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

As in her first Callas à Paris recital, recorded two years previously, the diva performs arias of diverse weight, colour 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 colour 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.’