Bellini: La Sonnambula (complete opera) with Maria Callas, Fiorenza Cossotto, Antonino Votto, Chorus & Orchestra of La Scala, Milan

You can hear the vocal troubles of Maria Callas's later years just beginning to appear in this 1957 recording. Callas is usually identified with larger-than-life tragic heroines quite different from the simple bride-to-be Amina, whose wedding plans are nearly destroyed by her sleepwalking into compromising situations. But she makes the melodramatic plot emotionally credible, and she rises to the challenges of Bellini's expressively elaborate writing. --Joe McLellan