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I feel bad because I don't love Callas more

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#1 · (Edited)
Both musically and dramatically she is one of the great geniuses of opera, and her voice was so much better when she was fat and young than after the Audrey Hepburn looks took over. Still and yet, even considering the truly astonishing things she did with the voice before around 1952, I just don't listen to her much as her voice is just not pretty enough for me for a steady diet.and this tendency has grown as I've aged. I know the Callas devotees will consign me to the deepest pits of hell for this. Tell me your thinking. Occasionally I will trot her out and eveything else about her will wow me before th voice starts grating on me.
 
#3 ·
Where I struggle with Callas is the generally poor quality of most of her recordings. The 1952 recording of Armida may contain some fabulous singing, but the audio quality is so bad I just can't listen to it. This is the case with a lot of her recordings. The 1956 recording of Il Trovatore is better, but still hard to listen to due to the poor recording. The problem is that no matter how great a singer she was, the audio recording systems of her time were incredibly poor and didn't really capture the full effect of the sound in either a studio of a live setting.
 
#4 ·
I used to feel the same about all pre-LP singers, but, after reading John Steane's amazing book The Grand Tradition, an absolute must for all those interested in singing and the human voice, I learned to listen through the sound, as it were, and so much amazing artistry was revealed to me. I am so grateful to him for that.
 
#6 ·
For me, appreciation of Callas's artistry has only grown with the years, and the singers I enjoy and listen to mostly are those with a superior level of artistry and musicianship. I like singing that is beautifully expressed rather than merely beautiful. Consequently, though I used to enjoy, say, Sutherland's beauty of voice and fabulous coloratura technique, I hardly ever listen to her these days.
 
#9 ·
I'm no expert on singing, but I can't think of a more perfect recording of a soprano part than Maria Callas's Rosina in "Barbieri di Siviglia". If I want to demonstrate the beauty of opera singing to a newbie, I'd play one of her numbers from this record. Ironically, I believe I've read that she never performed the part on stage, only recorded it in a studio exactly once.
 
#11 · (Edited)
The Callas voice was a voice of many colors, some of which strike me as exceedingly beautiful and some of which can be unpleasant. It was partly nature and partly art. Most voices exhibit a more consistent timbre, and so there are voices I dislike for their basic timbre and just don't care to listen to, and voices I find entirely enchanting no matter what they're singing. I always know what to expect from these voices. With Callas I don't always know what to expect, but I do always expect something interesting. Her ability to use what nature gave her and alter the timbre of her voice to express varied emotions and even to characterize entire roles is unequaled by any other singer I can think of. Callas demands that we listen with full attention to what she's doing, but also be prepared to forgive some less than pleasing moments along the way. "Art," she said, "is more than beauty."

There's no obligation to enjoy any singer's voice, but even if we never find hers to be one that attracts us, the experience of Callas is a necessary part of any opera lover's - and any singer's, and perhaps even any musician's - education.
 
#38 ·
Exactly this. I have nearly every recording Callas ever made. I lover her. To me, I like uniqueness over run-of-the-mill. To me, that is the greatest thing about Callas - that distinctive voice. You just know it's her immediately. With other sopranos, if I don't know a recording well enough, it's hard to distinguish who is who. That being said, I listen to Callas in small doses, as her repertoire I don't care for much (save Verdi, Il Barbiere and her recital discs). I much prefer to listen to the Baroque and Classical periods, as the romantics and post-moderns tend to bore me.
 
#15 ·
Don't worry you still have four days left of Lent to repent for this!

I know you aren't as interested in post 1952 Callas, but what about going for some very late Callas and giving the 1969 Verdi arias a listen? The voice is no longer there, but Callas tries to convince us with artistry alone and although she recorded these arias before she finds new insights with a fresh interpretation necessitated by her lack of vocal security.

Alternatively give the RAI recitals (in best sound on the Gala label) a spin!

N.
 
