Rossini: Il turco in Italia (1954 - Gavazzeni) - Callas Remastered Maria Callas

• Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868): Il turco in Italia
• 1Overture08:46
• Il turco in Italia, Act 1
• 2Nostra patria e il mondo intero (Zaida, Albazar, Chorus)02:20
• 3Ho da fare un dramma buffo (Prosdocimo, Chorus)03:03
• 4Ah! se di questi Zingari l'arrivo (Prosdocimo)00:47
• 5Vado in traccia di una Zingara (Geronio)02:00
• 6Chi vuo farsi astrologar (Geronio, Zaida, Chorus)01:43
• 7Ah, mia moglie, san chi sono (Geronio, Zaida, Chorus)01:13
• 8Non si da follia maggiore (Fiorilla)03:39
• 9Voga, voga, a terra, a terra (Fiorilla, Chorus)01:46
• 10Bella Italia, alfin ti miro (Selim, Fiorilla)02:39
• 11Serva...Servo (Selim, Fiorilla)03:37
• 12Amici...soccorretemi (Geronio, Narciso, Prosdocimo)00:54
• 13Un marito-scimunito! (Geronio, Narciso, Prosdocimo)05:30
• 14Ola: tosto il caffe. Sedete (Fiorilla, Selim)01:40
• 15Siete Turchi, non vi credo (Fiorilla, Selim, Geronio, Narciso)03:16
• 16Io stupisco, mi sorprende (Fiorilla, Selim, Geronio, Narciso)02:50
• 17Come! si grave scorno soffrir potete in pace? (Fiorilla,Selim, Geronio, Narciso)03:16
• 18Un vecchio far non puo maggior follia (Geronio, Poet, Fiorilla)02:24
• 19Per piacere alla signora (Geronio, Fiorilla)02:30
• 20No, mia vita, mio tesoro (Geronio, Fiorilla)03:31
• 21Gran meraviglie (Zaida, Chorus)01:20
• 22Per la fuga e tutto lesto (Selim, Prosdocimo, Zaida)04:31
• 23Perche mai se son tradito (Narciso)02:34
• 24Evviva d'amore il foco vitale (Chorus)00:55
• 25Chi servir non brama Amor s'allontani (Fiorilla, Selim)01:58
• 26Qui mia moglie ha da venire (Geronio, Fiorilla, Selim, Narciso, Prosdocimo, Zaida)00:57
• 27Ah! che il cor non n'ingannava (Geronio, Fiorilla, Selim, Narciso, Prosdocimo, Zaida)02:42
• 28Vada via, si guardi bene di cercar l'amante mio (Zaida, Fiorilla, Selim, Narciso, Geronio, Albazar, Prosdocimo)04:54
• 29A proposito, amico (Selim, Prosdocimo, Geronio)01:16
• 30D'un bell'uso di Turchia (Selim, Geronio)03:16
• 31Se Fiorilla di vender bramate (Selim, Geronio)03:24
• 32Non v'e piacer perfetto se no! procura amor (Fiorilla, Chorus)02:17
• 33Che Turca impertinente! (Fiorilla, Zaida, Selim)02:28
• 34Credete alle femmine che dicon d'amarvi! (Selim, Fiorilla)01:52
• 35In Italia certamente non si fa l'amor cosi (Selim, Fiorilla)03:15
• 36Fermate...Cosa c'e? (Prosdocimo, Geronio, Narciso)01:24
• 37E Selim non si vede! (Fiorilla, Narciso, Selim, Zaida, Geronio)02:13
• 38Oh! guardate che accidente! (Fiorilla, Narciso, Selim, Zaida, Geronio)03:20
• 39Dunque seguitemi (Selim, Narciso, Fiorilla, Zaida, Geronio, Chorus)01:23
• 40Questo vecchio maledetto (Selim, Narciso, Fiorilla, Zaida, Geronio, Chorus)02:43
• 41Si, mi e forza partir (Fiorilla, Prosdocimo, Geronio)01:18
• 42Son la vite sul campo appassita (Fiorilla, Prosdocimo, Geronio)02:25
• 43Rida a voi sereno il cielo (Selim, Zaida, Fiorilla, Geronio, Narciso, Chorus)02:10
• 44Restate contenti (Selim, Zaida, Fiorilla, Geronio, Narciso, Chorus)00:53
• Total Runtime01:52:52

