This 1953 taping of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor was the first of two studio recordings made by Maria Callas. The theatricality of her singing caused a sensation throughout the opera world when the LPs were first released in 1953. The opera critic of The Gramophone claimed to have been so carried away that he had to go out in the garden and cool off. In this classic historic recording Callas brings to Lucia an unexpected and formidable tragic dimension (witness the emotional intensity of the Mad Scene), executing her part with unerring accuracy and using a stunning weight of tone and breadth of phrasing.