Maria Callas sang many times in Mexico early in her international career, normally in under-rehearsed productions, mostly with dreadful conductors (Umberto Mugnai, Guido Picco), and occasionally with acceptable ones (de Fabritiis). Her co-stars were international stars-to-be (the impresario must have been on the ball): Mario del Monaco, Giulietta Simionato, Cesare Valetti, Giuseppe di Stefano, and oh, Kurt Baum, to name a few. Here we get a cross-sectional view of the try-anything Callas, including the fabulous ascension to the unwritten E-flat at the close of Aida’s Triumphal Scene that Callas used to upstage the noisy, unmusical Baum in 1950, and which she repeated the following year with del Monaco. We also get an interesting “Mira o Norma” with Simionato and a few seconds around an impassioned but not fully-formed “Amami Alfredo” with Valletti (and another one, from the next season, with di Stefano).
In fact, this CD is not only interesting for what it contains, but for what it doesn’t: These are not-fully-thought-through interpretations of roles that became Callas staples later (except for Gilda, which she created and dropped in Mexico). But what a voice, what a unique musical mind, what fearlessness (an interpolated E-flat in Leonora’s first aria from Trovatore?!). Fascinating. You’ll know if you need this. The sound is terrible–just in case you cared.
