By the time I heard Maria Callas for the first time it was on a record; she was giving master classes at Julliard in New York but no longer performing. I’d seen a tape or two of her performances, but I became it was her recordings that made me a convert. It wasns’t hard – Callas was one of the absolutely top talents of the twentieth century and a sensation wherever she performed.

Callas, the lyric-soprano, was the sum total of many perfections. She was very educated and very conscious of words. The way she matched her words with the music was unique. And her voice, while flawed in her later years, and the way she used it was matchless – a combination of two different voices.

Callas was a master of transformation. To change from a fat, unattractive, unfashionable Greek girl, she swallowed a tape worm to lose weight, got a Paris courtier to dress her, and ended up entrancing Aristotle Onassis, the world’s wealthiest shipping tycoon. She died alone in Paris of a broken heart. Is it any wonder that someone who knew and worked with her said that Callas’ main problem in life was that she got so involved in what happened on stage, she forgot it was all art, and began to think it was life.

But her real genius was managing to be real on stage. The effect was never artless or easy; it looked like she worked incredibly hard to achieve it like she did everything else, but achieve it she did. With just her voice she could reveal the essence of a character. The fact that she was self-created, and self-invented coupled with her total belief in her characters only added to her genius. Somehow the cracks in that golden throat, those flaws at the top of her voice deconstruct the illusion of reality, at the same time they reinforce it, making her recordings totally unforgettable. Callas was the greatest singer-actress opera has ever seen.

What’s in my player now: Romantic Callas/ Maria Callas, soprano with various artists – EMI CDC557211-2

What a set! The CDs are enveloped against the front and back coves with a 100 page illustrated booklet in between. There are photos of Callas on stage, at recording sessions, in addition to ones from Callas private (or not so private) life. One in particular shows Onassis touching Callas from the front while her husband reaches at her from behind. All of her best arias are here, everything she sang that had some of her genius in it.

The first disc has her most familiar material. Personally, I like the second disc better – if only because the material is kinder to her voice. But in total, this is stunning, stunning stuff. No music collection can be complete without it.

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