tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5668513943012398482024-03-13T02:57:43.205-04:00re-visioning callas | Maria Callas by Marion Lignana Rosenbergmlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-48852061878530166132012-01-04T20:11:00.005-05:002012-01-04T20:17:12.644-05:00Main site down<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh05Y1NOqWGVVdZR2vM7bpk-yb0GIZtKjwnmkHy2U_woTCcqpL9uhFKf6t5DpHWfDWkc-O2DghyphenhyphenztjV_IaIlBX4aijE15rZoPvX_jTaHfz2w-qkaWClykjXOPF5KdHXg7EGQgp_6wKOWbuJ/s1600/callas_cucina.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 275px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh05Y1NOqWGVVdZR2vM7bpk-yb0GIZtKjwnmkHy2U_woTCcqpL9uhFKf6t5DpHWfDWkc-O2DghyphenhyphenztjV_IaIlBX4aijE15rZoPvX_jTaHfz2w-qkaWClykjXOPF5KdHXg7EGQgp_6wKOWbuJ/s400/callas_cucina.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693949752822234482" /></a>Dear friends, the main Callas site has succumbed to who knows what, perhaps a winter virus.<br /><br />But there’s plenty of great listening here: <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/bellini">Bellini</a>, <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/verdi">Verdi</a>, and so much more!<br /><br />Why not grab a cuppa and a snack (like the one Callas was pretending to prepare) and explore the archives?<br /><br />Back at you soon.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-28480712628009129592011-09-12T10:39:00.004-04:002011-09-12T10:45:28.682-04:00And the blog goes on<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPR9X7PiEYoCNzqJsTqoXNmDGIejj-go5dU_mlgny3aUQgiFMCNh-UwKYkzXz9RbmmFYJUlDijjI3wYr0QMWZQZFnqshHB-AiL4mM2CbvJrhoV5FS8EXc4GVeBcqJ5JjC9nWNPf4MPLW36/s1600/occhi_medea_150.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPR9X7PiEYoCNzqJsTqoXNmDGIejj-go5dU_mlgny3aUQgiFMCNh-UwKYkzXz9RbmmFYJUlDijjI3wYr0QMWZQZFnqshHB-AiL4mM2CbvJrhoV5FS8EXc4GVeBcqJ5JjC9nWNPf4MPLW36/s400/occhi_medea_150.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651484226596528914" /></a>Darling readers, please be aware that this blog continues at a new address: <a href="http://www.revisioningcallas.com/blog">http://www.revisioningcallas.com/blog</a>.<br /><br />There’s lots of good stuff there, including <a href="http://revisioningcallas.com/callas/?p=388">Maria Callas in jeans</a> and <a href="http://revisioningcallas.com/callas/?p=480">an essay for the anniversary of her death</a>. Please come on by!mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-89527068482428246412011-08-24T10:59:00.001-04:002011-08-24T11:01:02.654-04:00Down, down, down<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhq1nuWcqmJjpaRUja1u2oQ6al1gERXp89cGsy3ETRBGimOmFkB23rWuXbz0NrnegNoteY7cUpq2o3NQ4mTpZ3fRick7hIhyphenhyphen2-rIXH_ak5O-p2QQNnbO0nI1DrP89kls-8SJ7ZrcW9Ikw/s1600/callas_piccola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhq1nuWcqmJjpaRUja1u2oQ6al1gERXp89cGsy3ETRBGimOmFkB23rWuXbz0NrnegNoteY7cUpq2o3NQ4mTpZ3fRick7hIhyphenhyphen2-rIXH_ak5O-p2QQNnbO0nI1DrP89kls-8SJ7ZrcW9Ikw/s1600/callas_piccola.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />Maybe it was the earthquake: <em>mondo marion</em>, <em>Re-visioning Callas</em> (which now lives at http://www.revisioningcallas.com/blog), <em>Verdi Duecento</em>, and my other sites hosted at the same place are all down.
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<br />I’ll let you know when they’re up and running again! *smooch*
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<br />mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-69626826541918297322011-07-29T10:37:00.003-04:002011-07-29T10:39:14.465-04:00New blog<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyucY2uETHSi4sWPS66cSr0I7MJXsgMqPNb7blA42btbsSkRP1JXaC8vHnaCTewh7NMHFky-qNXFJLYicHDA4XrCzfBl4NoRG0yOoM651xWNubGyX7k_AiBPtsKXFz830IN76hhESGl29P/s1600/callas_sorriso.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyucY2uETHSi4sWPS66cSr0I7MJXsgMqPNb7blA42btbsSkRP1JXaC8vHnaCTewh7NMHFky-qNXFJLYicHDA4XrCzfBl4NoRG0yOoM651xWNubGyX7k_AiBPtsKXFz830IN76hhESGl29P/s400/callas_sorriso.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634783561369142882" /></a>Dear friends, please join us at our new digs:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.revisioningcallas.com/blog">http://www.revisioningcallas.com/blog</a><br /><br />Thanks for your visit!mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-45119627037316399532010-12-01T20:03:00.008-05:002010-12-01T20:31:22.497-05:00Χρόνια Πολλά!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBBDlgdJIq8nh0FkAy4zGceb_h5poGoN5pv4jisVHLOONW_qb-GGpJIMdZYk_J9mlp0D7tDFE2YXNtmMk0d0F-IeuiOMOF3WyHaOOtPg0fuUNuMHpyd9sF8DZWf25dt38VhcUsY2tHVVp/s1600/sancta_maria.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBBDlgdJIq8nh0FkAy4zGceb_h5poGoN5pv4jisVHLOONW_qb-GGpJIMdZYk_J9mlp0D7tDFE2YXNtmMk0d0F-IeuiOMOF3WyHaOOtPg0fuUNuMHpyd9sF8DZWf25dt38VhcUsY2tHVVp/s400/sancta_maria.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545884755297591634"></a>Maria Callas was born in New York on 2 December 1923. She went to rest in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on 16 September 1977.<br /><br />In this age of sottish and soulless starlets who pass for divas, Maria Callas still stirs the heart and fires the imagination of those who love opera. <em>She is immortal</em>.<br /><br />Read “<a href="http://www.revisioningcallas.com/rc.html">Re-visioning Callas</a>.” Please also read <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/2010/01/note-i-first-published-this-tribute-to.html">my tribute to Maria Callas on the thirtieth anniversary of her death</a>.