Maria Callas: The Live Recordings (42 CDs, 3 BluRays) WARNER CLASSICS

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. Containing 20 complete operas – including 12 works she never recorded in the

studio – and five complete filmed recitals on Blu-ray, Maria Callas Live is the indispensable complement to Maria Callas Remastered, Warner Classics’ landmark collection of her studio recordings.

This deluxe box set comprises 42 CDs (20 complete operas) and 3 Blu-ray (5 recitals).

12 of the operas were never recorded by Callas in the studio

Verdi: Nabucco

Verdi: I vespri siciliani

Verdi: Macbeth

Wagner: Parsifal

Donizetti: Anna Bolena

Donizetti: Poliuto

Rossini: Armida

Bellini: Il pirata

Gluck: Alceste

Gluck: Ifigenia in Tauride

Spontini: La vestale

Giordano: Andrea Chénier

The 8 other operas in the box result from performances which have made the legend of Callas on stage:

The historic performance of Verdi’s Aida (when she sang an interpolated high E flat at the end of the Triumphal Scene to ecstatic applause from the audience), La traviata (Lisbon 1958, conducted by Franco Ghione with Alfredo Kraus), her only incarnation of Rigoletto on stage, Bellini’s Norma at the height of her voice in London, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in the legendary perfomance with Karajan at Staatsoper Berlin, Cherubini’s Medea and Bellini’s La Sonnambula under Leonard Bernstein at La Scala, and the heartbreaking Puccini Tosca from Covent Garden, 1964.

Each recording in this edition has been newly remastered, using the latest audio technology, great care has been taken to assure accuracy of reproduced pitch, which has been corrected in various instances.

Some performances presented in this boxset (Nabucco, Armida, La Vestale, Alceste) were recorded under difficult technical circumstances and this remains evident in the audio quality. That being said, Warner Classics has made a conscious choice in including them, since they offer the only opportunity to hear Maria Callas in roles that she did not perform in the recording studio.

This set makes use of the best available source material, which includes tapes recently discovered by Tom Volf (director of the forthcoming film Callas in her own words) in the archives of the Italian collector, Oscar Costellacci.

As a result, Callas’s voice, as heard in the opera house and concert hall, can be experienced with unparalleled authenticity in all its stunning presence. While the imperfections inherent in vintage recordings of live productions have not disappeared, the majority of the performances in this collection can now be enjoyed in sound of unprecedented quality and fidelity.

Each of the 20 complete operas (CD) and the 3 Blu-ray recitals in the box set is presented in a digipak, and the CDs will also be available as individual releases, in physical and digital formats.

