Madama Butterfly

Description

Exceptional reissue meticulously restored in 24-bit/96Hz, produced by Abbey Road Studios from the original tapes. A famous photo - taken backstage in Chicago - captures Callas after one of her 3 unique portrayals of Madama Butterfly: the typical image of the Diva, impetuous, showing the soprano in her geisha costume, furiously growling at a bailiff who was suing her. From this role, she made a completely different recording that beautifully highlights, as critic John Osborne pointed out, the 15-year-old girl rather than the grandiose Callas. Her genius for vocal characterization marries wonderfully with the direction of Herbert von Karajan. Here is a version "fully faithful to the work, where more than one detail of the writing emerges, as we had never been able to hear it before," wrote Grammophone.