#16 · (Edited)
You just killed me.
What works for me is to take off several months, go back to her and be blown completely away. I did spend many years rather firmly in the Callas camp, but my tastes have changed. An earlier person who posted in this thread voiced a big regret of mine. Almost all of the recordings of her in prime voice other than the first Norma were all in rather poorly recorded live recordings... especially Armida. Even with the mono sound a studio recording from then would have been a big boon to her fans. Thanks for writing. I do like some later studio recordings. I am blanking on the I believe early Verdi aria that blows me away from this period where at the end of the aria she does a gorgeous run from up high to the very bottom of the voice and everything is PERFECT.
BTW, I have two speeches that I did on Callas For my Toastmaster clubsI've posted to Youtube so you can see I am interested.
 
#17 · (Edited)
^^^^ I don't really hear a drop-off in overall vocal quality or limits to her technique until after Maria's 55 seasons, and in fact between her weight loss and thru 1955 her artistry is in sharper focus and she had the confidence and swagger of being queen of La Scala performing with maximum total dramatic impact, her 55 live performances are beyond compare really (Norma, Lucia, Traviata etc)

Also after the 1953 contract with Legge/EMI she was provided best available casts and sound recording capabilities available for studio albums.....

Even after 1955 she could have nights when all the stars aligned and the opera gods where at her back and she produced almost untouchable performances......one that comes to mind is live 57 Anna Bolena at La Scala, how could one surpass such artistry as displayed here, never has the betrayed queen truely come to life on stage as here......be patient SOF, Rome (and Callas love) was not built in a day :)



Can you listen to this without being brought to near tears, Maria in complete command with technique and heartbreaking emotion, truely La Divina......

 
#24 ·
I was a hard sell on Callas, and I don't think it was that her singing wasn't something I considered gorgeous. I always loved her voice, but her popularity kind of soured me on her name. She'd been put on this pedestal and it's hard to really see the natural brilliance with that shine of admiration beaming on her name. It was the same with Pavarotti and Lanza. Both were these figures that reminded me more of a Liberace than the real deal, even if I thought their voices were great.

As the years have progressed, I have really grown to appreciate these singers as singers. Sadly with Callas and Lanza, I feel they didn't get the productions their voices deserved. We've got these great samples of their talents, but they're just snippets. Lanza passed at the height of his talents, and Callas withdrew. Many argue she lost her vocal power, but the more I read about her, I think Callas' biggest enemy was Maria. She became this name that she had to live up to.

I've heard many post weight-loss recordings from her, and think she still had a wonderful voice. There was probably a lot more going on than voice issues. But that's a long source of debate and speculation.

It took a while for me to stubbornly give the lady the appreciation she deserved. A "vocal goddess, above all others"? Perhaps not. A wonderful Soprano who represents a major shift in operatic performance? Absolutely! I adore the voice, and the more I hear about what kind of person Maria was, I can appreciate Callas more.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I was a hard sell on Callas, and I don't think it was that her singing wasn't something I considered gorgeous. I always loved her voice, but her popularity kind of soured me on her name. She'd been put on this pedestal and it's hard to really see the natural brilliance with that shine of admiration beaming on her name. It was the same with Pavarotti and Lanza. Both were these figures that reminded me more of a Liberace than the real deal, even if I thought their voices were great.

As the years have progressed, I have really grown to appreciate these singers as singers. Sadly with Callas and Lanza, I feel they didn't get the productions their voices deserved. We've got these great samples of their talents, but they're just snippets. Lanza passed at the height of his talents, and Callas withdrew. Many argue she lost her vocal power, but the more I read about her, I think Callas' biggest enemy was Maria. She became this name that she had to live up to.

I've heard many post weight-loss recordings from her, and think she still had a wonderful voice. There was probably a lot more going on than voice issues. But that's a long source of debate and speculation.

