Verdi: Surta è la notte...Ernani! Ernani, involami (from Ernani)

Maria Callas is the ultimate and original diva. Widely regarded as the greatest Opera singer and performer of all time whose life, voice and performances have intrigued, thrilled and inspired all others.

Maria Callas

34 years after her death Maria Callas remains the definition of a diva. She is not only the world's bestselling soprano but also EMI Classic's bestselling artist of all time. Widely regarded for her intense characterisation and unique interpretations she has become a cultural icon whose music and life continues to influence today.

“Her reputation, extremely high when she died, has become ever greater in the years since her death. As a personality she remains controversial, but as an artist hardly at all: her genius is recognised as supreme by virtually all opera lovers, indeed it is often from listening to her many recordings that people discover what an incredibly potent art form opera can be.” BBC Music Magazine

The Music

This wonderfully constructed 2CD collection of opera arias highlights Callas’s spectacular climb to fame tracking her move from innocent young woman to the tragic heroine in her later years through the opera arias she recorded.

Featuring the most special and exquisitely interpreted arias of her output this collection brings together such opera favourites as O mio babbino caro, Vissi d’arte and Casta diva.

Callas’s recordings have featured prominently in many critically acclaimed movies including Academy Award winner Philadelphia and Academy Award Nominated Milk

Callas is the immortal diva whose music transcends time and sounds as unique and inspired today. Many noted musicians have quoted Callas as a musical influence including Linda Ronstadt, Patti Smith, Emmylou Harris, Celine Dion, Jason Mraz and Rufus Wainwright.

Documentary

EMI Classics has made The Callas Effect because there are powerful first-hand accounts that have not before been revealed of how and why Callas has exerted a unique and extraordinary effect – on other celebrity opera singers, on distinguished stage directors, on actors and actresses, on backstage theatre crews, on recording staff, on impresarios, on audiences who queued up for days and nights to see her, and now on young music-lovers who are captivated by her CDs and DVDs. People from all these walks of life, newly captured just for this memoir and including some who personally knew her, are the passionate witnesses of Maria Callas’s genius in The Callas Effect, which also includes extracts from her performances, recordings and interviews.

Here are the greatest moments from the “ultimate in galas” (Opera), a “roof-rattling vocal display and the kind of cheering and free-flowing, heartfelt emotion on both sides of the footlights that opera evinces more than any other art form” - New York Times

The gala celebration immediately catches the attention with spectacular performances by stars such as Dame Joan Sutherland, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Mirella Freni, Marilyn Horne, Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Alfredo Kraus and many others

“The world's most famous opera singers [in] a dazzling sequence of performances” - New York Times

“It's always a privilege to sing at the Met, but this is something very special. I don't think there's ever been anything this grand in the history of opera” - Luciano Pavarotti

This product features an awesome roster of international star conducters: from James Levine, Leonard Bernstein and Thomas Fulton to Jeffrey Tate, Richard Bonynge

2 DVDs LIVE from the Met from October 22, 1983