Maria Callas - Callas a Paris - More Arias from French Opera [Hi-Res Remastering] (2014)

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787): "Ô malheureuse Iphigénie! (Act II)" from Iphigénie en Tauride
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): "D’amour l’ardente flamme" from La Damnation de Faust
Georges Bizet (1838-1875): "Me voilà seule…Comme autrefois (Act II)" from Les Pêcheurs de perles
Jules Massenet (1842-1912): "Je ne suis que faiblesse…Adieu, notre petite table (Act II)" and "Je ne suis que faiblesse…Adieu, notre petite table (Act II)" from Manon; "Werther! Werther! Qui m’aurait dit la place (Air des lettres) (Act III)" from Werther
Charles Gounod (1818-1893): "Je voudrais bien savoir…Il était un Roi de Thulé…Les grands seigneurs…Ah! je ris (Chanson du Roi de Thulé et air des bijoux) (Act III)" from Faust

Maria Callas, soprano
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, orchestra
Georges Prêtre, conductor

As in her first Callas à Paris recital, recorded two years previously, the diva performs arias of diverse weight, color and mood – from the darker tones of Berlioz’s Marguerite to the brilliant ‘Jewel Song’ of Gounod’s Marguerite, and from the mezzo-ish melancholy of Massenet’s Charlotte to the soprano coquetry of the same composer’s Manon. ‘Simply as an artist,’ wrote Gramophone in its review of the recital, ‘in her sense of line, her feeling for a word, her command of color and her mastery of the whole complex art of interpretation – [Callas] is so far ahead of all other contemporary singers, and of all but the greatest past singers, too, that she almost spoils us for the rest.’

Recorded in 1963 at Salle Wagram in Paris, France.

Producer: Walter Legge
Recording engineer: Francis Dillnutt