Maria Callas made this recording of La Gioconda, one of her signature roles, relatively late in her career after her vocal problems had begun, but this performance captures her at her best. She was especially pleased with her performance and wrote, "It's all there, for anyone who...wishes to know what I was all about." It is indeed all there -- the passion, the penetrating characterization, the security and technical control, the vocal sheen and power. Although the cast contains some minor singers as well as international stars, the principals are in excellent form and make this a consistently fine account of the opera. Piero Cappuccilli is in powerful voice, making Barnaba genuinely menacing. Fiorenza Cossotto's pure-voiced Laura is a fitting foil to Callas. Tenor Pier Miranda Ferraro is not a household name, but he brings Enzo to life with a strong, secure voice, and if his "Cielo e mar" is not the most thrilling ever recorded, it's entirely respectable and full of passion. Antonino Votto leads the Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala in a taut and dramatically urgent reading of Ponchielli's richly varied score, and they sing and play with full, robust tone. The recorded sound is clean, spacious, and well-balanced.