Description: Columbia Masterworks MX-351 Verdi Eleanor Steber Fausto Cleva Metropolitan Opera. Impossible to find another rare set - there are no other sets MX-351 listed anywhere past or present. Includes 2 10" 78's records, side 3 has a 1" edge hairline crack but that side is still playable and the line does not go into the other side 4. Otherwise grades about VG+. See my photos. Dated 1948. Columbia Masterworks was a record label started in 1924 by Columbia Records. In 1980, it was separated from the Columbia label and renamed CBS Masterworks. In 1990, it was renamed Sony Classical after its sale to the Sony Corporation.When Columbia Records undertook the project of releasing great classical music for domestic sale in America, the label was still a year away from an "electrical" recording process. In November 1924, the first eight releases had been recorded acoustically. These first eight sets included five symphonic recordings—Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, Dvorak's "From the New World", Mozart's E-Flat Major (No. 39), and Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique". Three recordings by quartets were also part of that initial offering. More releases followed in March 1925, and a staggering 18 sets were added that fall. The prices of these sets varied with the number of included discs, from $4.50 to $10.50.Under the leadership of Columbia's president Goddard Lieberson, who later added the rest of the Columbia label to his portfolio, a great many notable classical artists made contributions to the Columbia Masterworks library, such as the conductors Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy and George Szell; pianists Walter Gieseking, Oscar Levant and Glenn Gould; and the organist E. Power Biggs. Composers Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky also appeared conducting their own works. Fausto Cleva (May 17, 1902 – August 6, 1971) was an Austro-Hunarian Empire-born American operatic conductor.Fausto Cleva was born in Trieste in 1902. After studies at the Conservatorio in his native city and Milan, Cleva made his debut conducting La traviata in Teatro Carcano, in Milan, before emigrating to the United States in 1920, becoming an American citizen in 1931. He joined the musical staff of the Metropolitan Opera later that year and for twenty years was an assistant conductor and later chorus-master and répétiteur before making his official conducting debut in February 1942. He later became closely involved with Cincinnati Summer Opera, of which he was musical director from 1934 until 1963. From 1944 to 1946 he was music director of the ill-fated Chicago Opera Company. In 1947 he conducted a performance of La bohème in Havana, with Hjördis Schymberg as Mimi. Following his return to the Metropolitan Opera in 1950, he conducted over 700 performances of thirty operas, mainly from the French and Italian repertory.His work was marked by great attentiveness to his singers. He conducted Rigoletto with the Royal Swedish Opera at the Edinburgh Festival in 1959. He left some very important recordings, such as Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with Richard Tucker and Giuseppe Valdengo; Catalani's La Wally with Renata Tebaldi and Mario Del Monaco; Puccini's Tosca with Maria Callas, Franco Corelli and Tito Gobbi; and Verdi's Luisa Miller with Anna Moffo and Carlo Bergonzi. He recorded for a variety of labels, mainly as an accompanist for singers.He died from a heart attack in Athens while conducting Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. He was 69. Eleanor Steber (July 17, 1914 – October 3, 1990) was an American operatic soprano. Steber is noted as one of the first major opera stars to have achieved the highest success with training and a career based in the United States.
Price: 35 USD
Location: Weymouth, Massachusetts
End Time: 2024-02-07T01:52:01.000Z
Shipping Cost: 8.09 USD
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Item Specifics
Restocking Fee: No
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
Artist: Eleanor Steber
Format: Record
Release Title: Verdi Operas
Record Label: Columbia
Genre: Opera