Complete Columbia Collection

“If the fate of nations were to depend on a voice-contest, America would probably choose Eileen Farrell as its champion, and our national security would be guaranteed,” wrote a leading US critic in Gramophone in 1958. “For ‘America’s great dramatic soprano’ has not only a voice of prodigious range but of a warmth which reflects its owner’s personality.” To mark the 100th anniversary of her birth (Farrell died in 2002), Sony Classical is proud to present a new 16-CD collection of this beloved artist’s entire American Columbia discography, displaying her uniquely wide repertoire, ranging from Brünnhilde to Broadway, from Cherubini’s Medea to Berg’s Marie, from Debussy songs to “Danny Boy”, from Gluck to Gershwin.Born in 1920 in Connecticut to vaudeville performers who styled themselves “The Singing O’Farrells”, she studied with a Met contralto and by the age of 20 had moved to New York with her own CBS radio programme, “Eileen Farrell Sings”. It lasted seven years and made her famous (Fr