I’ve never heard Maria Callas sing. But I saw it once. In 1971, as a student on my first visit to the United States, I managed to get a backseat seat at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for the premiere performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo, alongside a rising young tenor named Placido Domingo. title role.
Meanwhile, I entered the Met’s ornate foyer. As I stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to the grand floor, I heard applause from above. The crowd parted and down the stairs came an absolutely unmistakable woman whom any opera fan and millions of others would instantly recognize.
Callas was on the arm of Met general manager Rudolf Bing, with whom she had an epic falling out in the 1950s and who is now starting his final season on the job in New York. He passed me at the top of the stairs, almost close enough to touch me. But like everyone else, I was just applauding. I don’t remember much about the opera that night. But I will never forget seeing Callas.
He died six years later in his apartment in Paris, at the age of 53. Today, as we celebrate the centenary of Callas’s birth, she remains for many the unparalleled opera singer of the 20th century. Hers is the most interesting, most exciting, and instantly recognizable of all operatic voices. Her unhappy life has nothing to do with that legacy, and of course there are many great singers to consider, but Callas’s hold on history is justified. He owes everything to two things: first, to the extraordinary vocal and dramatic standards he set and often fulfilled; and second, it was fortunate that his career coincided with the explosion of long-playing records and the full recording of operas.
Few singers before or since have been given such an opportunity. As a result, Callas’ discography is very extensive, including several operas that she has recorded multiple times, some of which she has rescued from obscurity, as well as dozens of live performance recordings (of varying sound quality). To my knowledge there is no video recording of Callas in the full opera, but there are some outstanding excerpts worth tracking down.
Any choice of the sort below is personal and arbitrary, but here are my five entry recommendations.
La Traviata
Violetta in La Traviata is in many ways the perfect Callas role. Verdi’s devotion to his doomed hero is consistently soul-shattering and always fulfilled with complete devotion. There are at least four Callas recordings of La Traviata, all of them beautiful in different ways. The one to have is probably the live recording at La Scala in 1955 under Carlo Maria Giulini. But don’t forget to also look for precious video clips containing precious moments from the 1958 Lisbon live recording.
normal
Even in her decline, it’s one of Callas’ signature roles. In this work, always sung with great mastery, the identification with the nun Norma is so complete that it is often difficult to separate Bellini’s writing for her tragic main character from Callas’ interpretation. As is often the case with Callas, the 1952 Norma, recorded on her Covent Garden debut and directed by Vittorio Gui, finds her at her best voice and sets the recorded standard (there is also a small role for Joan Sutherland, who defines Callas’s Norma). . a slightly later period). Callas can be seen singing Norma’s aria Casta Diva in a recently recolored and re-released video of her 1958 Paris concert of Italian arias under Georges Prêtre.
Toska
Puccini’s 1899 opera is the opera with which Callas is now most often associated. Part of this is due to the modern sentimentalization of Callas as the female opera martyr, a bit like Floria Tosca herself. That’s because there’s a full video of his magnificent second act performance with Tito Gobbi’s incomparable Scarpia at Covent Garden in 1958. Callas also recorded Tosca twice, with the earlier studio version again masterfully directed by Victor de Sabata. at its best.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Based on Walter Scott’s 1819 historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor, Donizetti’s betrayed and traumatized heroine gave Italian opera some of its greatest moments and Callas one of her best roles. He made two studio recordings, but in terms of visceral intensity and direct connection to what was so special about him, Lucia, live in Berlin in 1956 under Herbert von Karajan, has the upper hand. Purists will hate it for its cut and the sound isn’t perfect for the studio, but Callas’ performance is riveting, precise and on another level.
parsifal
Surely there is a mistake? Is Callas singing Wagner? But yes, he did it, and even though he was still in the early years of his career, he performed mesmerizingly well. In those days her repertoire included Brünnhilde in Die Walküre and Isolde in Tristan und Isolde (a special tape of a Genoa performance is said to exist). In her first studio work in 1949, Callas recorded Isolde’s Liebestod in Italian. But the most important exhibition recorded by Callas-Wagner is her Kundry (also in Italian) of the complete recording of Parsifal under Vittorio Gui from Rome in 1950. A performance of the highest order and an important reminder of his artistic range.
And, as an encore, another small but somehow supremely exciting moment from Callas. She never sang the mezzo-soprano role of Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo on stage. By 1962, when she was singing Eboli’s aria O don fatale – O fatal gift – at a concert in Hamburg, and the cameras were there, the damage to her voice became increasingly evident and the vibrato could get out of control. But what a piercing intensity he brings, what a dramatic mastery. This is much more than an ordinary recital or garden recital. You can somehow sense that he knows how flawed his greatness has become. But enduring greatness is equally present in this exciting glimpse into what we still sorely miss today.