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Maria Callas' Recorded Legacy

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#1 ·


Remastered and repackaged. :)
Original jacket.
 
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#5,147 ·
Many thanks for the Macbeth commentary. I agree that comparing a later performance with this opening night recording would be very interesting. Too bad that will never happen...

In doing some internet research I found a different BJR pressing with a similar catalog number, different artwork and booklet, with yellow labels instead of red. Is there any difference in the mastering, or is one version simply a reprint of the other?

https://www.popsike.com/MARIA-CALLASLa-Scala-Live-1952MACBETHBJR117-3LP-BOX-SETNEAR-MINT/311395236985.html
 
#5,148 ·
Yes, there are differences. The first BJR issue of the Scala Macbeth contained errors and omissions (you'll need to find RES's posts on it elsewhere on this very long thread to get the skinny on this) and they reissued it with the corrections. I think the red cover is the corrected issue - I can't really call it a "reissue."
 
#5,151 · (Edited)
Robert Sutherland on the last films of Maria Callas

Recently in this Callas Talk Classical forum there was discussion about how many "in performance" videos were made of Callas during her final 1973/1974 concert tour with Giuseppe Di Stefano.

While researching this, I also decided to go to a man who might be almost the final authority in this regard, Robert Sutherland. He was there for all the final 41 concerts and took over as pianist from Ivor Newton for the North American and Asian legs of the 1973/74 tour.

Sutherland graciously responded to my inquiry by indicating his agreement regarding what was filmed. Despite rumours that the second Royal Festival Hall concert of December 2, 1973 was video-taped by BBC, and while being totally focussed on the actual mechanics of music-making rather than filming, Sutherland agrees that the following three were captured on video:

Royal Festival Hall, November 26, 1973
Tokyo, October 12, 1974
Tokyo, October 19, 1974

Earlier, the BBC Archives had confirmed for me that there was no video made of the December 2nd Royal Festival Hall concert. As indicated previously, it appears that the amazing and meticulous late Frank Hamilton was in error in this one instance in suggesting in his performance annals that the BBC had also filmed the December 2, 1973 concert.

I have been fortunate to speak with and write to Sutherland several times since 1999. Sutherland has been a great ambassador for Callas and has always been willing to answer inquiries from researchers. He also has a high tolerance for fanatical Callas fans like me. As well, he has a great sense of humour.

Back in 1999, Sutherland's Maria Callas: Diaries of a Friendship was published by Constable. I was involved in coordinating an interview with Sutherland about his book for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) which was broadcast on September 16, 2000. In the interview, Sutherland talked about how much he was challenged by his work with Callas:

"Well, because I knew her from her records and I had seen her perform and so on. I had played with other singers, some of them very distinguished, but this woman, you know, she was the peak opera singer, well, of the whole century and I was 'on my toes' so to speak….[W]hen she started to sing it was so surprising, for instance, that she was so sensitive to what I was doing on the keyboard. It's not the sort of thing one expects, really, from the average opera singer who's used to having a conductor who can give them their entry and so on." (Published in Maria Callas Magazine, Number 29, February 2000, p. 12).

Sutherland was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1930 and taught for many years at the Royal College of Music in London. In addition to Callas and Di Stefano, he was pianist for many other great opera singers. Recently, Sutherland's book was translated into French as: Maria Callas: L'ultime tournée (Maria Callas: The Last Tour), l'Archipel, 2017. The preface to the book was written by filmmaker Tom Volf who described his visit with Sutherland [my translation]:

"After a long journey, I finally reached his house in the woods, peaceful and secluded, as I had imagined. I was greeted by a man with a gentle and smiling countenance, a Scotsman of a certain age, but who had retained all the ardor of his youth. In his large living room from another era, a magnificent piano stood near the fireplace. We got down to talking and it was as if the conversation should not end. A trip through time. I was suddenly transported back to 1973, to the living room of Avenue Georges Mandel, the place of his first meeting and his rehearsals with the Diva…." (p. 9).

I have also enjoyed Sutherland's commentary in the documentary Callas: Life and Art (1987), particularly his return visit to Callas' living room at 36 Avenue Georges Mandel many years after her death. When Sutherland first met Callas in this room, she asked him "Are you from Australia?" Sutherland responded "No, we're not related."

Paul Houle
Vancouver
 
#5,161 · (Edited)
Pristine Classical - Callas 1955 AIDA

Pristine's latest issue is Maria Callas' Aida

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I was surprised to learn that Pristine Classical now has thirteen (13) Callas titles:

From 1953: Cavalleria Rusticana, the Cetra La Traviata, Tosca, Lucia di Lammemoor and I Puritani.

From 1954: Pagliacci, Il Turco in Italia, and La Forza del Destino.

From 1955, the La Scala live Norma, Madama Butterfly, Aida , and Rigoletto.

La Boheme was recorded in 1956 and her Covent Garden Medea caught live in 1959.

I have a few if them, and I'm on the fence as to their revisioning of these recordings.
 
#5,162 · (Edited)
Callas and Mozart

[Note: The only recent discussion about Callas on Opera-L that I find worth sharing here. The conversations had undergone some editing.

The discussion started with Warner's remastering of the highly renowned 1959 EMI recording of Don Giovanni conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini. Then a forum member mentioned that the producer Walter Legge had planned to get Maria Callas to sing Donna Anna for this recording project but to no avail eventually and the role went to Joan Sutherland, who had triumphed earlier that year as Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The discussion soon turned to Callas and Mozart.]

