Callas in Norma I

With thanks to the reader who brought this clip to my attention, here is what purports to be video of Callas in Norma at the Opéra de Paris in 1965.

I cannot determine to what extent, if at all, the audio and the footage are synchronized; nor is it clear to me that, excepting the curtain call (at c. 6:51), the video actually depicts Callas or conveys any meaningful information about her.

Let’s be honest: These ghostly images have the pathos and the credibility of a séance, shaped less by the agency of the departed than by the needs and desires of those in attendance, we orfanelli callasiani.

In 1949, Callas was a more vocally secure and less fully formed Norma.