Magic Moments of Music: Maria Callas sings Puccini's Tosca in 1964

It’s 1964. Everyone thinks that the career of prima donna assoluta Maria Callas is over. The press is more interested in her personal scandals than her art and seems to relegate the superstar to a diva fallen from grace. However, Maria Callas has not said her last word. Determined to remind the world of her immense talent, she returned to the stage the same year for a masterful production at the Royal Opera House in London: Puccini’s Tosca, staged by Franco Zeffirelli. The event generated considerable excitement: it received exceptional media coverage and the singer’s admirers rushed to attend her long-awaited comeback. It was a triumph: Maria Callas proved that she had lost none of her magnetic stage presence nor her powerful expression.

Conductor Antonio Pappano and singers Thomas Hampson, Kristine Opolais, Anna Prohaska, and Rolando Villazón, among others, revisit this unforgettable moment for this episode of the Magic Moments of Music series and offer a vibrant tribute to the woman who remains, for many, the greatest singer of the twentieth century.