Maria Callas - Callas Effect: Standard Edition - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

2 CD.1 DVD.

2016 three CD collection that features beloved arias from Bellini's InchNorma;Inch Puccini's InchLa Bohéme,Inch InchMadame ButterflyInch and InchGianno Schicchi;Inch Verdi's InchLa TraviataInch and InchAida;Inch Bizet's InchCarmenInch and much more! Opera singers come and go, but just a few - the legends - live on. And Maria Callas was the great-est legend of them all, though not just for the wonder of her voice. She changed the way people thought about opera, but she also became famous as the glamorous celebrity who fell in love with Aristotle Onassis, leaving her elderly husband to live with him on his yacht Christina and enjoy the high life with the international jet set. Of course it ended badly. She lived her life like one of her own tragic heroines who (as women tend to do in opera) sing, suffer and die. And her own death came at just 53, after a dazzling but short career that took in heavy roles alongside decorative, nightingale-like ones - ignoring the established rules of vocal health and probably explaining why her voice finally gave out as it did. But in that time she did extraordinary things, using the muscle of those heavy heroines to em-power the nightingales with strength and depth of feeling nobody had thought to offer them be-fore. She gave them credibility as drama. Her performances were absolute and self-exposing she held nothing back. And she was even tougher on herself than she could be on others - which is why her voice was never quite the flawless instrument singers are meant to cultivate. Her personality was far too volatile and too self-sacrificing in it's love affair with risk. In the mythology of opera, though, that's what the audience demands. We want the diva to be both a goddess and a slave to give her life for art. We thrill to the dimension of that sacrifice. And Callas dutifully obliged.

Randolph Lee's latest recording project is an international collaborative effort featuring new music for trumpet from living South American composers. Teaming up with Colombian composer/pianist Mauricio Arias, the University of Florida Symphonic Band under the direction of Jay Watkins, a brass ensemble, a full studio orchestra, and influential Brazilian guitarist Ulisses Rocha, the album includes a wide variety of sounds and genres. Having the privilege of giving the world premieres of four of the six tracks on the album, Randolph Lee decided after a recital in Bogota, Colombia that it was time to get these pieces recorded. It also represents his belief that the trumpet, with it's well-established high and loud characteristics and virtuosic displays, also possesses an intimate voice-like quality which, in the right hands, is capable of telling a convincing story. The term Camaleónica (chameleonic) refers to the changes of InchcolorInch (timbre), tempo, and motives within the piece, Rapsodia Camaleónica. The term is borrowed and applied in a broader sense to describe what the trumpet does over the entire album, La Trompeta Camaleónica.