Callas-fan-in-chief II

Readers of this blague already know that President Barack Obama is a Maria Callas fan.

President Obama reiterated his admiration for la Divina in his recent Rolling Stone interview:

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.

The audio selection is the Habañera from Callas’s 1964 recording of Bizet’s Carmen.

Hear Maria Callas in other selections from Carmen.

Callas is Carmen

The publicity campaign for Maria Callas’s 1964 recording of Bizet’s Carmen proclaimed: “Callas is Carmen.”

[In the Seguidilla, Carmen] replies quietly that she is not speaking, but only singing; moreover, she insists that she is not addressing [Don José], but sings for her own pleasure. These are two crucial distinctions José never grasps: that she may be performing rather than interacting and that he may be irrelevant to her utterances rather than their intended target. Narcissistic bourgeois subject that he most fatally is, he believes in the transparency of language and in himself as the perspectival center of his universe. He thus has no defenses against this woman who is a virtuoso of irony, ambiguity, slippage, decentering and multiple discursive practices.
Susan McClary, Carmen (Cambridge Opera Handbook)

Callas in Carmen

The video shows Maria Callas singing music from Bizet’s Carmen at the May 1962 gala held at New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the birthday of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Callas seems to have been in indifferent voice, though it’s hard to be sure given the poor audio quality.

Marilyn Monroe also took part in the gala, at which she famously sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”.

At my re-visioning callas site, there is a photo of Monroe and Callas together along with keen and biting observations by the great Catherine Clément. Please take a moment to view the entire re-visioning callas slideshow.