***

Legge planned this recording with Callas, who canceled (she didn't find the role congenial and she was headlong into her Onassis involvement and had reduced her 1959 recording schedule to the Lucia and Gioconda remakes)

Max Paley

***

I didn't know that, that's interesting. I believe Callas' original test recording for EMI was "Non mi dir." Maybe Legge heard a Mozart singer in Callas that most people (including her) did not.

Max D. Winter

***

Callas made two test recordings of "Non mi dir" in 1953, both released on the "EMI Rarities" compilation. I don't believe she had sung them in concert before those test recordings, although she performed them frequently later in the 50s.

Rich Lowenthal

***

I don't find much to admire in the few Mozart aria recordings she made, but she did sing Konstanze in "Abduction" [Die entführung aus dem serail] in Italian at Scala and "Marten aller Arten" was among the showpieces in her celebrated Dallas recital of 1957. FWIW, the Donna Anna is miles better than the Countess Almaviva stuff. "Porgi Amor" is truly awful. There are a few things that should never have been relessed, and this heads the list, in my opinion.

Bob Rideout

***

I agree that despite her success from Rossini through Bellini, Donizetti, Gluck, Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini she never found her way in Mozart with the possible exception of the hints we have of her Konstanze. I wish one of her Scala "Ratto's" would have survived. It is perhaps the one Mozart opera where the soprano dominates the ensemble cast with her three virtuoso arias. I am not suggesting she was not a good colleague in the context of an ensemble, but her ability to focus attention is the essence of Prima Donna. That unique intensity could have easily upset the balance. If I were to pick one Mozart opera for Callas it would be this one.

I often wonder how she would have done in Baroque Opera - Poppea or Ottavia are provocative "might have beens" as is Handel's Aggrippina....

Steve Charitan

***

[Responding to Steve Charitan] I agree that Konstanze was the most congenial Mozart role for Callas, and for exactly the reasons you define.The aria from the Dallas rehearsal tape is a real tease!

Bob Rideout

***

I think that sometimes a certain singer might have all the equipment and skills needed for a particular composer or role, but somehow it just doesn't "click."

In her prime, Callas had the necessary fixings to be a superb Anna, Elvira, Konstanze or Queen of the Night but Callas just didn't seem to click with Mozart. Compare her with Sutherland, who also never made Mozart a particular cornerstone of her career. But Sutherland responded to Mozart's discipline and rhythmic precision by giving it some of her best singing, judging by her Donna Anna and her recordings of Kostanze's and the Queen of the Night's arias. It also woke her out of her tendency toward droopiness. With Callas, however, who was a much more tightly wound singer than Sutherland to begin with, it seems as if Mozart was a little bit too straight jacketed. She needed that extra bit of space and pliability that Donizetti and Bellini gave her. I would mention Rossini, but I think there are singers who've come along after Callas who significantly superseded her ability to master Rossini style, including Horne and Caballé.

On the other hand, take a singer like Steber who, in addition to whatever study she put into, seemed to have an intuitive grasp of Mozart style, as did Lisa Delle Casa and Sena Jurinac, in a way that Callas just didn't .

Similarly, what we have of Callas in Wagner, to me doesn't show anywhere near the authority and mastery of style that Flagstad, Nilsson, Varnay, Rysanek, Crespin and others displayed in that music. Admittedly, it's remarkable that a singer of Puritani would even be able to undertake Isolde, Kundry or Brünnhilde, but I don't think she compares with these other ladies in terms of what it takes to be on top of the notes, phrasing and text, just as I don't think any of them could touch her as Norma, Lucia or the Puritani Elvira.

Max Paley

***

Callas would have made an electrifying Elettra in Idomeneo, so with the Queen of the Night and Donna Anna we have three great roles for Callas' fierce vocal character. Her Kostanze on the other hand sounds too wild to me and the sustained notes are rather harsh and unruly. It's one of the technical demands of Mozart that defeated the Callas' technique. In general however the vocal writing of Mozart, like that of Gluck and Spontini, is far kinder and more suitable for her instrument than verismo or late Verdi, like Aida where she forces. I also find her superlative in Rossini even though she didn't sing the roles she should have (e.g. Ermione and Semiramide).

Takis Pavl

***

Callas said that she wanted to sing Mozart as if it was Trovatore. I guess that was what she did. Didn't she also say that she felt Mozart was a bit boring? Her "Non mi dir" for Legge is all control and poise. I like it. But I guess that De Hidalgo did not spend much time on Mozart back in Athens.

Louise Aiugusta

***

[Responding to Louise Aiugusta] There are an enormous number of condradictions in the Callas performance legacy, and the Greek years are a reflection of those oddities.

De Hidalgo's whole career was spent as a leggiera, yet Callas sang none of that repertoire during her years in Greece, and her training was firmly reflected in the spinto/dramatic repertoire. Her major operatic roles then were Tosca, Fidelio, Santuzza and Marta in Tiefland. Further, her early roles in Italy after WWII were Gioconda, Turandot, the Forza Leonora, Aida, Brunnhilde and Isolde. She did sing Norma for the first time in November 1948 at Florence, which may have laid the groundwork for early 1949, during performances of "Walkiria" (Walkuere) at Venice, when Serafin convinced her to replace an indisposed Margherita Carosio in Puritani. We had our first indication that her fortunes would be realized mainly in the Bel Canto repertoire. And the rest is history.

