Puccini: Tosca (1953 - de Sabata) - Callas Remastered Maria Callas

• Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924): Puccini: Tosca (1953 - de Sabata)
• 1Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Ah! Finalmente! (Angelotti, Sacristan, Cavaradossi)05:34
• 2Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Dammi i colori...Recondita armonia (Cavaradossi, Sacristan)04:23
• 3Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Gente là dentro! (Cavaradossi/Angelotti/Tosca)01:10
• 4Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Mario..Mario..Mario (Tosca, Cavaradossi)06:58
• 5Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Ah, quegli occhi...Quale occhio al mondo può star di paro (Tosca/Cavaradossi)05:09
• 6Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: E buona la mia Tosca (Cavaradossi, Angelotti, Sacristan, Chorus)04:52
• 7Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Un tal baccano in chiesa! (Scarpia, Spoletta, Sacristan)03:28
• 8Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Or tutto è chiaro...Tosca? Che non mi veda...Mario! Mario! (Scarpia/Tosca/Sagrestano)03:04
• 9Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Ed io venivo a lui tutta dogliosa (Tosca, Scarpia)03:45
• 10Puccini: Tosca, Act 1: Tre sbirri (Scarpia, Spoletta, Chorus)04:35
• 11Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Tosca è un buon falco! (Scarpia/Sciarrone)03:07
• 12Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Ha più forte (Scarpia/Sciarrone/Spoletta)02:18
• 13Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Meno male! (Scarpia, Spoletta, Cavaradossi)03:16
• 14Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Dov’è dunque Angelotti? (Scarpia/Cavaradossi/Spoletta/Tosca)02:01
• 15Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Ed or fra noi parliam da buoni amici (Scarpia, Tosca, Sciarrone, Cavaradossi)03:59
• 16Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Orsù, Tosca, parlate (Scarpia/Tosca/Cavaradossi)02:55
• 17Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Nel pozzo...Del giardino (Scarpia, Sciarrone, Tosca, Cavaradossi)05:23
• 18Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Se la giurata (Scarpia, Tosca)03:37
• 19Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Vissi d'arte (Tosca)03:13
• 20Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: Vedi, ecco, vedi (Tosca, Scarpia, Spoletta)03:41
• 21Puccini: Tosca, Act 2: E qual via scegliete? (Scarpia, Tosca)06:33
• 22Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: Io de' sospiri (Shepherd)05:39
• 23Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: Mario Cavaradossi? (Jailer, Cavaradossi)04:03
• 24Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: E lucevan le stelle (Cavaradossi)02:47
• 25Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: Ah! Franchigia a Floria Tosca (Cavaradossi, Tosca)02:33
• 26Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: O dolci mani (Cavaradossi, Tosca)04:53
• 27Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: E non giungono (Tosca, Cavaradossi, Jailer)02:26
• 28Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: Com’è lunga l’attesa! (Tosca)02:15
• 29Puccini: Tosca, Act 3: Presto! su, Mario! Andiamo! Andiamo!, Su! (Tosca, Voices, Sciarrone, Spoletta)01:18
• Total Runtime01:48:55

Info for Puccini: Tosca (1953 - de Sabata) - Callas Remastered

This Tosca, made in 1953 with the forces of La Scala, is a landmark in recording history. Conducted with searing intensity by Victor de Sabata, it teams Callas with two of her closest colleagues, the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano and the baritone Tito Gobbi – a performer who could rival Callas in dramatic finesse and power. Tosca’s aria ‘Vissi d’arte’ (I lived for art) has come to be seen as Callas’ personal manifesto.

Tosca,' Giacomo Puccini's 'shabby little shocker,' had its premiere in 1900. The libretto, by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, was based on the Sardou drama of the same name. The opera has come to be associated with Maria Callas, the most celebrated interpreter of the title role. This recording, which dates from 1953, is THE classic performance, one of two 'official' recordings, as it were. It is a must-have for all Callas fans. (There is another official recording, made in 1964, with a different conductor, Georges Prêtre, and a different Cavaradossi, Carlo Bergonzi, but as the years passed, so did the quality of Callas's voice.) This earlier version is far superior.

Tradition mandates that we hear Callas sing with her fabled partner, the honey-voiced Di Stefano. Here, his sweetness is a wonderful counterpoint to Callas's dramatic, covered voice. Tito Gobbi provides a crafty Scarpia, and De Sabata's conducting is considered by many to be the ultimate reading of this work. But Callas is the diva here, and the listener is treated to the full amalgam of her emotional range. This performance is the myth-making one!

Maria Callas, soprano (Tosca)
Giuseppe di Stefano, tenor (Cavaradossi)
Tito Gobbi, baritone (Scarpia)
Franco Calabrese, bass (Angelotti)
Melchiorre Luise, bass (Il Sagristano)
Angelo Mercuriali, tenor (Spoletta)
Dario Caselli, bass (Sciarrone)
Alvaro Cordova, boy soprano (Un pastore)
Dario Caselli (Un carceriere)
Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan
Victor de Sabata, 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 Puccini: Tosca (1953 - de Sabata) - Callas Remastered