<br /><br /><object width="353" height="132"><embed src="http://www.goear.com/files/external.swf?file=36088df" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" quality="high" width="353" height="132"></object>mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-34519869354904041852010-11-24T12:28:00.005-05:002010-11-24T12:43:04.795-05:00Callas in New York<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaXSLf1EpEfB2ieJ6W_bxS7QE4lb4NFMzbgRelvWwWZNw1ENop6H5X2856KUoDPfMLrKi8-0Hq0fAWKo7a5A6F32-qotKDglMEe8fXuttfwHQ5xpimgD2mAQXYcUzgkCrfkqx7jXgXFhiK/s1600/c_warholized.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 395px; height: 395px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaXSLf1EpEfB2ieJ6W_bxS7QE4lb4NFMzbgRelvWwWZNw1ENop6H5X2856KUoDPfMLrKi8-0Hq0fAWKo7a5A6F32-qotKDglMEe8fXuttfwHQ5xpimgD2mAQXYcUzgkCrfkqx7jXgXFhiK/s400/c_warholized.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543169735849743106" /></a><p>The Italian Cultural Institute in New York has announced a Maria Callas exhibit, “<a href="http://www.iicnewyork.esteri.it/IIC_NewYork/webform/SchedaEvento.aspx?id=478&citta=NewYork">A Woman, A Voice, A Myth</a>.” The exhibit is scheduled to open on 2 December, Maria Callas’s birthday. Right now, eight days before 2 December, the ICI offers no information on the time or venue.</p><p>Quoting from the ICI’s website:</p><blockquote>On exhibit shall be the original stage costumes, outfits, jewelry, photographs, and unpublished documents belonging to the unforgettable soprano Maria Callas. The exhibit will be accompanied by archival footage and music.</blockquote><p>I will keep you posted as I learn more. I imagine that this is an iteration of one of the travelling exhibits that have been making the rounds in recent years. In some cases, as <a href="http://la-callas-e-i-falsi.spaces.live.com/">Nina Foresti</a> has observed, costumes that seem to have little or nothing to do with ones that Callas actually wore have been exhibited as “Callas costumes” (select the link and keep scrolling down). I don’t know whether they will be part of this exhibit.</p>mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-53139461628069661222010-11-22T13:36:00.004-05:002010-11-22T14:06:13.051-05:00Callas in Meyerbeer<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="395" height="326" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aCyAFwS6GlI?rel=0" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>Today, 22 November, is the feast of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Cecilia">Saint Cecilia</a>, the patroness of music in several Christian churches. “Cecilia” was one of Maria Callas’s names. By one account, “Sophia Cecilia” were the names on her birth certificate, and “Maria Anna” or “Anna Maria” were added when she was baptized. In her childhood in New York, Callas was known mostly as “Mary.”</p><p>“Ombre légère” from Meyerbeer’s <em>Dinorah</em>, which Callas always sung in Italian, was part of her concert repertoire from 1949 to 1957. She often programmed it in conjunction with dramatic arias, to showcase her versatility. It’s silly music, but Callas sings it with her customary fierce exactitude, and its intricacy and sparkle somehow seem appropriate for a feast day. This version is from Callas’s 1954 <em>Lyric and Coloratura Arias</em> recital for EMI. Tullio Serafin leads the Philharmonia Orchestra.</p>mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-50985781736100737602010-11-17T13:27:00.004-05:002010-11-17T13:53:29.981-05:00Callas in Ballo III<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="395" height="326" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/N6sZdI4UA0g?rel=0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />At <em>Verdi Duecento</em>, I posted some <a href="http://verdiduecento.com/index.php/2010/11/baldini/">very interesting comments by Gabriele Baldini about <em>Un ballo in maschera</a></em>.<br /><br />My thoughts naturally turned to Maria Callas, and I decided to revisit one of her “late” (post-Meneghini) recordings: Amelia’s Act III aria, “Morrò, ma prima in grazia,” from <em>Ballo</em>. Nicola Rescigno conducts, and the recording was made in April 1964.<br /><br />I have two thoughts about this recording. First, if it is true, as some claim, that <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/omero%20lengrini">a “secret son” of Callas and Onassis</a> died only three years before, then recording this aria must have been extremely trying for Callas.<blockquote><em>I shall die, but first grant me the grace of pressing my only son to my breast. And if you deny this last favor to your wife, do not deny it to the pleas of my maternal heart. I shall die, but let his kisses console (the torment) inside me, now that the last of my fleeting hours has come. His hand will reach out over the eyes of his mother, killed by his father, whom he shall never see again</em>!</blockquote>Second, Callas is in <em>splendid</em> voice. Her tone is drenched in sadness, and her phrasing, while eloquent, seems so natural and inevitable.<br /><br />I do have my doubts about the very last <em>sovracuto</em>. (Does anyone else find that it sounds spliced in?).<br /><br />Still, what a pity that Callas would withdraw from the stage about a year later, and that her pride would not allow her to go on singing if she was no longer mistress of Norma, the most cruelly taxing of rôles.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-63002895440850479482010-11-17T12:31:00.002-05:002010-11-17T12:39:01.034-05:00I’m not dead yet!