In retrospect it is reasonable to believe that De Hidalgo must have given Callas a very firm foundation in the technical requirements of "coloratura" vocalism, or that could not have happened, I think.

Bob Rideout

***

On Callas and Mozart, I think we often underestimate the importance of experience and exposure. Callas seldom sang Mozart prior to those "Non mi dir" recordings, and while Konstanze does seem to be a more congenial role for her, that may simply reflect that it was the one Mozart role she had prepared to perform (in 1941, as an understudy). We should also keep in mind that the approach to Mozart was far different in those days, and his operas, while respected, were not the operatic cornerstone they are considered now.

Of course it's never clear what's cause and what's effect, and whether it was lack of exposure or lack of interest that kept Callas away from Mozart. I think her later Mozart recordings demonstrate a better understanding of the music (although with less voice). It's possible that had more opportunities appeared early, Mozart might have "clicked," but we'll never know.

Rich Lowenthal

***

Callas sang a clean, nice and careful aria for Legge. That was what she expected he wanted her to do.

Konstanze was a one-off. But she did sing 18th-century music, Ifigenia in Tauride and Medea. Not really the way we perform this music in 2021, though. (And Haydn's Euridice, no less.)

Later on nobody asked her to sing the big Mozart parts and she did not ask for them. I still think she could have made something great, but she went another way because of her voice and because she loved doing Bolena, Sonnambula, the lot.

Maria Helleberg

***

I am probably wrong, but I doubt there were many Mozart specialists who became super stars, as lovely and great some of Mozart's arias and roles are. Maria and Renata became super stars by singing Italian opreatic roles. Maria, especially, would have wasted her time singing Mozart as it was the Italian bel canto roles that made her a unique soprano at that time.

Tom Ponti

***

[Responding to Maria Helleberg] She did indeed sing 18th-century music, including Alceste but I would argue those were both Gluck "reform" operas - not the heavily ornamented baroque operas of Handel. Gluck was looking forward to Cherubini and Spontini in the later part of the century - more "music drama" than florid "opera seria." She also sang in Stradella's oratorio San Giovanni Battista, maybe chronologically the oldest music she sang.

Putting it crudely, I don't think anyone asked her for Mozart because once her big career took off in the late 40s, people wanted maximum Callas for their money. Sure she would have been marvelous as Elettra but she pops in and out of the ensemble, as does Fiordiligi, and Donna Anna. With Konstanze she gets three big arias, one an undoubted knockout and a powerhouse duet in the last act.

Steve Charitan

***

At least five Mozart operas were far more famous and, yes, performed more, even in Italy, than any number of operas Callas chose to revive after years and years in the cobwebs of history - Macbeth, Vespri, Turco in Italia, the Haydn Orfeo, Vestale, Armida, Poliuto, Ifigenia in Tauride, and especially Medea, which was completely forgotten when she revived it in 1953. If some became "famous" it was because of her. She certainly did not choose them because of their popularity. But, many who came later, chose them for that very reason; and that is one of the most significant pieces of her legacy.

Bob Rideout
 
#5,164 ·
There's some interesting comments in that Callas and Mozart post. A word about Callas and Wagner: I'm not sure whether anyone can really judge Callas' suitability for Wagner since we only have one complete role plus one aria from another and she only sang his music in Italian translation, we have no idea how she would have fared had she sung his music in German and had it been a more significant part of her career. She certainly had the right type of voice for Kundry, Brunhilde and Isolde.

N.
 
#5,166 · (Edited)
New Mastering of three Callas recordings.

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Ran across these on YouTube. The "New Mastering" shown on the thumbnail intrigued me, but it's impossible to tell how they sound on a YT video on my iPad. The mastering was apparently done by CMRR (Center for Memory and Recording Research) at UC San Diego, which is a magnetic tape research facility at that institution. No idea why. These are available at Spotify.

NB: The "cover" of the Lucia di Lammermoor references the wrong year for the recording. It is the 1955 Berlin performance.
 
#5,167 · (Edited)
New Mastering of three Callas recordings.

View attachment 156074

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Ran across these on YouTube. The "New Mastering" shown on the thumbnail intrigued me, but it's impossible to tell how they sound on a YT video on my iPad. The mastering was apparently done by CMRR (Center for Memory and Recording Research) at UC San Diego, which is a magnetic tape research facility at that institution. No idea why. These are available at Spotify.

NB: The "cover" of the Lucia di Lammermoor references the wrong year for the recording. It is the 1955 Berlin performance.
CORRECTION

Apparently the recordings are not from the above-named UC San Diego institution, but from CM//RR (Classical Music//Reference Recordings), "an independent YouTube channel." I apologize for the error in attribution.
 
#5,168 · (Edited)
New Callas Book

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I hesitated to start a new thread for this book. It is called Cast a Diva (clever, no?), The Hidden Life Of Maria Callas. It purports to be a better biography of her. The cover in itself is vulgar in its paparazzi-like image. Can the content be more serious?

Here's the blurb on Amazon.co.uk on the author, who presumably specializes on "daring aristocratic women." You've been warned!

Font Number Document Paper Paper product
 
#5,186 ·
New Callas Book

View attachment 157044

I hesitated to start a new thread for this book. It is called Cast a Diva (clever, no?), The Hidden Life Of Maria Callas. It purports to be a better biography of her. The cover in itself is vulgar in its paparazzi-like image. Can the content be more serious?

Here's the blurb on Amazon.co.uk on the author, who presumably specializes on "daring aristocratic women." You've been warned!

