Callas is marvelous here or maybe I should write here and there as this recording is a composite of four different performances from 1949 to 1955. Melodram issued this set a number of years ago, probably not realizing that the original 1953 Trieste performance did not exist complete. There is an article on the Divina Records website (divinarecords.com) that tells exactly from where this material was drawn so I won't go into it here.Enough of the Trieste material exists to give us a fairly clear picture of Callas' achievement. She lives up to her reputation as a singer deeply invested in her role and committed to every moment. She was is very good voice in 1953 and the finales of both acts are tremendously moving and exciting. Corelli makes a first-rate Pollione as he would later on in Callas' second studio recording. Nicolai is heard in most of Act One and in the Act Two "Mira, o Norma" scene. She is very good if hardly believable as an innocent virgin. Christoff is an almost frightening Oroveso. Some of his lines are missing, a result of gaps in the tape sources. The sound varies both in quality and pitch, but is certainly listenable. There was some file corruption (clicking) at the end of my copy of disc one.Callas fans will want this. If one wants all the existing Trieste excerpts in one place Divina Records has them (Note: I am not a shill for Divina Records. )

Callas is the Norma of our time and she is here at her prime with such singers like the young Corelli, Elena Nicolai and Boris Christoff

Magnificent performance. As often live performances are so much better than studio recordings.

Great performance that should be enjoyed by all Callas and/or Corelli fans.

After almost 60 years of listening to her, I can still be stunned, astonished, awed by Callas’ intensity. Others may have been better in one respect or another, but no one so fearfully articulated and spat out the Fury of the Diva scorned.