Puccini: Arias

This 15 CD set is one of four special albums being released by EMI Classics on 8 September 2008 to celebrate the 150th Anniversary on 22 December of the birth of Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Puccini is one of today’s most popular operatic composers. His works dominate the programmes of the world’s leading opera houses, and his compositions are heard frequently on radio and television, in film soundtracks and in TV commercials.

Maria Callas is an iconic figure in the world of opera and she continues to be acclaimed as one of the greatest interpreters of the music of Puccini in living memory.

All of Callas’s studio recordings of Puccini operas are included: Manon Lescaut, La bohème, Tosca (both versions), Madama Butterfly and Turandot. These are all recorded with the forces of La Scala, Milan, except the second Tosca which was made in Paris.

Also included is the famous recital of Puccini Arias that Callas recorded in London in 1954 on which she sings both of Liù’s arias from Turandot (‘Signore, ascolta’ and ‘Tu che di gel sei cinta’), as well as Turandot’s great solo ‘In questa reggia’.

The set also contains as a bonus, the live recording of Tosca made at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in January 1964 when Callas made her triumphant return to the operatic stage after an absence of several years in a magnificent new production of Tosca directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

All recordings MONO except the second studio Tosca (Recorded December 1964)