View attachment 157045
The Maria Callas Magazine's July 2021 issue (no. 93) carries a review of the book Cast A Diva. It doesn't convince me to read it, but thanks to the publisher, Karl von Zoggel, for sparing us the task!

I photographed the relevant pages, if anyone is interested.

Publication Book Font History Paper
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I hope readers are able to zoom in and read it, otherwise please let me know and I will scan it into my PC abd re-post it.

M
 
#5,169 ·
Hey everyone,

Just letting you all know I have launched my CD of the 1951 Mexico Aida, with prompters and audience noise removed. My channel has a video comparing my work to the last major release, from 2017 (which claimed to be remastered, but wasn't).

I used the best analogue source, with a Rega Planar 3 table and Rega preamp, recording at 24/96 into Audacity. I then set to work over the last 5 months cleaning it up with some pro grade software. I'm pretty happy with the results and hope you will be too :) I know much more about audio processing and restoration now than when i launched my channel, having obtained a Bachelors degree in audio engineering.

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Here's a link to the video:



And a link to the eBay sale site:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/265229690259

My next project is my vinyl copy of the 1955 Scala Sonnambula with Bernstein. I believe this to have better sound than other releases. After that, assuming the response is positive, I will do the Mexico Rigoletto.
 
#5,170 · (Edited)
Welcome back and please help us with the 1952 Armida!

Hey everyone,

Just letting you all know I have launched my CD of the 1951 Mexico Aida, with prompters and audience noise removed. My channel has a video comparing my work to the last major release, from 2017 (which claimed to be remastered, but wasn't).

I used the best analogue source, with a Rega Planar 3 table and Rega preamp, recording at 24/96 into Audacity. I then set to work over the last 5 months cleaning it up with some pro grade software. I'm pretty happy with the results and hope you will be too :) I know much more about audio processing and restoration now than when i launched my channel, having obtained a Bachelors degree in audio engineering.

View attachment 157278

Here's a link to the video:



And a link to the eBay sale site:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/265229690259

My next project is my vinyl copy of the 1955 Scala Sonnambula with Bernstein. I believe this to have better sound than other releases. After that, assuming the response is positive, I will do the Mexico Rigoletto.
Great to have you back Callasfan and congratulations on finishing your engineering degree!

Any chance you could perform a sound engineering miracle for us and remove most or all of the slow motion male voice that mars 12 minutes of Callas's incredible 1952 complete (as performed) broadcast of Armida? As we know, the slow motion voice is there because the tape was likely not erased properly before recording the Callas broadcast. The voice is that of a male announcer performing classic Italian poetry.

Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Paul Houle
 
#5,179 ·
I have both the Warner and the Divina pressings and I see from my review on my blog that I preferred the Divina. To my ears, the voices were much more clearly captured in the Divina version. The Warner isn't bad, but possibly in an attempt to provide a more comfortable listening experience, they have removed some of the presence of the voices.
 
#5,180 ·
I can say with certainty that Warner used a poorer source for both their Aida and Sonnambula than they claim. Most proper Callas devotees would take "best available sources" to mean BJR or better. But I suppose Warner can say this in all truth if the only sources that are available to them are same old flawed sources EMI was using.

In Aida, at start of "Possente Fthà", the radio announcer talks over the start of the music. In the EMI release, they looped a matching section of the music over the voice to cover it, as they didn't include the radio announcements (either they didn't have access to them because their source was incomplete, or they cut them to save time - as it is, with the announcements included, the last track of Act 2 won't fit on the first CD). The warner issue does the same thing. Neither of them have the same amount of higher frequency content that the BJR LPs have.

The Warner Sonnambula still has the same false Act 1 duet ending that the EMI release had. Whether they are exactly the same, I cannot say. To be honest, I haven't properly listened to either since I found my LP copy, which has much better sound than both.

I can't see how any release could be better than a Divina Records release. Pablo has the original masters. And he does impeccable work.
Audio restoration is a hard, long process when done well. Warner doesn't restore. It may fiddle with some balancing here and there, and I can appreciate they way they packaged the CDs, but it feels like they're just squeezing money out of her memory without properly honouring it.
 
#5,184 ·
Hey everyone,

I have opened a Sellfy store to provide digital downloads. At the moment, only the Aida is available, but more will come. I have just released a preview video of my work on the 1955 La Sonnambula on my youtube channel:



My Sellfy store can be found here:

https://callasfanrecords.sellfy.store/

Downloads are 16/44.1 FLAC files packed into a RAR file. I will continue to sell CDs on ebay for those that prefer physical media.

John
 
#5,196 ·
I just got this book:

The Callas Legacy: The Complete Guide to Her Recordings on Compact Disc
by John Ardoin



I am hoping to get some sense of order out of what I think of as a jumbled mess. The book is organized chronologically officially beginning with her first commercially released recordings in 1949 (although reference is made to earlier recordings from a variety of sources).
 
#5,197 ·
This is in many ways an excellent traversal of Callas's recorded output, but it could do with a revision, because sound quality can vary enormously from one transfer to another, and that is something not taken into account in the book. Divina Records, who were not mentioned in the book, will generally be the best transfers, but they don't have all the live material. Nontheless this makes an excellent guide, even if I don't always agree with Ardoin's assessments.
 
