Classic albums meet Star Wars

[longship]

1. Try Maria Callas' Tosca!

One advantage to Puccini's Tosca is that one knows when it ends because everybody is dead! Tosca is the last, and she goes out in a blaze of glory, off a parapet of Castel Sant'Angelo into the Tiber. And that's the end of the opera.

Along the way there is glorious music, like this. (Maria Callas in one of the greatest recordings ever.)

Of course, during the second act, right after singing the above aria, when the bad guy, Scarpia, tries to rape Tosca, she pulls a butter knife off the side board and plunges into Scapia's chest, explaining "This is Tosca's kiss." It is extraordinary. And that is only the second act.

This is my classic album. And don't get me going about Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, or about Solti's recording of Wagner's Ring cycle.