CD: MARIA CALLAS her earliest successes [1949] (CD, FONO)

MARIA CALLAS: HER EARLIEST SUCCESSES

Review by: Robert Levine

Artistic Quality: 9

Sound Quality: 2

This collection meets Maria Callas in 1949, when she was as much daredevil as soprano, with a fearlessness and indeed recklessness that is astonishing. The first “Casta diva” is from a commercial recording; the rest of this CD is taken from live performances. There are two minutes of Turandot taped in Buenos Aires; they’re near the opera’s very end, and Callas is singing with Mario del Monaco. It’s a powerhouse moment–would that the entire performance had been taped. A live “O rimembranza!” and the ensuing duet from Norma (also from Argentina) with Fedora Barbieri is a treat; the two women are spectacular both together and separately. We get highlights from Callas’ Naples Nabucco, and they’re a veritable advertisement for three things: great singing, excitement, and how to ruin a voice. The huge two-octave runs are breathtaking, the passion, power and rage palpable, and an optional high E-flat at the close of the duet with Nabucco (the estimable Gino Bechi) is hair-raising. This CD is self-recommending if you adore Callas. It’s part of the picture of who she was on the way to becoming who she wound up being. The sound is dreadful, save for the studio “Casta diva”.