Callas, Maria (soprano) Mad Scenes

Maria Callas (soprano) : Mad Scenes (1958)

Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra, Nicola Rescigno

DONIZETTI Anna Bolena, Act 2: “Piangete voi?…Al dolce guidami castel natio” (Anna Bolena, Smeton, Lord Percy, Hervery, Lord Rochefort, Chorus)  (19:57)

Maria Callas (soprano), Duncan Robertson (tenor), John Lanigan (tenor), Joseph Rouleau (bass), Monica Sinclair (contralto)
Philharmonia Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra
Nicola Rescigno

THOMAS, Ambroise: A vos jeux, mes amis (from Hamlet) (10:24)

Maria Callas (soprano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Nicola Rescigno

BELLINI Il pirata, Act 2: “Oh! s’io potessi” (Imogene) (Work length 17:08)

Maria Callas (soprano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Nicola Rescigno

Callas did not make complete recordings of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and Bellini’s Il pirata, though, as the queen of La Scala, she enjoyed triumphs in both roles in 1957–1958. The vocally and dramatically demanding final scenes of both operas feature in this recital with Ophélie’s mad scene from Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, another coloratura extravaganza. When this recital first appeared in 1959, Gramophone wrote: ‘This is a most remarkable record, not only for its material … but for its astonishing vividness and dramatic poetry … It has been a thing of much wonder for me.’