More Callas for the coffers

By WILLIAM DART

"She was hellbent on her own destruction, and broke all the rules of singing. But so what? That's why 20 years later we're talking about her." In 1997, Beverly Sills offered a shrewd assessment of the reasons for the Maria Callas cult, a cult that must have been a godsend for the EMI coffers - and the record company is still repackaging.

In the 80s we had The Incomparable Callas. A decade later it was La Divina. Now we are being offered three discs of The Ultimate Maria Callas collection.

As an introduction for the uninitiated, despite a patchy booklet, the 46 selections explore the elusive magic of Callas, the sound behind the symbol used so poignantly in the 1993 film Philadelphia, when an ailing Tom Hanks acted through her performance of La Mamma Morta.

La Mamma Morta is included on the collection in its classic, 1955 recording, along with a 1953 Vissi darte, where full bloom alternates with woeful wobble.

There is also her clear-eyed and clear-voiced Mimi from 1954 and a heart-melting Liu from the same year.

A curiosity is Ah, forse lui from the famous Lisbon Traviata of 1958, presented with the sound quality of a Bob Dylan bootleg.

Despite audience shuffle and cough, and wayward pitchings of almost Florence Foster Jenkins proportions, you feel that musical hypnotism is being practised here. So much so that it is hard not to feel cheated when Sempre libera doesn't follow. In the 1960 and 1961 Paris sessions with Georges Pretre, she tackles everything from mezzo (a gorgeous Mon coeur souvre a ta voix) to dizzying coloratura (a frothy Je veux vivre).

There are four tastes of her 1964 Carmen, which is raw confrontation rather than charm, with Callas not afraid of dipping into the guttural for dramatic effect. Proof, as if we didn't know it, that opera is more than just notes on a page.

One of the last recordings here, a 1972 Ritorna vincitor!, strides forth with top notes that could warrant a squall warning.

But the thrill factor is undiminished, riding securely on an intelligence and emotional truth that is Maria Callas, "diva absoluta".

* The Ultimate Maria Callas (EMI 62725, three-disc set)