4. Donizetti: Anna Bolena
Despite a few earlier revivals, it was only Gavazzeni's version for Callas and Giulietta Simionato which pushed Anna Bolena into greater prominence in the Donizettian canon. Despite cuts amounting to at least 25 percent of the music, this is essential Callas as she gives us the woman betrayed by all those surrounding her. If you want to hear the difference between the studio and a live performance - this version began life as a pirate until EMI jumped into the breach - just listen to the way the final scene sounds on the recital disc (EMI 5 66459 2) and here in the theater, despite the many nuances which grace the studio performance. While Rossi-Lemeni was already into his wooly-sounding phase, Gianni Raimondi holds up the tenor honors. It is for Callas and Simionato that we will continue to listen to this disc despite some of the more musicological performances since.
EMI 5 66471 2 (2 cds) - recorded 14 April 1957

5. Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Mad Lucy is another recurrent heroine in the Callas sweepstakes, but there is one performance above all that captures the genius of Callas: Berlin, 29 September 1955 with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. What is already impressive on the first studio recording with Serafin and Giuseppe di Stefano is raised to levels that few were willing to accord the composer at that time. Everyone is in a state of grace and Karajan clearly does not feel the least demeaned by conducting what until then was considered little more than a coloratura vehicle. Cast also includes Rolando Panerai and Nicola Zaccaria, and once again EMI places us in its debt by recovering this essential issue from its original pirate status.
EMI 5 66438 2 (2 cds) - recorded 29 September 1955

6. Puccini: Tosca
Although not the opera she performed most often, Tosca was indelibly associated with Callas from the time of her first recording with Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Gobbi and Victor de Sabata, one of the greatest opera recordings ever made. Clearly De Sabata is responsible for generating the same electricity one would have found in the theater, while the combination of two of the greatest singing actors of our time remains a classic.
EMI 5 56304 2 (2 cds) - recorded in 1953

7. Rossini: Il Turco in Italia
Once again Gavazzeni performed a service by restoring to circulation Rossini's Pirandellian comedy, alas with many of the disfiguring cuts that were then considered necessary to render the music palatable to an audience. Callas shows that comedy is also within her grasp, and she is partnered by Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, the ageless Mariano Stabile as the Poet, an exotic-sounding Nicolai Gedda shorn of most of his music and Franco Calabrese. Essential for an understanding of the Callas magic, even though more recent recordings are musicologically sounder.
EMI 5 56313 2 (2 cds) - recorded in 1954

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