Callas in Norma III

This is (for now?) the earliest known footage of Maria Callas on stage. It shows her with Franco Corelli, Elena Nicolai, and Boris Christoff in Bellini’s Norma, which opened the season at Trieste’s Teatro Giuseppe Verdi in November 1953. Antonino Votto conducted.

What does the video tell us? First, that production values in provincial, post-war Italy were primitive and, by some feat of anachronistic legerdemain, utterly Monty Python-esque. (Christoff looks very much like the “It’s” man; Flavio and his companions would be right at home in Monty Phython and the Holy Grail; and some of the acting seems to have been inspired by “The Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights“.)

Second, it confirms that Callas, as Augusta Oltrabella famously observed, “was an actress in the expression of the music, and not vice versa.” On its own, as pantomime, Callas’s acting was compelling, yes, but not overwhelming. Compare today’s clip with the rehearsal footage from her 1964 Paris Norma. In both, her gestures and expressions are strong and spare—calculated, of course, for the opera house and not for video or film. I do not see a significant difference in her acting from her “fat,” pre-Visconti days and what came later, though I do hear greater refinement in her singing.

What do you think?

See and hear Maria Callas in other selections from Bellini’s Norma.

Maria Callas sings “Casta diva”

The video shows Maria Callas in the RAI studios of Rome on December 31, 1957, singing her signature aria, “Casta diva” from Bellini’s Norma.

This is roughly 48 hours before the so-called “Rome walkout” that effectively ended Callas’s career in Italy and probably contributed more than anything else to her premature withdrawal from the stage.

(Briefly, I am of the opinion that Callas grew increasingly unable to handle the nervous strain of appearing before a hostile press, and that her dismay at Meneghini’s real or perceived mismanagement of her career contributed in no small part to her leaving him for Aristotle Onassis. This is speculation, based on what evidence we have; and all of the people who could confirm or deny my conjectures are long dead. Yes, Callas was in vocal decline by the late 1950s, but her nervous exhaustion greatly amplified the problems with her voice. This post about Callas’s 1957 Ballo at La Scala allows you to read and hear more about why I believe this.)

Hear Maria Callas in other music by Bellini. (Some of the YouTube clips, alas, have been removed since I linked to them.)

Maria Callas and Cecilia Bartoli

When I last interviewed Cecilia Bartoli, I praised her rendition of “Casta diva,” and she hinted that she might undertake the title rôle in Bellini’s Norma, which is usually assigned to dramatic sopranos these days.

“‘Casta diva’ is a prayer, and the dynamic markings are piano, pianissimo, sotto voce. And since Norma is by Mr. Bellini and not by ‘the tradition,’ I–as an interpreter, as the composer’s servant–simply recorded this aria with a period orchestra and the dynamics that Bellini wrote in his music.”

Bartoli has a point. In the diaphanous playing of Zurich’s Orchestra La Scintilla and the ever-shifting luster and shadings of her voice, one can hear the moonlight and the numinous shimmerings of the forest evoked in Norma’s prayer to the moon goddess.

Would Bartoli ever consider singing the rôle onstage? “It would have to be a Norma not tied to ‘tradition,’ but to the autograph score,” she says. “The orchestras that played in Bellini’s day consisted of 40, 45 musicians. It would be a bel canto Norma–not, let us say, a Wagnerian Norma!”

Cecilia Bartoli sang Norma in concert form last night in Dortmund, with a reprise scheduled for 1 July. My understanding of German does not (yet) allow me to grasp nuances of the reviews, but they seem positive and, in some cases, downright ecstatic.

Google Translator came up with a funny sentence in the Der Westen review: You must overcome the Callas, anyway.

Bartoli, like all performing artists, is self-absorbed. (That is only logical, for without a whopping dose of narcissism, who could undertake such an unforgiving career?) When I interviewed her, she had almost nothing to say about Callas and seemed to think that Callas’s glory days had been the 1960s and 1970s. For Time, Bartoli (or her handlers) wrote a tribute to Callas that consists mostly of bromides.

Nonetheless, I feel that Cecilia Bartoli and Juan Diego Flórez are the two most important heirs of Callas active today. Some scholars excoriate Callas for accepting heavily cut scores and failing to ornament music in an “authentic” manner. (To this I counter: Callas, Serafin, and colleagues were modernists and acted accordingly.) Others, including Rupert Christiansen, argue that the so-called “bel canto” revival grew out of Italian fascism and would have continued without Callas; and that early Ottocento music is hokum, anyway, so who cares? (No need to counter the latter claim: The gentleman’s stupidity speaks for itself.)

Without Callas, can anyone imagine the careers of Bartoli and Flórez, to say nothing of Sutherland, Caballé, Horne, and Sills? Would we have Philip Gossett’s revelatory editions of Verdi and Rossini? (Full disclosure: Philip is a friend.)

When Cecilia Bartoli invokes fidelity to the score and lavishes her musical and expressive genius upon “minor,” forgotten works, she is continuing the work that Maria Callas, Serafin, Luchino Visconti, and their cohorts undertook last century. Her notion of fidelity may differ from Callas’s—and her repertoire and approach certainly owe much to the HIP (historically informed performance) movement—but without Maria Callas, Bartoli’s Dortmund Norma never would have happened.