#5,198 · (Edited)
This was published in Opera-L from an article in The NY Times

5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Maria Callas

In the past we’ve chosen the five minutes or so we would play to make our friends fall in love with classical music, piano, opera, cello, Mozart, 21st-century composers, violin, Baroque music, sopranos, Beethoven, flute, string quartets, tenors, Brahms, choral music, percussion, symphonies, Stravinsky and trumpet.

Now we want to convince those curious friends to love the passionate artistry of Maria Callas, the defining opera diva of the 20th century. (Her recorded output is the property of Warner Classics.) We hope you find lots here to discover and enjoy; leave your favorites in the comments.

Patti LuPone, Callas in ‘Master Class’ on Broadway
When I did “Master Class,” I immersed myself in her story, really listening to her voice. Listening to this woman sing, you can sense her pain, her sadness; she has such empathy. And as a singer myself, I am gobsmacked by her technical abilities. When I listen to “Casta diva,” the quality of the voice is consistent through the registers; you hear how she phrases, how she controls her air. There’s a risk-taking; there’s an abandon; there is the truth of her emotions. And she’s able to translate that into a supernatural sound.

Riccardo Muti, conductor
The possibilities are many in the vast and diverse repertoire of this great soprano. But I choose “Vissi d’arte” from “Tosca” for the expressive intensity, the sincere and profound emotion, the clear articulation of the words and the many-colored singing line, which never falls into the vulgar exaggerations that often disfigure the music of Puccini and Italian verismo.


Tom Volf, ‘Maria by Callas’ director
“Andrea Chénier” was not the most significant opera in Callas’s career, but in this aria she gives full life to Maddalena, who is recalling the death of her mother, moving from sorrow to hope and redemption. In the 1993 film “Philadelphia” it is this recording that Tom Hanks’s character, suffering from AIDS, plays in the famous scene in his apartment, when he finally opens up to his lawyer. It is the tears we hear in her voice that bring us to tears, which is why I chose this aria to conclude the film I directed. “Io son l’amor”: “I am love.” That is what Callas’s life was about.

Daniel Mendelsohn, author and critic
By now everyone knows about Callas’s remarkable power as a stage actress, which even the still photographs convey: her absolute command of the striking, classicizing gesture; the use of those remarkable eyes. But equally dramatic was the way she acted with her voice — in particular, for me, the way she uses different shadings to create a sense of a character’s interior landscape, somehow separate from the outside world of the drama’s action.
There’s a moment toward the end of the first act of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” when we get to see — and hear — the heroine, the charming and innocent village girl Amina (who, unbeknown to herself and everyone else, is a somnambulist) as she sleepwalks. A kindly count watches from the shadows as the unconscious girl sings a snippet of the rapturous duet she’d sung earlier that day with her betrothed.

In Callas’s performance, the echo is done with a completely different voice: thinned out, otherworldly, a mere filament of the tone we’ve just heard singing the duet. This strange new “sleeping” voice gives us a sense almost of intruding on the character’s poignant inner life and, as it turns out, quite fragile consciousness — and thereby brings a work that, in other hands, is often little more than a charming fairy tale to the brink of tragedy. It’s Callas’s ability to convey not just “emotion” — most singers can do that — but a textured psychological depth that puts her in a class of her own.

Will Crutchfield, Teatro Nuovo director
Callas is famous for superhuman virtuosity in music too hard for others to sing; for voicing fury, remorse, grief, resolve and ecstasy at levels beyond what others seem able to feel or express. The downside is a sound less beautiful than some singers to whom she might be compared. So what happens in a song easy enough for any professional and many amateurs, where the only requirements are beauty of tone and sentiments a child can grasp? I can’t decide between “genius” and “magic.”

Renée Fleming, soprano
When I was a student and first heard recordings of Maria Callas, I didn’t find her timbre beautiful. But over time, she became my go-to soprano for any of the vast repertoire she recorded. Her musicianship and artistry are incredibly compelling, especially her ability to spin taut, disciplined lines, where every color and dynamic is a choice. You can tell that on top of flawless musical and dramatic instincts, she learned from the best conductors. Though I am told that her voice was not big, her unique, covered sound conveyed drama as well as or better than anyone. And she sparked my imagination vis-à-vis the importance of image and couture. Callas was the pinnacle of operatic stardom, and she still defines the word diva.

David Allen, Times writer
Perhaps your friend doesn’t particularly like the repertoire that Callas made her own: Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini. Well, before she turned to bel canto and its descendants, she made her name as a Wagnerian, singing Isolde, Brünnhilde and, here, Kundry. Recorded in Italian in a fiery reading under the conductor Vittorio Gui, she seethes with the commitment and intensity that would make her so famous — ferocious and imperious one moment, fearful and broken the next.


Fanny Ardant, Callas in ‘Master Class’ in Paris
One winter night in Paris, a woman sat motionless under a lamppost, waiting for the 63 bus. But when the bus came she let it pass. What was she waiting for? The buses passed, and the hours. When everything was extinguished — the stars, the bars, the houses, the cars — she was still there.
Suddenly, coming from a distance over the deserted street, a black car slowly passed before stopping at a red light, the radio on, the windows wide open. A female voice sang: “Arrigo! ah! parli a un core. Già pronto al perdonare; il mio più gran dolore. Era doverti odiare.”

I got up, crossed the street, approached the car. The man leaned out and called to me, “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. I only wanted to know what that woman is saying.”

And there I listened to this magical voice, and in a single phrase I heard love lost and found, hatred and forgiveness, the desire to die and to live.

“Who is that singer?” asked the man.

