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Bellini: Norma [Box set]

~ Maria Callas

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Price:	�23.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

Performer: Maria Callas, Ebe Stignani, Mario Filippeschi, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni
Orchestra: Milan La Scala Chorus, Milan La Scala Orchestra
Composer: Vincenzo Bellini
Audio CD (10 Mar 1997)
SPARS Code: ADD
Number of Discs: 3
Format: Box set
Label: Callas Edition
ASIN: B000002RXP
Other Editions: MP3 Download

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 39,427 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)
Popular in this category:
#63 in Music > Opera & Vocal > Song > Soprano

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Disc 1:

On this CD:

Norma
Composed by Vincenzo Bellini
Performed by Milan La Scala Chorus, Milan La Scala Orchestra
with Maria Callas, Ebe Stignani, Mario Filippeschi, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, Paolo Caroli, Rina Cavallari, Harald Serafin

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

A recording of Norma is essential for any Maria Callas collection. This intense and musically demanding drama deals with forbidden love, infidelity, conflicting emotions, and death that comes almost as a relief from overwrought passion. It gives Callas golden opportunities for characterisation and dramatic gestures in her timing, vocal coloration, verbal and dynamic emphases. Of the half-dozen or more perennially on the market, the first choice is this one, dating from 1954 when her voice was in relatively good shape (although the 1960 EMI recording, also conducted by Tullio Serafin, had even better acting and, in Christa Ludwig, a much better supporting cast). Callas is essential to those who enjoy opera primarily as theatre. The singing is vivid, if typically uneven, and reinforced by Serafin's expert conducting. --Joe McLellan

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4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Callas at her best?, 12 Oct 2002

By A Customer

'Norma' has been a favourite opera with me for many years, and I had heard the 1954 Callas rendition spoken of with enthusiasm. An extract on BBC Radio 3's 'Callas Night' finally prompted me to acquire a copy of the recording. It does not disappoint.

The Sutherland/Caballe/Pavarotti 'Norma' (released 1987) may be a cleaner better balanced recording, with the benefit of stereo, but for emotive power the 1954 Callas is remarkable.

As a 'techie' it always interests me how particular sequences of sound waves can strike an emotional response in a listener, while others do not. Following from that thought, it is even more remarkable that while one rendition of a given piece of music can evoke enjoyment and technical admiration, another performance of the same piece can move a listener to tears with its beauty and intensity. For me this recording is securely in the latter category.

Serafin's pacing of the Overture seems ponderous at first, with the richness of Rossi-Lemeni's Orveso, the La Scala Chorus and supporting cast providing a build-up of anticipation for the Prima Donna's customary entrance (nearly) half-way through the first act. Immediately one is rivetted by just how spectacularly good Callas was in the prime of her career. I was doing other things in the room as I played the recording through for the first time, but her 'Casta Diva' grabbed my full attention and it was as if I was hearing that wonderful aria anew.

The duet between Norma and Adalgisa (Ebe Stignani) is pleasingly balanced and their scene with the Roman Pro-Consul Pollione (Mario Filippeschi) towards the end of Act One conveys that bubbling intensity and rhythmic power which makes one feel Bellini would have been a great rock-n-roll composer had he been born 150 years later.

If there's a criticism of the performance, it would be directed at the 'Guerra Guerra' chorus of Act 2, Scene 3: Yes, I know it's a war chant, and that it should pack a punch, but Serafin drives it like the Ramones 'Teenage Lobotomy' - wildly fast, fortissimo throughout. One almost wonders if it was recorded in different surroundings at a different time from the rest of the work, and then subsequently interpolated.

All-in-all though a wonderful experience. If you already have a 'Norma', this one will allow you to enjoy Bellini's masterpiece afresh; if you are thinking about getting acquainted with the work, this is not the most technically polished in recording terms, but it is among very finest emotive renditions of one of the grandest operas in the repertoire.

The box-set is pleasingly presented, with a libretto booklet including several interesting photographs. The distribution of the material across the disks has CD1 and CD3 with twice the playing time of CD2, but this organisation at least places the change-overs where it fits the drama at intended Act/Scene boundaries, rather than in mid-scene as is the case with other recorded versions of the work.

An excellent CD set; a feast for the senses.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best Callas "Norma, 16 Feb 2008

By	Ralph Moore (Bishop's Stortford, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

I am a great admirer of Callas - what sane lover of voice and opera isn't? - which is precisely why I cannot understand giving this "Norma" five stars when there is competition of far greater quality - provided by Callas herself in her other recordings. No other artist, including Sutherland or Caballe, can touch her interpretation but if you want to hear her worthily partnered, go to either of the live 1955 mono recordings with Del Monaco as Pollione (conducted by Serafin or Votto, in listenable, but limited, sound) or the 1960 stereo version with Corelli, Ludwig and - for the third time - Zaccaria. Callas' voice had not so much deteriorated by that time, apart from a few flapping top notes, and there are huge compensations in the delicacy of her characterisation, the quality of her partners and the good studio sound. (The decline in Callas' voice was not a linear process as her later recordings of "Gioconda" and the 1960 "Norma" testify.) Regarding this 1954 performance, in truth, that great artist Ebe Stignani was too mature for Adalgisa by this stage of her career, Filippeschi is very ordinary and blaring as Pollione and Rossi-Lemeni is his usual gruff, gritty self, unsteady of line compared with the smooth production of Zaccaria. No; go for any of the other three recordings I suggest before this one - though I readily admit that if no others were available, I'd probably be happy with it!

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