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYdJCL9KYRF1nxSGUlGveBWMzpi1YjmkHinRI1t_uCd-LOgH0oJMdKWuunmVAybOoZm1bZAOAri0BeVxiB3ZmK7MHc2hGvzxhnMjUynBWJ_w4D4QErNhS4V97fnYvAS9KXv-gKkaZH4Co2/s1600/callas_ballo2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 211px; height: 360px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYdJCL9KYRF1nxSGUlGveBWMzpi1YjmkHinRI1t_uCd-LOgH0oJMdKWuunmVAybOoZm1bZAOAri0BeVxiB3ZmK7MHc2hGvzxhnMjUynBWJ_w4D4QErNhS4V97fnYvAS9KXv-gKkaZH4Co2/s400/callas_ballo2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540572889994113714" /></a><br />Dear friends, I am sorry that it has been so quiet around here! I have been busy readying the launch of <em><a href="http://www.verdiduecento.com/">Verdi Duecento</a></em>. My intent is for <em>Verdi Duecento</em> be <em>the</em> English-language online hub for Verdi’s two-hundredth birthday, which is coming up in 2013.<br /><br />(<a href="http://www.verdiduecento.com/">Please visit the site</a>, and let me know what you think! I worked so hard on adapting the code and the design that I made myself a zombie. That said, I think that <em>Re-visioning Callas</em> will migrate to WordPress later this year.)<br /><br />I will be back later today with a post about Maria Callas! Thank you for your patience!mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-12282896160651144832010-10-26T11:54:00.006-04:002010-10-26T12:21:17.923-04:00Callas in Parsifal II<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DlqHb7hN8yU?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DlqHb7hN8yU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />Yesterday we heard “canonical” Callas, in Bellini; today we turn to “marginal” Callas. (Does such a thing exist?)<br /><br />Maria Callas sang the rôle of Kundry in Wagner’s <em>Parsifal</em> only five times, in 1949 and 1950. One chronicler says that she was to have sung it at La Scala in 1956 instead of Giordano’s <em>Fedora</em>.<br /><br />Kundry seems to me a rôle that Callas could have sung comfortably into the 1960s, one that might have been a plausible comeback vehicle even as late as the 1970s (when she had reportedly signed on to sing Charlotte in Massenet’s <em>Werther</em> at the Opéra de Paris). One sticking point, I suspect, is that the opera is called <em>Parisifal</em>, not <em>Kundry</em>, though Parisfal is a cipher and Kundry is the character who draws us—well, draws <em>me</em>—to this opera. Another is that, by the 1960s and 1970s, the tradition of singing opera in the audience’s <i>lingua franca</i> and not in the work’s “original” language had been lost.<br /><br />In <em>The Newly Born Woman</em> by Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément, we read of Kundry:<blockquote>We learn that she has been damned ever since, in a mythical time, she laughed at Christ’s passage—accursed laughter that she will carry within her until the end of time. She is the feminine counterpart of the Wandering Jew, assigned by Klingsor to the young Parsifal in order to seduce him. She thinks she will succeed in this by speaking the name of his mother, but the other’s chastity prevents their coming together and permits him to “save” Kundry at the moment of the spell of Good Friday… She is the madwoman who names, who names the mother; she is also the laugh that disperses, that is the symbol of sexuality whose act is what is forbidden in this opera. It is also she who wounded Amfortas; her laugh keeps a wide gash bleeding…</blockquote>Have you ever heard a sexier-sounding Kundry?<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/wagner">Hear Maria Callas (and Giacinto Prandelli) in other music by Wagner</a>.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-33669096725150567952010-10-25T15:16:00.005-04:002010-10-25T15:37:53.411-04:00Callas sings Bellini II<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vQZxEt6gClY?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vQZxEt6gClY?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />In late 1957, Maria Callas sang a concert at the Dallas Civic Opera that included arias from Mozart’s <em>Die Entführung aus dem Serail</em>, Bellini’s <em>I puritani</em>, Verdi’s <em>Macbeth</em> and <em>La traviata</em>, and Donizetti’s <em>Anna Bolena</em>.<br /><br />Many claim that Callas’s voice was in precipitous decline in 1957, but neither her hair-raising Dallas program nor her supple, easy singing therein support that claim. The Dallas concert itself was not recorded, but the rehearsal was, and she sang the <em>Puritani</em> mad scene with her customary pathos and flair (the downward runs in particular sounding like cascades of diamonds). What’s more, she ended the scene with a <em>huge</em> high E-flat.<br /><br />Her singing here—with a trusted colleague and friend, Nicola Rescigno, and without the pressure of a “gala” audience—to me suggests that Tito Gobbi was perhaps right. He opined that Callas, “desperately nervous” and a “vulnerable, lonely, elusive” creature, never lost her <em>voice</em> but lost her <em>nerve</em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/bellini">Hear Maria Callas in other music by Bellini</a>.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-58413459986490799642010-10-12T14:59:00.011-04:002010-10-12T15:40:51.645-04:00Joan Sutherland, 1926 – 2010<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3jo4mFngwwg?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3jo4mFngwwg?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />With all due respect for her as a human being and as a singer who, in one way or another, contributed to the so-called “<em>bel canto</em> revival,” the late Dame Joan Sutherland has never been an artist dear to my heart—this despite the fact that <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/michaelwhite/100047946/dame-joan-sutherland-the-knitting-diva/">she was a knitter</a>.