I said: “Maria Callas! Thank you, thank you. For that, for — everything. … ”

And I walked home, consoled and protected.

Zachary Woolfe, Times classical music editor
She was superb at bel canto and verismo, but here Callas demonstrates her deep understanding of the 19th-century grand opera tradition that came between those styles. Elisabeth, the queen of Spain, married against her will and betrayed by her friend, arrives at the tomb of her father-in-law, mourning an abandoned love and longing for death. Typical melodramatic stuff. The difference here, in Verdi’s “Don Carlo” as in other grand operas of its era, is the character’s perception of herself in history, past and — in the form of the Flemish rebellion against Spanish rule — present and future. Callas, her voice poised and peerlessly articulate in both full flood and quiet nostalgia, sings at the intersection of the personal and the political, intimacy and majesty.

Zachary Woolfe, Times classical music editor
She was superb at bel canto and verismo, but here Callas demonstrates her deep understanding of the 19th-century grand opera tradition that came between those styles. Elisabeth, the queen of Spain, married against her will and betrayed by her friend, arrives at the tomb of her father-in-law, mourning an abandoned love and longing for death. Typical melodramatic stuff. The difference here, in Verdi’s “Don Carlo” as in other grand operas of its era, is the character’s perception of herself in history, past and — in the form of the Flemish rebellion against Spanish rule — present and future. Callas, her voice poised and peerlessly articulate in both full flood and quiet nostalgia, sings at the intersection of the personal and the political, intimacy and majesty.

Kira Thurman, historian
As a devout Germanist, I thought for a long time I wasn’t supposed to like Italian opera. Maria Callas slapped that silly notion out of me. In “Una voce poco fa,” from Rossini’s “Barber of Seville,” her razor-sharp wit sparkles with the effervescence of a seasoned “Saturday Night Live” performer. Each time she sings of her determination to get her man, Callas switches up her emotional delivery of the line. In one iteration, she unleashes an outburst before backing off, her voice bubbling up and floating away. In another, you hear the steel glint of a knife in her tone, daring anyone to stand in her way. Callas’s luscious timbre and her control over dynamics create a fireworks show that could nudge even the most stubborn of hearts.

Javier C. Hernández, Times classical music and dance reporter
Callas performed Lady Macbeth only a few times, during a 1952 run of Verdi’s “Macbeth” in Milan. But a recording of one of those performances has lived on as a model for the role. It’s a master class in drama and musicianship, with Callas using her voice to animate her character’s anxiety and ambition. This aria from the first act gives a sense of her range and the fresh intensity she brought to some of opera’s best-known parts.

Stephen Wadsworth, ‘Master Class’ Broadway revival director
I finally understood Callas when I heard this recording of Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene. I finally understood a lot of things. I understood that opera could be full-on acted. I understood Lady Macbeth: her survivor’s despair, her tragic grit, her emotional disarray. I understood why Callas made a huge range of sounds; why she veiled her voice, poisoned it and stretched it to a taut wire. I understood it was possible for a singer not just to tell the truth beautifully, but also to tell the darkest possible truths on their own terms. Many singers beguile me; Callas always tells me the truth.

Joshua Barone, Times editor
The generations-spanning inseparability of gay culture and Maria Callas was enshrined in Terrence McNally’s play “The Lisbon Traviata” — its title taken from the holy grail of opera bootlegs, a once-elusive 1958 recording of Callas in one of her signature roles. McNally’s play made histrionic comedy of her peerless magnetism for gay men; to see how little he exaggerated, watch the documentary “Maria by Callas” and see some of the guys camping out for tickets in the 1960s wax extravagant about her. And to hear what made Lisbon so special, listen to the aria “Addio, del passato”: sympathetic from the start, no phrase unconsidered, the visceral drama of opera captured in a single weak and wobbly high note at the end.

Seth Colter Walls, Times writer
In early live recordings, like her 1950 Kundry in Rome and 1955 Lucia in Berlin, Callas does more than sail over orchestras and choruses. She also slices through the limitations of primitive recording technology. Consider her 1952 Armida, from Florence: Even the best remastering job amounts to a scuzzy capture, full of distortion and tape bleed.

But this second-act showstopper marries precision and abandon, graceful decorations and ransacking intensity. Unlike more polite interpretations of Rossini’s sorceress you might encounter, this one sounds authentically witchy. And once Callas is done holding a ringing, climactic note, the decay has a drama all its own — with the fade-out revealing how deeply her singing had marked the room.

Latonia Moore, soprano
To me, a great singer is one who can make me feel her voice — a palpable sound that gets under my skin. Maria Callas does that for me. She is the kind of singer that can take you through the gamut of human emotion and back. She does it in everything she sings, but for some reason her “Casta diva” goes beyond. It’s spiritual. It stops time. It makes me forget all my worries. It’ll heal you, if you let it.

Wayne Koestenbaum, writer
This recording is not triumphant, cosmos-defying Callas. It is late Callas, mezzo Callas, shadowed Callas; a sense of diminishment and retreat — a wish for terminal repose — colors the descending phrases. Italian is Callas’s major tongue; when she sings French, an act of noblesse oblige, she passes her voice through a stringent, nasal wringer, and thereby attains the reedy place where hauteur meets hauntedness. Callas forbade this recording from being released in her lifetime. And so this refused artifact seems to come from the underworld, Callas’s shame grotto, where she hid unfit possessions. I hear her melancholy more directly in this majestic recording than in anything else she left us.
“Samson et Dalila”
“Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” 1961 (Warner

James Jorden, Parterre Box proprietor
Following her vocal crisis in the late 1950s, Callas shifted her focus from staged opera to concerts, and her repertoire to a selection of Romantic arias less vocally demanding than the virtuoso showpieces of her best years. A war horse of this period was “Pleurez, mes yeux” from Massenet’s “Le Cid,” in which Callas wedded her compromised vocalism to her impeccable sense of style. Of her strident high notes and abrupt register shifts she creates a virtue of necessity. The aria is not merely grand, but offers the far more poignant effect of grandeur overlaid with a patina of decay.

