Bizet: Carmen
This recording was made near the end of Maria Callas's career. It is a role she never sang onstage, but it suited her almost perfectly, and she gives a deep, compelling performance on this recording. The mezzo-soprano tessitura was comfortable for her voice, and the role did not call for a pretty sound. Nor did the recording studio require the kind of huge vocal power expected in an opera house. And furthermore, the character of a strong-willed, capricious, sexually compelling woman who thinks exclusively of herself was close to the offstage personality that made Callas so famous.--Joe McLellan