Info for Rossini: Il turco in Italia (1954 - Gavazzeni) - Callas Remastered

Callas’s two comic roles were both in operas by Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia and Il turco in Italia. She first played the capricious and flirtatious Fiorilla – a married Neapolitan woman who takes up with a visiting Turk – in Rome in 1950. Five years later, at La Scala, she appeared in a production by Franco Zeffirelli, also, famously, the director of her Covent Garden Tosca and Paris Norma. Gramophone wrote: ‘Mme Callas acts vividly, chiding, boasting, melting, and when in typical Rossinian style she is given a “key” figure, each repetition of it carries, so one thinks, a slightly different meaning. I found myself teased by memories of these little phrases for hours afterwards.’

Fiorilla was one of two comic roles in Maria Callas' repertoire, the other being Rossini's Rosina. Il Turco is a strange work, witty and wry rather than zany, and very literary. Most of the score's highlights are ensembles, and you might imagine that Callas could overpower her co-stars in such a situation. But the opposite is true despite her unique timbre that always shines through. She's in great voice in this 1954 recording, absolutely secure throughout her range, and her impeccable rhythmic sense makes her work in the tricky, sometimes off-the-beat ensembles ideal. She turns out to be a team player par excellence. The role is of a headstrong, sassy woman who loves the attention men give her, and she loves playing one off against the other. Callas uses a girlish tone when being seductive but puts some iron into it when she has to make a point. Bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni plays the Turk Callas plays games with, and he's as expressive and fluid as she is. The rest of the cast is equally good. There have been better (and more complete) recordings since, but Callas is in a class by herself, and this is utterly charming.

Maria Callas, soprano (Donna Fiorilla)
Nicolai Gedda, tenor (Don Narciso)
Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, bass (Selim)
Jolanda Gardino, soprano (Zaida)
Franco Calabrese, bass (Don Geronio)
Mariano Stabile, baritone (Il poeta Prosdocimo)
Piero De Palma, tenor (Albazar)
Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan
Gianandrea Gavazzeni, conductor

Digitally remastered

Maria Callas
was born to a Greek family in New York in 1923. Her vocal training took place in Athens, where her teacher was the coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who had sung with Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin. After early performances in Greece, Callas’s international career was launched in 1947 when she performed the title role in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona in Italy.

Her voice defied simple classification and her artistic range was extraordinary. In her early twenties she sang such heavy dramatic roles as Gioconda, Turandot, Brünnhilde and Isolde, but over the course of her career her most famous roles came to be: Bellini’s Norma and Amina (La sonnambula); Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata); Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, Cherubini’s Medea and Puccini’s Tosca. Though her timbre was not always conventionally beautiful, Callas’s musicianship and phrasing were in a class of their own. She brought characters to vivid life with her skill in colouring her tone and making insightful use of the text.

She is credited with changing the history of opera: by placing a perhaps unprecedented emphasis on musical integrity and dramatic truth, and by transforming perceptions – and reviving the fortunes – of the bel canto repertoire, particularly Bellini and Donizetti.

The 1950s marked the height of Callas’s career. Its base lay in the opera houses of Italy, and she became the prima donna assoluta of Milan’s legendary La Scala – notably in the productions of Luchino Visconti – but her operatic appearances also encompassed London’s Royal Opera House, the New York Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opéra, the Vienna State Opera, and the opera houses of Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Lisbon, and, in the early 1950s, Mexico City, São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro.

From 1959, when she started a life-changing love affair with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, her performing career slowed down and her voice became more fragile. Her final stage performances came in 1965, when she was only 42.

There were many plans for a return to the stage – and for further complete recordings – but they never reached fruition, though in 1974 she gave a series of concerts in Europe, North America and Japan with the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano; he had partnered her frequently in the opera house and in the studio, not least in the 1953 La Scala Tosca under Victor de Sabata, considered a landmark in recording history. Callas died alone in her Paris apartment in September 1977.

Booklet for Rossini: Il turco in Italia (1954 - Gavazzeni) - Callas Remastered