It took a while for me to stubbornly give the lady the appreciation she deserved. A "vocal goddess, above all others"? Perhaps not. A wonderful Soprano who represents a major shift in operatic performance? Absolutely! I adore the voice, and the more I hear about what kind of person Maria was, I can appreciate Callas more.
Well thought out. I think another big factor was she had worked very, very hard for years and had put her personal life on hold. She was performing hard from around 20, living for music. When she met Ari she was dazzled by this glamorous man who was rich as Croesus and supposedly a prodigious lover and she was more interested in being a woman than a hard working operatic workhorse. Add all that to the fact that her voice was not working for her the way it once was and ir iS easy to see why she favored the casinos at Monte Carlo over La Scala.
 
#27 · (Edited)
Her voice type was what could be called a soprano sfogato. It was described by Stendhal as follows:

She can achieve perfect resonance on a note as low as bottom A, and can rise as high as C, or even to a slightly sharpened D; and she possesses the rare ability to be able to sing contralto as easily as she can sing soprano. I would suggest ... that the true designation of her voice is mezzo-soprano, and any composer who writes for her should use the mezzo-soprano range for the thematic material of his music, while still exploiting, as it were incidentally and from time to time, notes which lie within the more peripheral areas of this remarkably rich voice. Many notes of this last category are not only extremely fine in themselves, but have the ability to produce a kind of resonant and magnetic vibration, which, through some still unexplained combination of physical phenomena, exercises an instantaneous and hypnotic effect upon the soul of the spectator.This leads to the consideration of one of the most uncommon features of Madame Pasta's voice: it is not all moulded from the same metallo, as it is said in Italy (which is to say that it possesses more than one timbre); and this fundamental variety of tone produced by a single voice affords one of the richest veins of musical expression which the artistry of a great cantatrice is able to exploit.[SUP][7][/SUP]
Thank you GM for bringing up Miss Pasta who premiered many of the great Bel Canto operas we know today, we have no recordings to draw from since she retired from stage by 1840 well before any acoustic recording technology so we have only written accounts of her voice & performances.

Above voice description from Wiki Music and we can recognize the resemblance to Maria's own unique sound especially the change in tone/timbre from lower range to the top allowing a large variance in sound which can be artistically used to great effect by a gifted singer......

Pasta as Anna Bolena 1830

BTW another unique feature of Maria's voice is the size and projected power of the high notes, most singers as the voice moves up the scale naturally becomes smaller and sharper sounding, Maria somehow can maintain size and amplitude up the scale producing climaxes of devastating power when called for........:)
 
#39 · (Edited)
Seattleoperafan:
You shouldn't have to apologize for not "getting" the Callas that others who feel differently about her do. I completely understand your feelings.

For me it was an acquiring experience. I finally discovered that I was focusing only on a voice that didn't thrill me. It took a while for me to realize that there was something more than just her voice. She had a way of expressing the same words as others did but with such exquisite depth and feeling that it grabbed me in a way that no others could.

Her musicianship was impeccable and her devotion to getting things right no matter how long it took proved to me her dedication to the art.

I was also mesmerized by the girlish charm of her off-stage personality which I found to be unique and down-to-earth, if not, at times, mean-spirited and nasty.

She was the complete package.
 
#40 · (Edited)
One of the singers Callas sang with, or more likely one of the conductors she worked with, said he "couldn't separate the voice from what she expressed with it." That's is what she is to me: the total expression of the music she sings. I may not like the sound she makes, this or that sour note, the sometimes "fearfully uncontrolled" high notes (can't remember which critic said that - Philip Hope-Wallace?); however, whatever she sings remains in my memory as the ideal way to express it.
"Majestic justness" as another critic (Musical America) put it (in Norma, I believe). No one can touch her. No one has matched or surpassed her interpretations. Prettier voices or perfect voices can't be as expressive or even approximate Callas's expression. Cuts don't matter if the "extra" music is not well expressed, or even as well sung as Callas sings.

Callas rules!

Hair Cheek Head Chin Eye
 
#41 ·
I think with Callas it is vital to catch the voice at its best which, alas, was not very long. I am just listening to the 1955 Lucia with Karajan against the 1959 one with Serafin and the deterioration of the voice is noticeable even in those few years. The Karajan Lucia is one of the very greatest recordings of this artist even if the sound is duff.
 