<br /><br />I own only two recordings by Joan Sutherland: The Decca <em>Turandot</em> conducted by Zubin Mehta, and the EMI <em>Don Giovanni</em> led by Carlo Maria Giulini. That neither is conducted by Sutherland’s husband, Sir Richard Bonynge, is not a coincidence.<br /><br />Sutherland’s studio-only Turandot is a staggering achievement. No one—not Nilsson, not Turner, certainly not Callas—sings this music with greater ease. In fact, no one else sings Turandot with ease, period. Sutherland, instead, seems to possess limitless reserves of power. The pearly brightness of her sound is that of the moon, with which Turandot is so strongly identified, and it gives her <em>principessa</em> an otherworldly mystique. Her capitulation to Calaf, too, is beautifully and movingly sung.<br /><br /><object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/j9aZd0HA65g?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/j9aZd0HA65g?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />(<em>Oh, Alfano</em>! <em>And poor Puccini</em>! <em>But I digress</em>.)<br /><br />In his recollection (more precisely, character assassination) of Maria Callas, the EMI producer Walter Legge recalled:<blockquote>[S]he flew into London for the dress rehearsal of Sutherland’s <em>Lucia</em>, insisted we sit with her, had herself photographed with the new prima donna, and then took us off to lunch. Seated, she stated: “She will have a great success tomorrow and make a big career if she can keep it up. But only we know how much greater I am.”</blockquote>I think that Callas was correct.<br /><br />As a young singer, Joan Sutherland undertook small rôles in operas starring Maria Callas: Clotilde to Callas’s Norma and the <em>sacerdotessa</em> to <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/2010/10/maria-callas-as-aida.html">Callas’s Aida</a>. When Joan Sutherland sang alongside Maria Callas as part of the 1958 centenary gala of Covent Garden, it was as an emerging star. She was only three years younger than Maria Callas.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-14964999574196629862010-10-08T11:51:00.003-04:002010-10-08T12:01:06.830-04:00Callas in Ballo II<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TRLhzXv1k5Q?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TRLhzXv1k5Q?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />Some months ago I posted <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/2010/05/callas-in-ballo-i.html">an excerpt from Verdi’s <em>Un ballo in maschera</em></a>, the opera in which Maria Callas opened the 1957-58 La Scala season. As I indicated then, this triumphant <i>Ballo</i> came at a time when Callas’s career was beginning to unravel, though she was in superlative form during the <em>Ballo</em> run.<br /><br />Today, as part of Verdi’s birthday week, I offer you a trio from that same <em>Ballo</em>, which was conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni. In truth, this particular moment in the performance is a bit shambolic, with a few false entries and the like, but it is white-hot and <em>very</em> exciting.<br /><br />Along with Maria Callas as Amelia, the selection features Giuseppe di Stefano as Riccardo and Ettore Bastianini as Renato.<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/verdi">Hear Maria Callas in other music by Verdi</a>.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-33022678107618558922010-10-07T11:51:00.005-04:002010-10-07T12:23:32.252-04:00Maria Callas dada<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P6tUZBe9kco?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P6tUZBe9kco?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />This video by Richard Move features Barbie and Ken “acting out” dialogue from the Italian-language voice track of Pier Pasolini’s film <em>Medea</em>, which starred Maria Callas.<br /><br />The video was shown at the University of California, Irvine, as part of an exhibition curated by Martha Gever, <em>VIDEO DADA</em>. <a href="http://www.arts.uci.edu/content/video-dada">From the UCI website</a>:<blockquote>…VIDEO DADA surveys the Internet’s amalgamation of popular culture and art, calling into question the difference between the two.</blockquote>I am drunk with fatigue today and half convinced that this is a hallucination born of too little sleep.<br /><br />Besides, <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/2010/01/note-i-first-published-this-tribute-to.html">I would have Barbie “play” Anna Netrebko</a>.<br /><br />Happy viewing! <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/pasolini">Read more about Maria Callas and Pier Paolo Pasolini</a>.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-41321537777624019522010-10-06T12:31:00.003-04:002010-10-06T12:46:22.942-04:00Callas a mari usque ad mare<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDnRKB4xsxSXqMG11VQlbTGPUkIA9ezzMqZY6963gDK9-kXSf2Huilir6CxZG3sj3RgeorPFzJh3lVyK4bfQ6guJPX4myf_pMRs8Uz_Pzql-zdrj14r3zul1ix3HvPOyVxBZ5ZFSO0ZQ9H/s1600/callas_sea.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 235px; height: 390px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDnRKB4xsxSXqMG11VQlbTGPUkIA9ezzMqZY6963gDK9-kXSf2Huilir6CxZG3sj3RgeorPFzJh3lVyK4bfQ6guJPX4myf_pMRs8Uz_Pzql-zdrj14r3zul1ix3HvPOyVxBZ5ZFSO0ZQ9H/s400/callas_sea.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524973970063799714" /></a><br />The 500 most recent visitors to <em>Re-visioning Callas</em> represent all of the continents!