As this recital amply demonstrates, Maria Callas encompassed an extraordinary range of roles. She is as convincing in the pinpoint coloratura of Lakmé’s ‘Bell Song’ (‘Her chromatic scale is beautifully done and she sails up to the region known as in alt with the greatest ease,’ said Gramophone) as in the sweeping, richly coloured lines of Maddalena’s ‘La mamma morta’ from Andrea Chénier, famously and movingly featured on the soundtrack of the 1993 Hollywood film Philadelphia.

‘There is great tenderness and simplicity, deep emotion, and the most lovely moulding of the vocal phrases,’ wrote Gramophone, ‘Madame Callas’s characterisations … are nothing less than superb, and altogether there is some of her finest singing yet recorded.’

Recorded 1954