Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (1959 - Serafin) - Callas Remastered Maria Callas

• 1Prelude02:34
• 2Precorrete...Percorriamo le spiagge vicine (Normanno, Chorus)02:26
• 3Tu sei turbato!...E n'ho ben d'onde (Normanno, Enrico, Raimondo)03:00
• 4Cruda, funesta smania (Enrico, Normanno, Raimondo)02:10
• 5Il tuo dubbio è omai certezza ... Come vinti da stanchezza ( Normanno, Enrico, Raimondo, Chorus)02:20
• 6La pietade in suo favore (Enrico, Raimondo, Chorus)01:42
• 7Ancor non giunse! (Lucia, Alisa)04:01
• 8Regnava nel silenzio alta la notte e bruna (Lucia, Alisa)04:06
• 9Quando rapito in estasi (Lucia, Alisa)04:00
• 10Egli s'avanza...Lucia, perdona se ad ora inusitata (Alisa, Edgardo, Lucia)02:29
• 11Sulla tomba che rinserra il tradito genitore (Edgardo, Lucia)03:00
• 12Qui di sposa eterna fede (Edgardo, Lucia)01:37
• 13Ah talor del tuo pensiero (Edgardo, Lucia)00:58
• 14Verrano a te sull'aura i miei sospiri ardenti (Lucia, Edgardo)04:45
• 15Lucia fra poco a te verrà (Normanno, Enrico)03:13
• 16Appressati, Lucia ... Il pallor funesto, orrendo (Enrico, Lucia)05:19
• 17Soffriva nel pianto ... Un folle t' accese (Lucia, Enrico)03:39
• 18Che fia?... Suonar di giubilo (Lucia, Enrico)01:34
• 19Se tradirmi tu potrai ... Tu che vedi il pianto mio (Enrico, Lucia)02:07
• 20Per te d'immenso giubilo ... Per poco fra la tenebre (Arturo, Chorus)03:25
• 21Dov'è Lucia? ... Qui giungere or la vedrem (Arturo, Enrico, Coro)01:42
• 22Piange la madre estinta (Enrico, Lucia, Arturo, Raimondo)02:20
• 23Chi mi frena in tal momento (Edgardo, Enrico, Lucia, Raimondo, Arturo, Alisa, Chorus)03:36
• 24T'allontana, sciagurato ... Rispettate in me di Dio (Arturo, Enrico, Chorus, Raimondo)01:13
• 25Sconsigliato! In questa portachi ti guida? (Enrico, Edgardo, Raimondo, Lucia, Chorus)02:01
• 26Esci, fuggi, il furor che mi accende (Arturo, Enrico, Chorus, Raimondo, Lucia, Edgardo, Alisa)01:24
• 27D'immenso giubilo (Raimondo, Chorus)02:24
• 28Dalle stanze ove Lucia (Raimondo)02:25
• 29Oh! Qual funesto avvenimento! (Chorus, Raimondo)03:14
• 30Il dolce suono ... Ardon gli incensi (Lucia, Raimondo, Normanno, Chorus)11:51
• 31Spargi d'amaro pianto (Lucia, Raimondo, Chorus, Enrico)04:08
• 32Tombe degli avi miei (Edgardo)04:01
• 33Fra poco a me ricovero darà negletto avello (Edgardo)03:05
• 34Oh, meschinal Oh, fato orrendo! (Chorus, Edgardo)04:24
• 35Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali (Edgardo, Raimondo, Chorus)05:05
• Total Runtime01:51:18

Info for Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (1959 - Serafin) - Callas Remastered

In the six years that had passed since 1953, and her first recording of Lucia di Lammermoor, Callas’s voice had maybe become less robust, but her singing had become still more perceptive. As Gramophone said: ‘Mme Callas has refined her interpretation of the role, and made it more exquisite, more fascinating, musically and dramatically more subtle – in a word, more beautiful.’

Maria Callas, soprano (Lucia)
Ferruccio Tagliavini, tenor (Edgardo)
Piero Cappuccilli, baritone (Enrico)
Bernard Ladysz, bass (Raimondo)
Leonard Del Ferro, tenor (Arturo)
Margreta Elkins, mezzo-soprano (Alisa)
Renzo Casellato, tenor (Normanno)
Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus
Tullio Serafin, conductor

Digitally remastered

Maria Callas
was born to a Greek family in New York in 1923. Her vocal training took place in Athens, where her teacher was the coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who had sung with Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin. After early performances in Greece, Callas’s international career was launched in 1947 when she performed the title role in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona in Italy.

Her voice defied simple classification and her artistic range was extraordinary. In her early twenties she sang such heavy dramatic roles as Gioconda, Turandot, Brünnhilde and Isolde, but over the course of her career her most famous roles came to be: Bellini’s Norma and Amina (La sonnambula); Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata); Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, Cherubini’s Medea and Puccini’s Tosca. Though her timbre was not always conventionally beautiful, Callas’s musicianship and phrasing were in a class of their own. She brought characters to vivid life with her skill in colouring her tone and making insightful use of the text.

She is credited with changing the history of opera: by placing a perhaps unprecedented emphasis on musical integrity and dramatic truth, and by transforming perceptions – and reviving the fortunes – of the bel canto repertoire, particularly Bellini and Donizetti.

The 1950s marked the height of Callas’s career. Its base lay in the opera houses of Italy, and she became the prima donna assoluta of Milan’s legendary La Scala – notably in the productions of Luchino Visconti – but her operatic appearances also encompassed London’s Royal Opera House, the New York Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opéra, the Vienna State Opera, and the opera houses of Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Lisbon, and, in the early 1950s, Mexico City, São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro.

From 1959, when she started a life-changing love affair with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, her performing career slowed down and her voice became more fragile. Her final stage performances came in 1965, when she was only 42.

There were many plans for a return to the stage – and for further complete recordings – but they never reached fruition, though in 1974 she gave a series of concerts in Europe, North America and Japan with the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano; he had partnered her frequently in the opera house and in the studio, not least in the 1953 La Scala Tosca under Victor de Sabata, considered a landmark in recording history. Callas died alone in her Paris apartment in September 1977.

Booklet for Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (1959 - Serafin) - Callas Remastered