Puccini: Madama Butterfly

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Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano

Herbert von Karajan

A famous backstage photo was taken in Chicago after one of just three performances that Callas gave of Madama Butterfly; it shows the soprano  in her Japanese costume, snarling furiously at a bailiff who had served a writ on her – the very image of the tempestuous diva. By contrast, in  her recording of the role, ‘it is, miraculously,’ as the critic John Osborne observed, ‘the 15-year- old girl and not the great Callas who stands before us.’ Her genius for vocal characterisation finds an apt complement in Herbert von Karajan’s conducting: ‘a wholly sympathetic rendering [that] brings out more of the detail of the score than I have ever heard before’, wrote Gramophone.

Madama Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San): Maria Callas

Suzuki: Lucia Danieli

B. F. Pinkerton: Nicolai Gedda

Kate Pinkerton: Luisa Villa

Sharpless: Mario Borriello

Goro: Renato Ercolani

Yamadori: Mario Carlin

Il bonzo: Plinio Clabassi

Il commissario: Enrico Campi