Callas - What are the recommended recordings
Posted by: Bert Schurink on 20 July 2013
Before my wife left we had a couple of Callas Boxes - now they are gone. As I have to build up something new and I would like to have to the real great recordings - can I get some help from the experts (as I know a lot of the Callas recordings are sub-optimal).
Sure. As you probably know, her best period was roughly up to 1957, after that vocal decline started to kick in. Which means the dilemma is that she is heard best in mono, and left us some less than beautiful but well recorded stereo releases. But that's not the full story, fortunately.
My top 4:
Her second studio Norma with Serafin is one of the pinnacles of opera discography. Yes, there is some decline, but it is much less than most people would have you believe. And here she is surrounded by an all star cast and a conductor who could dream this score.
The De Sabata Tosca is (in pretty good) mono, but I wouldn't skip it for that. The performance set the benchmark for all Tosca's since.
Callas made a couple of highly regarded live recordings of Lucia di Lammermoor, and two studio recordings: again, both with Tullio Serafin. She is brilliant in the first (with Di Stefano), and a bit less so in the second (with Tagliavini). But the second still very, very good, and together with Norma (above), her best sounding recording.
And finally, in good sounding mono - a heartbreaking Madama Butterfly:
There is much more, of course. A pity that she never got around to making a studio recording of her best stage role, La Traviata. On studio vs live: everybody agrees that she is best heard live; I don't disagree, but in the interest of repeated listening, ultimately favour the studio recordings.
Regards,
EJ