A coda: In 1957, Maria Callas portrayed Norma in London and sang a very delicate, small-scale “Casta diva” in rehearsal. A colleague complimented her on the approach, and she replied that she considered it the proper way to sing the aria—but that Italian audiences, accustomed to heroic voices, would never stand for it.

In bocca al lupo to Cecilia Bartoli. (In 2006, Bellini brought luck to the Azzurri, but it was Puritani and not Norma. But I digress.) I look forward to reading more about her Norma and to hearing her sing the entire rôle. (Europeans, please let me know if you learn of a webcast!)

Read more about Maria Callas and Norma.

Callas in duet

Off-topic, but bear with me: Lady Gaga and Cathy Berberian. Separated at birth?

A diva with whom Callas was often paired throughout her career is Giulietta Simionato, who turns 100 years young in May. (Cent’anni ancora, Maestra!) With her plush voice, remarkable range, and bold temperament, Simionato was a worthy partner to Callas onstage and a sisterly friend to her offstage.

On December 7, 1955, both Callas and Simionato were in blazing form as they opened the La Scala season in Bellini’s Norma—still recalled as one of the greatest nights in that illustrious theatre’s history.

Listen and say a prayer of thanks.

Silent Callas

These clips show Maria Callas’s curtain calls during and after Tosca and Norma, c. 1965. I suspect that they may be removed from YouTube before long, so view them while you can.

Update: The owner of this material has advised me that he has no intention of removing it from YouTube.

The first clip is silent, while the second has audio added.



There is a wonderful book by Paul Fryer, The Opera Singer and the Silent Film, which explores how Caruso, Chaliapin, and other singers, oddly, helped to establish silent cinema as a popular medium.

The silence in the first clip of Callas is an accident. Yet how much silent footage of Callas has survived—along with, yes, dozens of audio recordings shorn of visuals, which constitute, as Jürgen Kesting puts it, a “theatre of the imagination.”

Of course, these clips show us Callas as “Callas”—in some twilight world of identity, somewhere between “Callas” the public figure, Maria the woman, and the characters she was portraying.

Callas sings Bellini and Puccini

Update: As I suspected when I first posted this video, it was removed from YouTube. Dommage !


With thanks to Aprile Millo, who shared this link on Facebook, here are previously unknown-to-me snippets of Callas singing “Casta diva” from Norma and “Sì, mi chiamano Mimì” from La bohème.

The second clip is from 1959 or later, but I do not know the precise occasion on which these were filmed. I will continue my investigation, and reader comments are most welcome!

Callas in Norma II

Towards the end of this reportage, at c. 7:30, you will find what is probably the most important footage of Callas in staged opera apart from the two versions of Tosca Act II.

The director Sandro Sequi, who studied dancing with Clotilde and Alexandre Sakharoff (himself a student of Isadora Duncan), saw Sakharoff’s methods reflected in Callas’s movements on stage.

This alternation of tension and relaxation can exert an incredible hold over the public. I believe this was the key to Callas’s magnetism, why her singing and acting were so compelling. Think of the movements of her arms in the Mad Scene of Lucia. They were like the wings of a great eagle, a marvelous bird. When they went up, and she often moved them very slowly, they seemed heavy—not heavy like a dancer’s arms, but weighted. Then, she reached the climax of a musical phrase, her arms relaxed and flowed into the next gesture, until she reached a new musical peak, and then again calm. There was a continuous line to her singing and movements, which were really very simple.

Callas and Rufus Wainwright I

I think Callas sang a lovely Norma,
you prefer Robeson in “Deep River.”
I may not be so manly,
but still I know you love me…
Rufus Wainwright, “Beauty Mark”
Rufus Wainwright, whose opera Prima Donna was inspired in part by Maria Callas, addresses these lines to his folkie mother Kate McGarrigle. “Beauty Mark” is from his 1998 début album, Rufus Wainwright. McGarrigle died in January 2010, and Wainwright published a fierce and moving tribute to her.

Over the years, Wainwright alluded to differences of style and taste between himself and his crunchy, flower-child mom, exemplified here by Callas and Bellini (precious, foofy, arcane) versus Paul Robeson and spirituals (engagé, “of the people”). Well, the dichotomy, in some ways, is false—but I digress.

The avowed contrasts between McGarrigle and Wainwright made it all the more touching to see her performing with him (for example, during his Carnegie Hall Judy Garland program) and lustily cheering him on (at New York City Opera’s 2005 Opera-For-All Gala and elsewhere).

Maria Callas never knew a mother’s unconditional love. How lucky for Wainwright (and for those of us who admire him) that McGarrigle nurtured her son’s unique talents and empowered him to pursue his own path.

Rest in peace, Kate, and thank you for leaving us your own important body of work as well as two beautiful musicians (Rufus and sister Martha).

Callas and Martha Graham

She is for me exciting and deeply moving—Her sense of design, her never-failing animal-like absorption in the instant—that spiral of inner activity which is rare and devastating to watch—the precious calculation of her appearance and the fact that she has an innate courtesy to her audience which makes her wear her costumes for their pleasure…
Martha Graham after seeing Callas in Norma (1956)

The images are taken from the 1961 or 1962 Medea footage from La Scala.

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.