Artists
Maria Callas (soprano), Gino Bechi (Nabucco), Maria Callas (Abigaille), Amalia Pini (Fenena), Gino Sinimberghi (Ismaele), Iginio Riccò (Gran Sacerdote), Luciano della Pergola (Abdallo), Silvana Tenti (Anna), Rolando Panerai (Amfortas), Africo Baldelli (Parsifal), Maria Callas (Kundry), Boris Christoff (Gurnemanz), Giuseppe Modesti (Klingsor), Dmitri Lopatto (Titurel), Giórgios Kokoliós-Bardi (Arrigo), Maria Callas (La Duchessa Elena), Enzo Mascherini (Guido di Montforte), Boris Christoff (Giovanni da Procida), Mario Frosini (Il Conte Vaudemont), Bruno Carmassi (Il Sire di Bethume), Mafalda Masini (Ninetta), Gino Sarri (Danieli), Aldo De Paolo (Tebaldo), Lido Pettini (Roberto), Breno Ristori (Manfredo), Maria Callas (Aida), Mario del Monaco (Radamès), Oralia Domínguez (Amneris), Giuseppe Taddei (Amonasro), Roberto Silva (Ramphis), Ignacio Ruffino (Il Re di Egitto), Rosa Rodríguez (Una Sacerdotessa), Carlos Sagarminaga (Un Messaggero), Maria Callas (Armida), Francesco Albanese (Rinaldo), Mario Filippeschi (Gernando), Gianni Raimondi (Eustazio), Alessandro Ziliani (Goffredo), Antonio Salvarezza (Ubaldo), Mario Frosini (Idradote), Marco Stefanoni (Astarotte), Giuseppe di Stefano (Duca di Mantova), Maria Callas (Gilda), Piero Campolonghi (Rigoletto), Ignacio Ruffino (Sparafucile), María Teresa García (Maddalena), Ana María Feuss (Giovanna), Gilberto Cerda (Monterone), Alberto Herrera (Marullo), Carlos Sagarminaga (Borsa), Francisco Alonso (Conte di Ceprano), Edna Patoni (Contessa di Ceprano), Maria Callas (Norma), Ebe Stignani (Adalgisa), Mirto Picchi (Pollione), Giacomo Vaghi (Oroveso), Joan Sutherland (Clotilde), Paul Asciak (Flavio), Enzo Mascherini (Macbeth), Maria Callas (Lady Macbeth), Italo Tajo (Banco), Gino Penno (Macduff), Luciano della Pergola (Malcolm), Angela Vercelli (Dama), Dario Caselli (Medico), Attilio Barbesi (Domestico), Mario Tommasini (Sicaro), Gino Penno (Giasone), Maria Callas (Medea), Maria Luisa Nache (Glauce), Fedora Barbieri (Neris), Giuseppe Modesti (Creonte), Enrico Campi (Capitano), Angela Vercelli (Prima Ancella), Maria Amadini (Seconda Ancella), Maria Callas (Alceste), Renato Gavarini (Admète), Paolo Silveri (Grand Prêtre d’Apollon), Rolando Panerai (Apollon), Giuseppe Zampieri (Evandre), Nicola Zaccaria (La voix de l’Oracle), Silvio Maionica (Dieu infernal), Enrico Campi (Un Héraut), Franco Corelli (Licinius), Maria Callas (Giulia), Ebe Stignani (Gran Vestale), Enzo Sordello (Cinna), Nicola Rossi-Lemeni (Grande Sacerdote), Vittorio Tatozzi (Un Console), Nicola Zaccaria (Aruspice), Mario del Monaco (Andrea Chénier), Aldo Protti (Carlo Gérard), Maria Amadini (La Contessa di Coigny), Silvana Zanolli (La mulatta Bersi), Lucia Danieli (Madelon), Cesare Valletti (Elvino), Maria Callas (Amina), Giuseppe Modesti (Rodolfo), Gabriella Carturan (Teresa), Eugenia Ratti (Lisa), Pier Luigi Latinucci (Alessio), Giuseppe Nessi (Notaro), Maria Callas (Lucia), Giuseppe Di Stefano (Edgardo), Rolando Panerai (Enrico), Nicola Zaccaria (Raimondo), Maria Callas (Anna Bolena), Giulietta Simionato (Giovanna), Nicola Rossi-Lemeni (Enrico), Gianni Raimondi (Percy), Plinio Clabassi (Rochefort), Gabriella Carturan (Smeton), Luigi Rumbo (Hervey), Maria Callas (Iphigénie), Francesco Albanese (Pylade), Anselmo Colzani (Thoas), Fiorenza Cossotto (Diane), Maria Callas (Violetta), Alfredo Kraus (Alfredo), Mario Sereni (Germont), Laura Zannini (Flora), Maria Cristina de Castro (Annina), Piero De Palma (Gastone), Alessandro Maddalena (Dottore Grenvil), Álvaro Malta (Barone Douphol), Vito Susca (Marchese d’Obigny), Maria Callas (Imogene), Pier Miranda Ferraro (Gualtiero), Regina Sarfaty (Sarfaty), Costantino Ego (Ernesto), Glade Peterson (Goffredo), Chester Watson (Itulbo), Franco Corelli (Poliuto), Maria Callas (Paolina), Ettore Bastianini (Severo), Nicola Zaccaria (Callistene), Tito Gobbi (Scarpia)

Teatro di San Carlo di Napoli, RAI Roma, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Palacio de las Bellas Artes, Teatro alla Scala, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, American Opera Society, Covent Garden, Vittorio Gui, Erich Kleiber, Oliviero de Fabritiis, Tullio Serafin, Umberto Mugnai, Victor de Sabata, Leonard Bernstein, Carlo Maria Giulini, Antonino Votto, Herbert von Karajan, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Nino Sanzogno, Franco Ghione, Nicola Rescigno, Carlo Felice Cillario