#42 · (Edited)
Vocal decline is a process for most singers (some seem to lose their vocal prowess overnight, but even then the signs were usually there beforehand). Callas was in superlative voice up to and including 1953 with the first slight imperfection in technique being displayed in the studio recording of I Puritani during the act one finale where there is strain in a high passage. Then the first (slight) wobble appears in the 1954 Puccini arias disc. The deterioration was slow and gradual after that and the point at which the lack of technique makes Callas unlistenable will depend on each individual's tolerance level, understanding of Callas' art and responsiveness to performances of unparalleled emotional depth.

Occasionally in later recordings (such as the Anna Bolena discussed above and the Carmen - that sits lower) Callas was able to put aside her technical issues and sang with a wonderful freedom in addition to her everpresent interpretative insights coupled with a strong identification with the role she happened to be singing.

Voices almost always lose their freshness (listen to Sutherland, Gheorghiou and De los Angeles - just to mention a few sopranos), that is when you really discover the artist beyond the voice. De los Angeles could still sparkle in song recitals despite her voice being a shadow of its former self. Sutherland's second studio Norma is possibly her most dramatically convincing performance and Gheorghiou's Violetta could still make you go through a box of cleanex in act two despite the stiff coloratura in her sempre libera the last time she sang La Traviata at the ROH. That's why we listen to Callas' recordings up to those last haunting sketches of Verdi arias in 69 when she was well past her best, because Callas was much more than a voice. Even when the voice was gone, she, the artist, the interpreter, the muse and the soul was still there.

N.
 
#46 ·
You know, I think if you were there, absorbing the godlike diva stage presence, that even at the end of her career, her artistry would trump the vocal decline , but we have a paucity of video record. My complaint is that even at her vocal peak, I am not always in the mood to enjoy her unique sound. The top was massive and thrilling, but never overly beautiful, although it might have sounded different in a house. But of course, all of this is subjective.
 
#47 · (Edited)
Some of the comments in this thread are pretty silly. Ironically, those who are talking about depth over flash are relying on a pretty superficial view of the matter:

I prefer emotions to mere sounds, so I'm not where you are and hope I never get there
Beauty over meaning. Gloss over substance. There is, of course, a certain irony about that in regards to Callas.
These are simplistic dichotomies, because beauty and meaning are not independent things operating in isolation. A beautiful, pure pianissimo has a totally different effect than an ugly, shrill one. The "mere" sounds that singers make are what allow them to portray meanings. Expression comes through sounds. I'm not denying that ugly sounds are an important part of the repertoire of sounds for an opera singer. The problem with Callas is that her repertoire of sounds is deficient. She is frequently incapable of producing a high note without a serious wobble, which reduces the expressive range available to her. The excitement of a high note often comes from a quickening of the vibrato on that note. That effect, and many others, she cannot achieve. Now, I'm told that she makes up for these very fundamental and obvious flaws with great, almost mystical in some accounts, expression. Except, first, as I was just saying, I find her range of expression limited by her vocal flaws. But second, I just don't hear what is so unique in her interpretations. I don't hear musicality far in excess of any other singer, as I've often read claimed. I'm not saying she's unmusical. I'm just saying that I don't find her to be especially noteworthy in that regard. (If someone wishes to correct me, a thorough analysis of a specific part of a specific aria might help, but from experience I can say that throwing whole arias or operas at me and asking me to revel won't work.)

Additionally, voices, like all instruments, have natural expressive qualities. Flutes are purer than oboes, and oboes could never match their brilliance in this area, but the tart sound of an oboe likewise is an effect the flute can't achieve. The same is true of voices. The operatic voice has a particular range of expressive qualities, which do vary from singer to singer within limits, just as different violins of similar quality might have differences in timbre etc., that are unique, and to me, the most outstanding of any instrument. Just hearing a well produced operatic voice is a beautiful and emotionally powerful experience. There's nothing shallow or petty about it.