Michael Cooper, Times deputy culture editor
Listen to how Callas — as the dying Violetta, giving her lover her blessing to marry someone else — imagines being among the angels. Her voice blossoms on “angeli” before delicately decaying, a premonition of death. She sings with sumptuous beauty, yes, but as a great tragedienne she lets us hear the love and sacrifice that define her character.

Then she stops singing and speaks. Her pain is gone and her strength is returning, she says, and Callas is such a fine actress that she takes her listeners from pitying her self-delusion to deluding themselves. Especially as she sings, now full-voiced, that she is returning to life, utters a cry of joy, and dies.
 
#5,208 ·
The rarest Maria Callas recordings

I must confess that I am an obsessive collector of Callas recordings. In fact, I have almost everything that is known to exist!

The key word though is almost because those of us who do search out every scrap of recorded singing by Callas probably often speculate about the recorded Callas "super-rarities". These are the recordings that have never appeared on LP, CD, DVD, Blu-ray or the internet (such as YouTube) and have apparently only circulated surreptitiously on private recordings amongst a limited group of collectors.

So, I thought I would offer you this list of what I believe are the rarest Callas recordings as of now. I've chosen ones that appear to be reliably documented in the Callas literature as actually existing. I've identified seven:

Tosca, London, January 21, 1964 (Acts One and Three only - in-house private tape)
Tosca, London, January 27, 1964 (in-house private tape)
Tosca, Paris, February 22, 1965 (in-house private tape)
Tosca, Paris, March 13, 1965 (in-house private tape)
Second London Concert with Giuseppe di Stefano, December 2, 1973 (in-house private tape and also recorded in stereo by EMI/Warner but never published)
Milan Concert with Giuseppe di Stefano, January 20, 1974 (in-house private tape)
Toronto Concert with Giuseppe di Stefano, February 21, 1974 (in-house private tape)

It is interesting that the four rare Toscas identified above are the only recordings from Callas' main recorded career between 1949 and 1965 that have never been issued in some mainstream format like LP or CD. Divina Records apparently owns all these four but have not issued them as yet. It's a bit puzzling that they have not been released given that every other recorded scrap has from the 1949 to 1965 period. So, I wonder what the reasons would be for this? Perhaps they have just been overshadowed by the high fidelity BBC radio broadcast of Tosca from January 24, 1964 as well the telecast of Act Two of Tosca from February 9, 1964 (both released officially by EMI/Warner). Also, both the March 1 and March 3, 1965 Paris Toscas have circulated: March 3 on LP and CD and Act Two of March 1 is currently on YouTube (formerly all of March 1 was on YouTube for a brief period of time).

Admittedly, we already have a lot of Tosca recordings with Callas! The main advantage in releasing the four more obscure Tosca performances listed above might be simply scholarly - further enabling us to study Callas from one Tosca performance to another, particularly four performances in Paris within the space of a few weeks in February and March 1965 and three in London in January 1964 plus the Act Two Tosca TV broadcast a few weeks later.

Aside from the four Tosca obscurities listed above, there is probably a lot less reason to wish that the three rarer Callas/di Stefano concerts might circulate. As most of us know very well, this is mainly because of the terrible state of their voices during 1973 and 1974.

Please let me know if you have further rarities to add to this list! Also, maybe you have knowledge of the reasons why the seven rarities listed above have not really seen the light of day.

Paul Houle
 
#5,211 ·
I must confess that I am an obsessive collector of Callas recordings. In fact, I have almost everything that is known to exist!

The key word though is almost because those of us who do search out every scrap of recorded singing by Callas probably often speculate about the recorded Callas "super-rarities". These are the recordings that have never appeared on LP, CD, DVD, Blu-ray or the internet (such as YouTube) and have apparently only circulated surreptitiously on private recordings amongst a limited group of collectors.

So, I thought I would offer you this list of what I believe are the rarest Callas recordings as of now. I've chosen ones that appear to be reliably documented in the Callas literature as actually existing. I've identified seven:

Tosca, London, January 21, 1964 (Acts One and Three only - in-house private tape)
Tosca, London, January 27, 1964 (in-house private tape)
Tosca, Paris, February 22, 1965 (in-house private tape)
Tosca, Paris, March 13, 1965 (in-house private tape)
Second London Concert with Giuseppe di Stefano, December 2, 1973 (in-house private tape and also recorded in stereo by EMI/Warner but never published)
Milan Concert with Giuseppe di Stefano, January 20, 1974 (in-house private tape)
Toronto Concert with Giuseppe di Stefano, February 21, 1974 (in-house private tape)

It is interesting that the four rare Toscas identified above are the only recordings from Callas' main recorded career between 1949 and 1965 that have never been issued in some mainstream format like LP or CD. Divina Records apparently owns all these four but have not issued them as yet. It's a bit puzzling that they have not been released given that every other recorded scrap has from the 1949 to 1965 period. So, I wonder what the reasons would be for this? Perhaps they have just been overshadowed by the high fidelity BBC radio broadcast of Tosca from January 24, 1964 as well the telecast of Act Two of Tosca from February 9, 1964 (both released officially by EMI/Warner). Also, both the March 1 and March 3, 1965 Paris Toscas have circulated: March 3 on LP and CD and Act Two of March 1 is currently on YouTube (formerly all of March 1 was on YouTube for a brief period of time).

