Maria Callas complete recordings
Channeling Maria
Looking back to 2014, I remember the shock on learning that the newspaper was reorganizing and therefore dropping opera reviews. For them I covered the Met since the fall of 1986: selected new productions, performances to be shown worldwide, also performances I knew would be wonderful, given the cast.
I hastened to create a website, with the help of my wife and other friends. It became OperaMetro, in time for the beginning of the 2014/2015 season. It was passion, but… the main guiding light was that March 19, 2015, marked the 50th anniversary of Maria Callas’s return to the Met for two performances of Puccini’s Tosca.
I had written a piece for the paper marking thirty years since Callas’s passing in Paris in 1977. And for OperaMetro in 2015 I described my journey that season (1964-65), from a naive standee of 17 from New Jersey who was familiar with Callas’s art only from her later commercial recordings to a seasoned standee who had braved two bitter nights in March on the sidewalks outside the Met for a ticket to the first performance the following Friday. Callas was 41 at the time; appearing with her that night were Franco Corelli and Tito Gobbi. It was a performance never to be forgotten.
In between then and today there have been several documentaries, remastered recordings, and highlights of her performances. But released last Friday, September 22, is a new take: the formal title of the set is La Divina: Maria Callas in all her roles. The set of CDs is released by Warner Classics as a boxed set. Enjoy!
Those interested in learning more about the new set of CDs, please go to
https://www.warnerclassics.com/release/ladivina
Those interested in background about Maria Callas, the recording artist, please go to
https://www.maria-callas.com/en/
And those interested in purchasing the recordings, please go to
Has it stopped raining yet?
There are more Callas posts below, mixed in with other articles. OM