![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](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/06/0825646254057_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
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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Maria Callas, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Piero Cappuccilli, Bernard Ladysz, Leonard Del Ferro, Margreta Elkins, Renzo Casellato, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Tullio Serafin – Lucia di Lammermoor (1959/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:51:18 minutes | 2,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
In the later 1950s EMI remade many items of their LP catalogue for stereo including Maria Callas’s Gioconda, Norma and Lucia. John Ardoin’s personal discography The Callas Legacy (Amadeus: 1995, fourth edition) opines that ‘in each instance, she was competing only against herself; the one bout she loses is Lucia’. This echoes the view of several Callas critics of this set, over-aware of both a few moments of vocal unsteadiness and the supposed after-effects of the singer’s eventful private life.
A more precise assessment is that Callas’s voice was changing again, becoming darker and lower-centred. As producer Walter Legge wrote (in On and Off The Record, Faber: 1982), ‘The centre of the voice was basically darkhued, her most expressive range, where she could pour out her smoothest legato.’ This is certainly audible on the second Lucia. The Mad Scene takes greater risks than her early 1950s recordings, feels more sinister and shows – in her colouring of its text – the influence of many more live performances. Callas appears also to have been in confident personal form at the time. The month before the new recording she attended the dress rehearsal of Joan Sutherland’s much-touted Covent Garden debut as Lucia and commented (to Legge): ‘She will have a great success tomorrow and make a big career if she can keep it up. But only we know how much greater I am.’
For the Lucia ‘remake’ in March 1959 Legge retained Callas and conductor Tullio Serafin but changed everything else from 1953. It was recorded in London (Kingsway Hall) not Florence, with a British orchestra and chorus (Legge’s own Philharmonia forces). Serafin had been working with the orchestra in the studio on a Verdi overtures disc and there is no lack of Italian feeling. Legge also departed from his long-term casting of Italian operas with a new mix of singers. They included the relative newcomer Piero Cappuccilli as Enrico and Ferruccio Tagliavini as Edgardo. –MIKE ASHMAN, 2014
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Piero Cappuccilli, Ileana Cotrubas, Plácido Domingo, Elena Obraztsova, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Kurt Moll, Hanna Schwarz, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Wiener Philharmoniker, Carlo Maria Giulini – Verdi: Rigoletto (1980/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:59:46 minutes | 1,96 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
“This is not one of the most famous recordings of Verdi’s warhorse, but in my opinion it is the best. The great Italian conductor Carlo Maria Giulini stays away from the melodramatic caricature of opera that this can easily turn into, and brings out the dark, brooding colors of the drama and of the music. He combines lyricism with the greatest dramatic power, at speeds which feel exactly right, even though they are slower than most. And not only does he have a superb individual view of the piece, he is a sensitive accompanist, too, giving the excellent Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra its full dominance without drowning out the singers. And what singers! The velvety, golden voice of Piero Cappuccilli, used with unfailing intelligence and musicality; the warm, gorgeous voice of Plácido Domingo; and perhaps most stunning of all, the bewitching lyric soprano of Ileana Cotrubas, the best Gilda I have ever heard. These singers may not hit the stratospheric unwritten high notes on the Bonynge recording with Pavarotti, Milnes and Sutherland, but they do offer consistently refined, thoughtful and beautiful singing. Cotrubas’ radiant singing alone is worth the modest price of this set. The great Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov makes a riveting, dark-toned Sparafucile; Elena Obraztsova sings Maddalena perfectly well, though not on the level of her colleagues. Kurt Moll is cast luxuriously as Monterone. At mid-price, with full libretto and translation and with excellent work from the VPO and chorus, this is a Rigoletto that must be in all Verdi collections.”
Read more![Luciano Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland, Piero Cappuccilli, Nicolai Ghiaurov, London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Bonynge - Bellini: I Puritani (1973/2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/29/0002894786598_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Luciano Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland, Piero Cappuccilli, Nicolai Ghiaurov, London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Bonynge – Bellini: I Puritani (1973/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:54:05 minutes | 3,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Pavarotti made only one studio recording of I Puritani. In 1973 he recorded the opera with Richard Bonynge conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and with Joan Sutherland as Elvira.
“Sutherland’s singing here is brighter and fresher than her earlier recording, with the lovely aria ‘Qui la voce’ no longer a wordless melisma…The recording is vivid and atmospheric and one marvels at Bellini’s gorgeous melodies…with Sutherland, Bonynge and all on electrifying form.” –The Penguin Guide
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