Some examples. Let's take the aria "Tu che le vanita." Callas did a famous version of this. The trick of this aria is in shifting moods of the text. The text opens with a declaration of the vanity of the world, and about escape from it in the grave. The words "mondo" and "profondo" are quite low, and clearly intended to be sung in chest voice (now I'm getting flashbacks to our discussion of Yannis Nezet-Seguin, but anyway.) But the thought turns to those who have holy pity in heaven, and to the lord himself. This part goes into the upper register, the sweet sound of which contrasts the bitter anger at the vanity of this world with the beauty and goodness of the next. The change in thought, providing characterization, is in the music itself. Now, so far this is all Verdi's genius. What the singer has to do to be properly expressive in this moment is have a strong, dark chest voice, and pure, beautiful top notes that can make this contrast. Let's listen to Callas and another singer.

Callas has the strong, dark chest register. Whatever my complaints about Callas, she usually had a good and thrilling lower register. But the top notes? The sound she makes on the word "cielo" at 3:10 is ironically infernal. It doesn't improve from there. It's shrill, and the forte top notes have bad vibrato. It isn't the pain of the character coming through, it's just painful. It's bad singing, full stop.


Selma Kurz, coloratura soprano, has both the strong, dark chest register and the pure, beautiful top notes to create the contrast necessary to sing this aria expressively. The tone on the word "cielo" is positively gorgeous, a heavenly sound if there ever were one. It's not about me being some beauty junkie who just wants to bliss out and pretend there are no ugly sounds. Ugly sounds can be part a singer's expressive vocabulary. The problem is that for Callas they are not optional in far too many cases.

Let's take perhaps Callas' most famous role, Norma. This is a very famous live performance from La Scala under Serafin in 1955. It's often lauded as her best performance. Now, let's take the central aria for the character of Norma, Casta diva. This aria is again, through Bellini's genius, masterful setting of a text. Norma is praying for peace, but with the hidden motive of her love for Pollione, the Roman soldier who might be killed in a war between the Druids and the Romans. Now, this text lies mostly in the middle and upper middle, and is made up of extremely long, beautiful lines. Callas does well with these lines, but whenever she reaches the upper middle, the wobble sets in (for example, on the word "inargenti"). Apart from being ugly, this makes her sound out of control of the sound, which makes me hear the singer, Callas, and not the character, Norma. This breaks me out of my disbelief, and makes it hard for me to get involved in the dramatic moment.

Now we come to the climax of the aria. Norma asks the moon to turn her beautiful face to us, "unclouded and unveiled". The music reaches its height on "sembiante" or "face". This is the face of the god Norma as priestess is there to adore and supplicate. This should be a moment of ecstasy. Her high note on 2:49 is awful. Wobbly and shrill. This spoils the moment entirely and adds nothing in recompense.


Now let's listen to Rosa Ponselle. First off, Ponselle never ever has the slightest hint of wobble. Second, I hear much about Callas's unique gifts in phrasing, yet as a purely musical matter, I much prefer the way Ponselle delivers Bellini's melody. Third, listen to the key phrase, "il bel sembiante." Whereas Callas gives us four equal notes at roughly the same volume, then goes for the shrill, wobbly top note, Ponselle varies the length and quality, at first shortening them, but making each successive note longer and more intense, until she suddenly attacks the last note softly, and the crescendos again, using that intensity to peak on a beautiful, perfectly controlled high note. Not only is it more interesting and individual as a musical interpretation, but the dramatic effect is sublime. It is as though she is imploring the moon, and suddenly sees what she is after. The ethereal beauty of her tone here is essential to the characterization: it is a reflection of what happens in her soul as she reaches this climax (pun intended - this is after all, a moment of both religious and sensual ecstasy). It is a beautiful and moment full of character and drama. I would take Ponselle over Callas every day of the week and twice on Sunday.