<blockquote>Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia (<em>HI ESTONIA</em>!), Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, Venezuela</blockquote>Thank you for your support, and <em>viva la Divina</em>!mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-87753736242852298652010-10-06T11:14:00.013-04:002010-10-06T11:50:05.622-04:00Maria Callas as Aida<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uHuAEpzGBH4?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uHuAEpzGBH4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />Giuseppe Verdi’s <em>Aida</em> left Maria Callas’s stage repertoire in 1953, but it was an important opera for her during the early part of her career.<br /><br />As a student and young professional in Athens, Callas frequently sang Aida’s arias, "Ritorna vincitor!" and "O patria mia." She offered music from <em>Aida</em> at her La Scala audition in 1947 and first sang in the house (albeit not as an official member of the company) in <em>Aida</em> in 1950. All told, she portrayed Aida some three dozen times and on three continents between 1948 and 1953 and also made a complete recording of the opera for EMI in 1955.<br /><br />The opera’s final scene, today’s selection for Verdi’s birthday week, comes from a 1953 Covent Garden performance, part of Callas’s second-to-last run of <em>Aida</em>. While Kurt Baum is a coarse Radames, the rest of the company could hardly be bettered, with Sir John Barbirolli conducting and Giulietta Simionato as Amneris. (Incidentally, the <em>sacerdotessa</em> in this <em>Aida</em> run was the young Joan Sutherland.)<br /><br />The recorded sound is dim and distorted, but Callas’s singing is ecstatically beautiful—dreamy, gentle, and death-besotted in the scene’s opening phrases, in which she makes exquisite use of <em>portamento</em>. To my mind, her performance here equals and, perhaps, surpasses <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn66oVy3jQU">the legendary Ponselle/Martinelli recording of this duet</a>.<br /><br />(Since it is Verdi’s birthday week, listen also to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGLJ2fPxyQU">the version of this scene by Aureliano Pertile, Dusolina Giannini, and Irene Minghini-Cataneo under Carlo Sabajno</a>.)<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/verdi">Hear Maria Callas in other music by Verdi</a>, and <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/simionato">hear additional selections with Giulietta Simionato</a>.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-74416874398110312052010-10-05T10:15:00.019-04:002010-10-05T10:49:49.196-04:00Callas in Don Carlo<object width="395" height="238"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fI7-KAVoLmo?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fI7-KAVoLmo?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="238"></embed></object><br /><br />Maria Callas sang the rôle of Elisabeth in Verdi’s <em>Don Carlos</em> in a single run of performances at La Scala in 1954. Well, more precisely, she sang the rôle of Elisabetta in <em>Don Carlo</em>, though I have no information about the particular edition performed at La Scala beyond the fact that it was in Italian.<br /><br />She had been scheduled to portray Elisabetta on two other occasions in the early 1950s but cancelled because of illness. (In those years, a Callas cancellation was not automatically a “scandal.”)<br /><br />“Tu che le vanità” remained a staple in her concert repertoire. She sang it frequently in her 1959 tour and also in her sad “comeback” tour with di Stefano in 1973–74. She also recorded it for EMI under Nicola Rescigno in 1958, the performance I offer you today.<br /><br />Verdi’s music is at its darkest and most brooding in <em>Don Carlo</em>, now recognized as a supreme masterpiece, but still something of a rarity in the 1950s. Callas’s tone occasionally turns watery (EMI’s brutally close miking doesn’t help), but she makes a grandiose whole of this varied and episodic <em>scena</em>. For all of Elisabetta’s nobility, Callas allows us to hear the young, once hopeful woman now crushed beneath the weight of court intrigues and dynastic politics.<br /><br />At “la pace dell’avel,” Callas’s Elisabetta looks deep into the abyss, and we along with her.<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/verdi">Hear Maria Callas in other music by Verdi</a>.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-59162830786251574042010-10-04T11:02:00.005-04:002010-10-04T11:55:42.150-04:00Maria Callas sings Verdi<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nb3SM95uyQ8?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nb3SM95uyQ8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />On Saturday, 9 October, Giuseppe Verdi turns 197 years young. (Actually, it seems that he was born on 10 October but, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=kb9gk11MAAIC&lpg=PR1&dq=conati%2C%20marcello&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=9%20ottobre&f=false">as Marcello Conati reports</a>, Verdi himself always celebrated his birthday on 9 October.) This week’s posts, then, will be devoted to music by Verdi.<br /><br />Maria Callas scored an historic triumph in Verdi’s <em>Macbeth</em> at La Scala in 1952 but never again sang the rôle of Lady Macbeth. About two years earlier, she had sung an audition for Toscanini for a <em>Macbeth</em> that was to have been staged in Busseto, but because of the maestro’s great age and fragile health, that production never came to be. (Some say, though, that Toscanini’s admiration for Callas finally led Antonio Ghiringhelli to offer her a proper contract at La Scala.)