercolani, Aldo Biffi, Bonaldo Giaiotti, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Antonino Votto – Ponchielli: La Gioconda (1959)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:46:31 minutes | 3,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Maria Callas sang the role of Gioconda on stage a total of 13 times – five in 1947, eight more in 1952–3. It may therefore come as a surprise that Ponchielli’s ironically named street singer played such a pivotal role in the soprano’s life and career. After numerous setbacks in her effort to launch an American career in the mid-1940s, Callas struck gold when she auditioned for retired tenor Giovanni Zenatello, searching for a protagonist for a Gioconda he was casting for the Verona Arena’s summer season of 1947. The 23-year-old soprano got the part, and during those performances met two men who changed her life – Giovanni Battista Meneghini, whom she married, and Maestro Tullio Serafin, who became her artistic mentor. Fast forward five years, and we find Callas recording Gioconda, her first complete opera release, and another seven years to sessions for this more artistically mature second studio Gioconda – during which time she announced her separation from Meneghini, mentioning her ‘profound friendship’ with Aristotle Onassis.
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Fiorenza Cossotto, Pedro Lavirgen – Bizet: Carmen, WD 31 (Excerpts) [Remastered 2022] [Live] (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Fiorenza Cossotto, Pedro Lavirgen – Bizet: Carmen, WD 31 (Excerpts) [Remastered 2022] [Live] (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:32:24 minutes | 3,59 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EMEC – HD Remastered

Fiorenza Cossotto hatte kein sehr großes Repertoire und war auch keine vielseitige oder gar „neugierige” Sängerin, die sich auf Wege in bislang weniger erschlossene musikalische Welten begeben hätte. Jedoch war sie ohne Zweifel in den 60er und 70er Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts ein Star, sang an den berühmtesten Opernhäusern der Welt und ist noch heute unvergessen als eine der großen Persönlichkeiten des italienschen Alt- und Mezzo-Fachs vor allem in Opern von Verdi und Bellini, jedoch auch als dramatischer Sopran in der Rolle der Santuzza.

Es gibt von ihr eine Vielzahl von Aufnahmen, so dass wir uns diskographisch gut einen Eindruck von der Fülle und Schönheit ihres Materials, dem Umfang und der Kraft ihrer Stimme sowie der Verve ihrer Darstellung machen können – wie etwa in dem Film-Mitschnitt von „Adriana Lecouvreur”, mit ihrem Mann Ivo Vinco und vor allem Mirella Freni, in der Scala oder der Filmaufzeichnung als Lady Macbeth unter Muti sowie im Verdi-Requiem unter Karajan mit Leontyne Price, dem jungen Pavarotti und Ghiaurov. Technische Mittel erlauben es uns heute, hörend und sehend das Abenteuer der Entwicklung auch dieser Sängerin zu verfolgen.

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Luciano Pavarotti, Ileana Cotrubas, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Fiorenza Cossotto, Gabriel Bacquier, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Richard Bonynge – Donizetti: La Favorita (1974/2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Luciano Pavarotti, Ileana Cotrubas, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Fiorenza Cossotto, Gabriel Bacquier, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Richard Bonynge – Donizetti: La Favorita (1974/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:47:59 minutes | 2,83 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

La favorite (‘The Favorite’, sometimes referred to by its Italian title: ‘La favorita’) is a grand opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d’Arnaud. It premiered on 2 December 1840 at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique in Paris, France.

Originally, Donizetti had been composing an opera by the name of Le Duc d’Albe as his second work for the Opera in Paris. However, the director, Léon Pillet, objected to an opera without a prominent role for his mistress, mezzo-soprano Rosine Stoltz. Donizetti therefore abandoned Le Duc d’Albe and borrowed heavily from L’ange de Nisida, an unrealized project from 1839, to create La favorite. It was revived in Padua under the title of Leonora di Guzman in 1842, and at La Scala as Elda in 1843. Though Donizetti himself was not involved in these productions, the opera is now more commonly given in Italian rather than French.

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Plácido Domingo, Fiorenza Cossotto, Leontyne Price, Sherrill Milnes, Bonaldo Giaiotti, Elizabeth Bainbridge, Ryland Davie, Stanley Riley, Neilson Taylor, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Zubin Mehta – Verdi: Il Trovatore (1969/2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Plácido Domingo, Fiorenza Cossotto, Leontyne Price, Sherrill Milnes, Bonaldo Giaiotti, Elizabeth Bainbridge, Ryland Davie, Stanley Riley, Neilson Taylor, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Zubin Mehta – Verdi: Il Trovatore (1969/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:15:50 minutes | 2,61 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

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Maria Callas, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nicola Zaccaria, Nicola Monti, Eugenia Ratti, Giuseppe Morresi, Franco Ricciardi, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Antonino Votto – Vincenzo Bellini: La Sonnambula (1957/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Maria Callas, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nicola Zaccaria, Nicola Monti, Eugenia Ratti, Giuseppe Morresi, Franco Ricciardi, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Antonino Votto - Vincenzo Bellini: La Sonnambula (1957/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Maria Callas, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nicola Zaccaria, Nicola Monti, Eugenia Ratti, Giuseppe Morresi, Franco Ricciardi, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Antonino Votto – Vincenzo Bellini: La Sonnambula (1957/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:00:55 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

While all of Callas’s bel canto roles were revelatory, her first Amina achieved instant legendary status partly because of the Luchino Visconti production surrounding it. Visconti replicated a bygone era visually by costuming the slimmed-down diva in the manner of a 19th-century ballerina, while Callas replicated that time vocally, combining bel canto style with a full dramatic impersonation not associated with a role owned at the time by bird-like coloraturas. Callas transported Bellini’s lyric masterpiece back to the age of Giuditta Pasta, for whom it was created, offering her share of vocal fireworks – but in the name of expression. Suddenly, the opera itself was understood anew.
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