Now, I've been rather harsh for polemical purposes. I think Callas did a lot of good work, and early recordings are better than later ones. Certainly many great singers have flaws and have made unintentionally ugly sounds or let their instrument get away from them. Absolutely true. Even in those early Callas recordings, though, I often do not care for her middle and upper middle. That's too much bad voice for great singing. Ironically, my favorite recording of Callas is with her as Kundry in Parsifal in 1949. But for me, her status as a mythical, unique genius who brought musicality and characterization unheard of previously in opera is ludicrous hyperbole. The idea that vocal beauty is a shallow add on to real depth is also a strange and rather perverse notion.
 
#48 ·
^^^ How much you, I, or anyone else can respond to Callas's musical judgment and dramatic creativity will certainly depend partly on our reactions to how she realizes those things vocally. I agree with you that vocal deficiencies do work against her intentions in many cases, but not everyone will agree on how much an interpretation is ruined by a sour or wobbly high note. I do find Callas to be a precise musician with an extraordinary sense of how to pace and shape a musical line, and she's often uniquely insightful in finding specific ways to inflect words and phrases, bringing her roles to imaginative life as few other singers do. Her Medea, Violetta, Lucia, Norma, Lady Macbeth, Tosca, Butterfly, Santuzza, Gioconda and Carmen, at least, say more to me than anyone else's. That doesn't mean that other singers never handled any arias better than she did, especially during her years of vocal decline when the voice wouldn't do what she clearly wanted it to. I agree that there are technical problems in the "Tu che le vanita" and a few very bad notes. On the other hand, after 4:18 it has great musical and dramatic specificity that summons up the character of Elisabetta and the dark mood of the story in a way that I've not often heard even in singers with more perfect techniques.

Not enough can be demonstrated about Callas's uniqueness through a process of cherry-picking arias and individual notes, which I fear is what you've offered us here. Compare one of her great roles, phrase by phrase, with someone else's interpretation of it. Then we can have a conversation. (Callas, by the way, would have agreed that Ponselle was incomparable, but I find Callas's phrasing of "Casta Diva," at least in some of her performances - there are quite a few - more detailed and expressive than Ponselle's in the above studio recording: )
 
#49 · (Edited)
True. I offered the above as representative examples of my experience of Callas's work compared with what I take to be representative of examples of the other singers, not as conclusive proof by themselves. I own quite a few Callas recordings and have listened to quite a bit of her work. I do find it difficult to listen to complete roles even when I try, however, as the voice is just too often veering into bad places. I was also trying to show with a representative example - apart from any claims about Callas - that beauty of sound is inextricably linked to characterization, interpretation, and drama, contra the earlier comments by a few other members.

It's not so much the occasional flubbed high note. If she had a bad day (or even just a bad tail end of career) that would be one thing. It's that consistently, from early recordings to later recordings, the upper middle and high register is shrill and wobbly. That's a large part of the soprano's range that I have to ignore, especially in the high flying bel canto roles that she is most famous for.

As for that studio Casta Diva, it is better than the one I used above - a bit fresher overall - but the fundamentals are the same. A nice opening with some good long phrases, but the climactic phrase "il sembiante" is actually rather bland and four square and the vibrato and tone problems are still there. I still much prefer Ponselle vocally and musically.
 
#51 ·
The very first opera I ever heard was the Callas/De Sabata Tosca. It pierced me to the very core. I just love the vulnerability of the voice - rough, unpolished...but so full of passion and personality. It's like she transmutes herself into the role, and the character and the singer merge into one. I would urge anyone who hasn't heard or been able to understand her to listen to the aria Casta diva from her recording of Norma. It's a miracle.
 
#57 ·
Yeah, a silly thread.

Callas had her haters and fanboys even when she was still singing.

I think her style and technique were WAY over the top, and I don't like hearing her recordings all that often, BUT I DO appreciate her artistry and influence.

The play MASTER CLASS by Terrence McNally is about her teaching an imaginary Master Class late in her life. It's just her and the accompanist, and then at various times three voice students. I've played the part of the accompanist in two different productions (he also has some dialogue). In between students (and sometimes while a student is onstage) she'll reminisce or rant. The students get to sing a various bits of their song (Verdi, Puccini & Bellini).

It culminates in a monologue about sacrifice taken in the name of art.
 
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