<br /><br /><em>Macbeth</em> was also at the center of two Callas “scandals” of the late 1950s: The dispute with Rudolf Bing that eventually led to his firing her from the Met; and her troubles with Kurt Herbert Adler and the San Francisco Opera. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scottish_play">The supposed <em>Macbeth</em> curse</a> does seem to have pursued Callas!<br /><br />Maria Callas recorded Lady Macbeth’s three great scenes under Nicola Rescigno in 1958, and they are among her finest recordings. Lady Macbeth’s entry in 1958 is less monumental in terms of vocal tone, perhaps, than the 1952 Scala pirate, but it is fiercer, with lashing attacks and a more propulsive quality than Callas had mustered earlier.<br /><br />Some of the credit for this must go to Nicola Rescigno. <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/2010/08/callas-in-verdi-ernani.html">I’ve said it before</a>: He was a much underrated maestro, not at the level of a Muti or a Toscanini (who is?), but a sensitive and honorable musician.<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/verdi">Hear Maria Callas in other music by Verdi</a>, including video of this same aria sung in concert.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-9340597049763931562010-09-30T09:08:00.005-04:002010-09-30T09:21:20.081-04:00Callas-fan-in-chief II<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_JWGdqFLm5g-2bt670lZq8Flk6JLCUw0I8oKPgQ5YG8zUu8QVSJJo40hcLuYNUzhOb4TEWWVx-qMx6OwCF6LNHGtWSsV5YfyFmCnyRfh_wYohes2y3WITugrG5Xbk_3uEjrfIIUVmQ7b/s1600/prez_barack.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 350px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_JWGdqFLm5g-2bt670lZq8Flk6JLCUw0I8oKPgQ5YG8zUu8QVSJJo40hcLuYNUzhOb4TEWWVx-qMx6OwCF6LNHGtWSsV5YfyFmCnyRfh_wYohes2y3WITugrG5Xbk_3uEjrfIIUVmQ7b/s400/prez_barack.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522693781825327090" /></a>Readers of this <em>blague</em> already know that <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search?q=obama">President Barack Obama is a Maria Callas fan</a>.<br /><br />President Obama reiterated his admiration for <em>la Divina</em> in<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/209395?RS_show_page=0"> his recent </a><em><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/209395?RS_show_page=0">Rolling Stone</a></em><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/209395?RS_show_page=0"> interview</a>:<blockquote>I’m not a big opera buff in terms of going to opera, but there are days where Maria Callas is exactly what I need.</blockquote>The audio selection is the Habañera from Callas’s 1964 recording of Bizet’s <em>Carmen</em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/carmen">Hear Maria Callas in other selections from </a><em><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/carmen">Carmen</a></em>.<br /><br /><object width="353" height="132"><embed src="http://www.goear.com/files/external.swf?file=925b6a6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" quality="high" width="353" height="132"></embed></object>mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-51350981014598255912010-09-29T16:40:00.007-04:002010-09-29T17:04:34.650-04:00Callas and Fiorilla IV<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/edu4R_D4XzQ?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/edu4R_D4XzQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />Mr. Karl H. van Zoggel, editor of <a href="http://www.callasintclub.com/magazine.htm">Maria Callas Magazine</a>, published by <a href="http://www.callasintclub.com/">the Maria Callas International Club</a>, kindly shared with me a recent issue. It includes original articles, interview transcriptions, reminiscences by readers, and a number of rare photos.<br /><br />One reader, a Peter S., shared these remarks about Callas:<blockquote>For me, her funniest recorded moment… comes <a href="http://www.librettidopera.it/turcoi/a_01.html#N8">about halfway through [Rossini’s] <em>Il turco in Italia</em></a> when Fiorilla, being upbraided by her furious husband for her outrageous behaviour, uses what can best be described as “fake weeping” in order to bring him back into line (<em>Mia vita, mio tesoro…</em>). She succeeds, of course.</blockquote>Mr. S. is quite right: This <em>is</em> one of Callas’s great moments on disc, often overlooked for several reasons—the (relative) rarity of the opera, the shredded edition used for the recording (unacceptable by today’s standards), and the fact that we tend to associate Callas with tragedy and comedy.<br /><br />Listen closely, and enjoy!<br /><br /><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/rossini">Hear Maria Callas in other music by Rossini</a>.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-32569258015849208622010-09-27T14:07:00.006-04:002010-09-27T15:09:09.223-04:00Maria Callas ailleurs<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6r_iB6jNYd8yiLFoKcWQ-V7DmyA2s-If7turweOnvtnrRnf5bWIFhX6jJ2hAUZAHORsmiVgYqQrh7mx-ai7g4Hxi3L-8JHHe9lRKgPqcKN6CjkGeYahIl8mqzJr0MyJDXhVtvEGsSyjd/s1600/c_parigi.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 216px; height: 216px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6r_iB6jNYd8yiLFoKcWQ-V7DmyA2s-If7turweOnvtnrRnf5bWIFhX6jJ2hAUZAHORsmiVgYqQrh7mx-ai7g4Hxi3L-8JHHe9lRKgPqcKN6CjkGeYahIl8mqzJr0MyJDXhVtvEGsSyjd/s400/c_parigi.