Admittedly, we already have a lot of Tosca recordings with Callas! The main advantage in releasing the four more obscure Tosca performances listed above might be simply scholarly - further enabling us to study Callas from one Tosca performance to another, particularly four performances in Paris within the space of a few weeks in February and March 1965 and three in London in January 1964 plus the Act Two Tosca TV broadcast a few weeks later.

Aside from the four Tosca obscurities listed above, there is probably a lot less reason to wish that the three rarer Callas/di Stefano concerts might circulate. As most of us know very well, this is mainly because of the terrible state of their voices during 1973 and 1974.

Please let me know if you have further rarities to add to this list! Also, maybe you have knowledge of the reasons why the seven rarities listed above have not really seen the light of day.

Paul Houle
Presumed to be the 3 March 1965 performance

 
#5,209 · (Edited)
LP and CD releases of March 3, 1965 Paris Tosca

Here are few additional discographical details about Maria Callas' March 3, 1965 Paris Tosca. It has been issued on at least four different LP or CD editions:

Melodram 480 (2 LPs, 1986)
Melodram CDM 26033 (2 CDs, 1992)
Victory Media (Greece) VM 9507 (2CDs, 2007. Also includes deluxe booklet including libretto in Italian with a Greek translation)
Ars Vocalis AV 030365-2 (2010)

The Ars Vocalis edition can be ordered at:

info.ars.vocalis@gmail.com

Ars Vocalis ships fast and is very careful with packaging.

Paul
 
#5,213 ·
Speaking of Callas 's recorded legacy, a tape of Callas singing Salome in Alessandro Stradella's San Giovanni Battista existed probably very briefly in 1949. Callas heard her voice for the very first time during a break in the performance or rehearsal when they played the tape of the first part. Callas specifically mentions a "tape," so we know one existed, unlike the apocryphal Chicago Trovatore, or the Genoa Tristano ed Isotta, or even the fabled Fedora?

 
#5,215 · (Edited)
Callas radio broadcasts in Italy 1947-1951



MAS, you are correct in pointing out the recording that was made of Callas' 1949 performance in San Giovanni Battista.

Réal La Rochelle, in an earlier version of his book called Callas: La Diva et le Vinyle (Triptyque, 1987), makes one's mouth water in listing at least 24 Callas Italian radio broadcasts between 1947 and 1951! Fragments of ONLY TWO of these have appeared: Turco from October 19, 1950 and the RAI concert of March 12, 1951. Some of these broadcasts were recorded and rebroadcast (such as Turco from 1950 which was rebroadcast in 1951). The broadcasts identified by La Rochelle are:

August 2, 1947 - Gioconda, Verona
August 5, 1947 - Gioconda, Verona
January 3, 1948 - Tristano e Isotta, Venice
January 31, 1948 - rebroadcast of Tristano
July 6, 1948 - Turandot, Rome
July 29, 1948 - rebroadcast of Turandot
December 5, 1948 - Norma (Act One), Florence
December 23, 1948 - Aida, rebroadcast from Turin, 1948
January 8, 1949 - Walkiria, Venice
January 15, 1949 - Puritani, Venice
March 5, 1949 - Parsifal, Rome
March 7, 1949 - Concert
September 26, 1949 (broadcast date) - San Giovanni Battista, Perugia
November 24, 1949 (broadcast November 29) - Puccini commemoration (Tosca Act 3, Manon Lescaut Act 4)
January 19, 1950 - Norma, Venice
March 13, 1950 - Concert
April 30, 1950 - Aida, Naples
October 19, 1950 - Turco in Italia, Rome
March 12, 1951 - Concert
June 14, 1951 - Orfeo ed Euridice (June 9, 1951 recording), Florence
June 19, 1951 - rebroadcast of Orfeo
November 3, 1951 - Norma, Catania
December 7, 1951 - Vespri Siciliani, La Scala
December 12, 1951 - rebroadcast of Turco from 1950

It is dismaying that so many of these broadcasts seem to have been lost - with only fragments surviving from the 1950 Turco and the March 12, 1951 concert. What happened with the Italian radio archives that more wasn't saved?

Paul Houle
 
#5,221 · (Edited)
65 years ago (October 29, 1956), Maria Meneghini Callas made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Norma. Alas, no recording is known, or even rumored to exist.

View attachment 160689
It's quite shameful to think she had to wait so long. She made her official debut at La Scala in 1951, opening the season in a new production of I Vespri Siciliani and her Covent Garden debut in 1952, returning in 1953, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1964 and 1965.. Her American debut was in Chicago and, aside from those final Toscas, she only had two seasons at the Met. She never had a particularly good relationship with the house, complaining of dusty old productions, not enough rehearsal time (sometimes not even a proper stage rehearsal) and constant cast changes. It wasn't how she was used to working. I sometimes think that she was quite relieved that Bing sacked her in 1958, as she didn't really want to go back there.

I once read Bing's memoir 5000 Nights at the Opera and can't say I warmed to him.
 
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