Leoncavallo: I pagliacci (1954 - Serafin) - Callas Remastered Maria Callas

• 1Si puo? Si puo? (Tonio)07:48
• 2Prologue: Son qua! (Chorus)03:12
• 3Un grande spettacolo a ventitre ore (Canio, Chorus, Tonio, Beppe)02:46
• 4Un tal gioco, credetemi, e meglio non giovarlo (Canio, Nedda, Chorus)02:48
• 5I zampognari! ... Din, don, don, din (Chorus, Boys, Canio)03:57
• 6Qual fiamma avea nel guardo...Hui! Stridono lassu (Nedda)04:38
• 7Sei la! Credea che te ne fossi andato (Nedda, Tonio)00:53
• 8So ben che difforme contorto son io (Nedda, Tonio)04:06
• 9Nedda!...Silvio! A quest'ora che imprudenza (Silvio, Nedda)01:23
• 10E fra quest'ansie in eterno vivrai! (Silvio, Nedda)02:37
• 11Non mi tentar! (Nedda, Silvio, Tonio)01:22
• 12E allor perche, di', tu m'hai stregato (Silvio, Nedda, Tonio, Canio)05:21
• 13Derisione e scherno! (Cannio, Nedda, Beppe, Tonio)02:56
• 14Recitar! Mentre presco dal delirio (Canio)00:46
• 15Vesti la guibba (Canio)02:42
• 16Intermezzo03:14
• Leoncavallo: I pagliacci, Act 2
• 17Presto affrettiamoci (Chorus, Tonio, Beppe, Silvio, Nedda)04:10
• 18Pagliaccio, mio marito (Nedda)01:52
• 19Ah! Colombina, il tenero (Beppe)01:38
• 20Di fare il segno convenuto (Nedda, Tonio, Beppe)04:14
• 21Arlecchin!...Colombina! (Beppe)02:28
• 22Coraggio! Un uomo era con te (Canio, Nedda, Tonio)01:59
• 23No, Pagliaccio non son (Canio, Chorus, Silvio, Nedda)03:10
• 24Suvvia, cosi terribile (Cannio, Chorus, Silvio, Nedda)02:49
• Total Runtime01:12:49

Info for Leoncavallo: I pagliacci (1954 - Serafin) - Callas Remastered

While Pagliacci’s regular companion piece, Cavalleria rusticana, figured prominently in Callas’s early career, Leoncavallo’s one-acter had no place in her stage repertoire. But as Gramophone wrote of this recording: ‘When Callas [as Nedda] and Gobbi [as Tonio] are on the stage the drama is strikingly unfolded …There has been [no Nedda] more urgently orpressingly feminine than Callas … the only one to create real tension at the idea of Canio reading her thoughts; the only one to give meaning … to her mood as the birds fly overhead; and … the only one to greet her lover with delight.’

Maria Callas, soprano (Nedda)
Giuseppe Di Stefano, tenor (Canio)
Tito Gobbi, baritone (Tonio)
Rolando Panerai, baritone (Silvio)
Nicola Monti, tenor (Beppe)
Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala, Milan
Tullio Serafin, conductor

Recorded on 12–17. June 1954, Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Produced by Walter Legge
Engineered by Robert Beckett
Recorded in cooperation with E.A. Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Newly remastered from the original tapes at Abbey Road Studios

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 Leoncavallo: I pagliacci (1954 - Serafin) - Callas Remastered