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521657300638222482" /></a><br />My learnèd and elegant friend <a href="http://amfortas.splinder.com/">Paolo Bullo</a> wrote <a href="http://amfortas.splinder.com/post/23316439/maria-callas-poche-parole">a beautiful post</a> to honor the anniversary of Maria Callas’s birth into eternal life.<br /><br />Se leggete l’italiano, <a href="http://amfortas.splinder.com/post/23316439/maria-callas-poche-parole">andate direttamente al blog di Paolo</a>. (Attenzione, però: Paolo è una persona squisita ma, a quanto pare, alquanto sàdica in materia di tipografia, almeno nei confronti delle persone, come la sottoscritta, <em>di età veneranda</em>. ☺)<br /><br />If English is easier for you, my quick-and-dirty translation follows.<blockquote>For a poor soul like me, it is hard to find the right words to recall Maria Callas today, on the thirty-third anniversary of her death.<br /><br />Who knows, too, whether poor Callas would have wanted to be recalled by me. I rather doubt it.<br /><br />On the grounds of manifest incompetence, then, I willingly abstain from swelling the river of words that always overflows on these occasions. Instead, I shall quote her teacher, Elvira de Hidalgo, who described her first meeting with the 15-year-old Sofia Anna Maria Cecilia Kalageropoulos, not yet Maria Callas.<br /><br /><em>Without a word of warning, Maria began to sing. To speak of this now may bring a smile, because we know now who Maria Callas is, but I discovered it then, at that moment.<br /><br />I suddenly found myself alert, tense.<br /><br />For years, in secret, I had been waiting for that voice—no, I had been</em> seeking <em>it.<br /><br />It was a meeting destined to happen. I closed my eyes. I heard a violent, riotous cascade of sounds, uncontrolled, but dramatic and moving.</em><br /><br />And I close with beautiful remarks by Leonardo Bragaglia from the preface of the most recent edition of his book on Maria Callas, <em>L’arte dello stupore</em>.<br /><br /><em>Maria Callas’s destiny was unique. Audiences showered praise upon her. She was put on a pedestal by critics both qualified and censorious. The greatest conductors and stage directors respected her, but she was insulted by the charlatans of the illustrated magazines, by pens-for-hire!<br /><br />All of us, music lovers and musicologists, performers and spectators, remain bewildered and embittered by this. We, too, are insulted.</em><br /><br />I adore <a href="http://files.splinder.com/93597a28df2664f96fe222970d90c471_medium.jpg">this photo</a>, because I see in it so much humanity and so little rhetoric.</blockquote>A reader by the very interesting name of <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/nina%20foresti">Nina Foresti</a> kindly brought to my attention the <a href="http://sites.google.com/a/callas-international-archive.com/www/">Official Maria Callas International Archive</a>.<br /><br />In terms of look and feel, the site is a real blast from the past (<em>party like it’s 1999, kids</em>!), but it contains much interesting material. I commend it to you warmly, though I have barely begun exploring it myself.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-88167691758086827502010-09-27T09:17:00.003-04:002010-09-27T09:29:47.260-04:00Callas in Los Angeles<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KxZRMispInk?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KxZRMispInk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />A relatively recent addition to the Callas legacy is her November 1958 Los Angeles concert under Nicola Rescigno.<br /><br />The program included arias by Thomas, Boito, Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, and “Tu che invoco” from Spontini’s <em>La vestale</em>, the opera with which Callas had opened the 1954-55 La Scala season.<br /><br />While this selection from the Los Angeles concert has the usual problems of distortion and muffled sound that one hears in “live” recordings of the era, it is very interesting because it documents Callas in impressive voice and gives an idea of what her voice sounded like in the theatre, with “air” around it. Unfortunately, she does end the Spontini scene with a high note that is ugly as both vocalism and music-making.<br /><br />Earlier this year, I posted <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/vestale">other material relating to </a><em><a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/search/label/vestale">La vestale</a></em>, including rehearsal photos and footage from the Scala production.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-47733216870911341492010-09-23T13:08:00.006-04:002010-09-23T13:44:30.288-04:00Callas sings Bellini<object width="395" height="322"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fzzIskhjpuk?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fzzIskhjpuk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="395" height="322"></embed></object><br /><br />Vincenzo Bellini, who died on 23 September 1835, not quite 34 years of age, was by some accounts Maria Callas’s favorite composer.<br /><br />Callas became <em>Callas</em>, if you will, when she performed “Qui la voce” from Bellini’s <em>I puritani</em> for Tullio Serafin in Venice in 1949. He was auditioning her to replace Margherita Carosio, ill with flu, in a run of <em>Puritani</em> due to start in a few days. Serafin reportedly listened to Callas with tears streaming down his cheeks, and then prevailed upon her to learn the rôle of Elvira in less than a week.<br /><br />At the time, Callas was also singing Brünnhilde in Wagner’s <em>Die Walküre</em>. No soprano in recent memory had sung such vocally divergent rôles—though, as Callas herself often observed, notions of vocal category or <em>Fach</em> were extremely elastic in the nineteenth century when these operas were composed.