Maria Callas provokes fanaticism. She doesn't have admirers as such, rather people convinced of her near-divinity. Even as clear-headed a critic as Peter Conrad, author of one of the best books on opera ever written (A Song of Love and Death: The Meaning of Opera) felt able to write, "Like everyone else, I was converted to opera by Callas." And now, in yet another selection from her numerous recordings, EMI's blurb writer wildly enthuses, "Callas the women is no more, but Callas the artist will live for ever." Yet there is a strong argument in favor of another operatic soprano of the same era being just as interesting. This is the Russian Galina Vishnevskaya, born two years later, and achieving fame in utterly contrasting conditions.
THE ULTIMATE MARIA CALLAS COLLECTION 3 CDs
EMI Classics 5 62725 2
This set of CDs will not appeal to serious collectors, nor is it intended to. Such people will already be well on the way to acquiring the 100 or so Callas discs already issued by EMI, not to mention the others -- Wagner roles sung in Italian taken from radio broadcasts and the like. Instead, it's an attempt to derive yet more income from the general public by means of the Callas name. It contains many items previously reissued in the Callas: La Divina and follow-up CDs, and is organized under the headings of 19th century Italian opera, "verismo" opera, and French opera. There's nothing wrong with such selections, but it certainly isn't "ultimate" in any sense. If there's one thing you can be sure of it's that there will be plenty more where this came from.
BELLINI: Norma Callas, Filippeschi, Stignani; conductor Serafin
EMI Classics 5 62642 2
One may quibble at the outpouring of new Callas compilations, but once you get back to the complete recordings the old magic cannot fail. This, Callas' famous 1953 version of Norma, has never been out of the catalogue. But its transfer to EMI's "Great Recordings of the Century" series provides an opportunity to urge readers ever more strongly to go for a complete opera such as this, fine in so many ways, rather than to modish collections of short sound bites. You won't be disappointed.
GALINA VISHNEVSKAYA: Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky
EMI Classics 5 62654 2
Whereas Callas worked in the affluent West, lured with huge fees by adoring theater managements, and publicly suffering the dual tragedies of high-profile romantic disappointment and the early collapse of her voice, Vishnevskaya struggled to fame out of a childhood surrounded by alcoholics, and in a Soviet Union under the stranglehold of Stalin, and subsequently suffering invasion and siege conditions. Her achievement, via her association with Shostakovich, Solzhenitsyn and her husband Rostropovich, was thus heroic in a totally different way from Callas'. Yet almost everyone has heard of Callas, while Vishnevskaya is far less known to the general public. Hence a lavish three disc tribute to Callas, and this single, wonderful Vishnevskaya item slipped with minimum publicity into the "Great Recordings" series.
This series is now approaching gargantuan size and looks set to contain all the classical items from EMI's back catalogue they don't intend to delete. There are incomparable riches here, of course, this Vishnevskaya disc included. Rostropovich both accompanies on the piano and conducts where the settings are orchestral.
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