<br /><br />(Indeed, Wagner can be sung properly <em>only</em> by singers with impeccable <em>bel canto</em> schooling. The leathery barking and foghorn declamation that we most often hear today in Wagner represent a betrayal of his music.)<br /><br />Callas’s masterful performance in <em>Puritani</em>, hailed in the Italian and international press, put her on the map as a <em>prima donna assoluta</em>, capable of singing (in theory) any music written for the female voice.<br /><br />She recorded Elvira’s mad scene for Cetra later in 1949. If I had to choose a single recording to represent Callas’s art, I think that it would be this one—a miracle of expression and musicianship, with countless felicities of phrasing, <em>rubato</em>, and <em>portamento</em>.<br /><br />The next time that you hear Bellini’s music, remember that he left this earthly life at a pitifully young age. In 1898, Verdi, normally chary with praise and hyperbole, wrote to the French critic Camille Bellaigue:<blockquote>Bellini, it is true, was poor in harmony and instrumentation, but rich in sentiment and in that melancholy tint that was his alone! Even in his lesser known operas, <em>Straniera</em> and <em>Pirata</em>, there are long, long, long melodies (<em>melodie lunghe lunghe lunghe</em>) that no one wrought before he did… Note, my dear Bellaigue, that I do not intend (G-d forbid!) to pass judgment, only to offer my impressions. You speak with the greatest indulgence of <em>Otello</em> and <em>Falstaff</em>. The author is not complaining…</blockquote>On this anniversary of Belllini’s passage into eternal life, let us hear his music sung by one of its greatest interpreters.mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-55658581562772782742010-09-20T12:02:00.008-04:002010-09-20T12:30:15.706-04:00Maria Callas sings Berlioz<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBATnrAbFCmtCQpPebw9oGVM1v_fzyWOJgYVvySk8PqGk17OJeZSG7Kd_IQ6nywVXjN2b3DiZ2Lf2cQT7LgrNq_yvRjVtnZ3CDVpb8hf3i1BS4_spgSGjZeZxH_tkVO6y5a2NUEVeoo-SU/s1600/mc.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 334px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBATnrAbFCmtCQpPebw9oGVM1v_fzyWOJgYVvySk8PqGk17OJeZSG7Kd_IQ6nywVXjN2b3DiZ2Lf2cQT7LgrNq_yvRjVtnZ3CDVpb8hf3i1BS4_spgSGjZeZxH_tkVO6y5a2NUEVeoo-SU/s400/mc.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519033123996883554" /></a>Admirers of Maria Callas love to play “what if.” What if she had never gone on the July 1959 cruise with Aristotle Onassis? What if Elsa Maxwell, that bird of ill omen, had never arrived on the scene? What if Callas had agreed to sing Carmen, Poppea, Charlotte—all rôles that were offered to her after her withdrawal from the stage?<br /><br />For me, the most painful “what if” is Callas in Berlioz. In 1963, she set down a glorious recording of Marguerite’s “D’amour l’ardente flamme” from <em>La Damnation de Faust</em>. She was not in prime vocal form, but what a feeling she had for Berlioz’s music—the fire smouldering beneath the polished surface, the love for <em>la parole</em>, the sensuality tamed by restraint.<br /><br />To my mind, a great tragedy is that Callas never undertook <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwOFvOili-4">Didon in <em>Les Troyens</em></a>, a rôle that she could have sung well at almost any point of her career (and her retirement), or so it seems to me. And <em>Les Nuits d’été</em>? And <em>La Mort de Cleopâtre</em>?<br /><br />Well, we can be grateful that we have this beautiful recording.<br /><br /><object width="353" height="132"><embed src="http://www.goear.com/files/external.swf?file=f6d500d" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" quality="high" width="353" height="132"></embed></object>mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566851394301239848.post-13410247928361285392010-09-16T08:32:00.003-04:002010-09-16T08:51:17.086-04:0033 ans déjà<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKg43Lml0BmP_eq7Lyi0in7itzEVlCtnLYsHvCLqLBTS7pYT2J7BQ1UgFI6qH1L_i9QR8UqRmdJJzx1FoPxp0XuRZLYzPgap9nGtk_UcMzUQhGd4aal3d_Y_yjcYxmu5uTcPg7XEIOJdEP/s1600/callas_polyeucte.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 287px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKg43Lml0BmP_eq7Lyi0in7itzEVlCtnLYsHvCLqLBTS7pYT2J7BQ1UgFI6qH1L_i9QR8UqRmdJJzx1FoPxp0XuRZLYzPgap9nGtk_UcMzUQhGd4aal3d_Y_yjcYxmu5uTcPg7XEIOJdEP/s400/callas_polyeucte.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517488749547914146" /></a>Today is the birthday into eternal life of Maria Callas. She left this earthly realm on September 16, 1977.<br /><br />I invite you to read <a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/2010/01/note-i-first-published-this-tribute-to.html">my tribute to Maria Callas from 2007</a>.<br /><br />My knowledge of Greek Orthodox practices is more or less nil, but I understand that it is customary to give alms in memory of the dead. Since Maria Callas was devoted to the Theotokos, “<a href="http://revisioningcallas.blogspot.com/2010/06/callas-in-la-forza-del-destino-iv.html">La vergine degli angeli</a>” from Verdi’s <em>La forza del destino</em> seems fitting music and a fitting sentiment with which to remember her.<br /><br />I think, too, that <em>we</em> can say prayers of thanks for the infinite beauty that Maria Callas brought and continues to bring to us.<br /><br /><em>Grazie, Divina</em>!mlrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13781249167262615012noreply@blogger.com1