Maria Callas

Started by knight66, May 08, 2007, 06:16:02 AM

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matti

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on March 20, 2009, 09:39:01 AM
Actually no I don't. Maybe it's the youtube compression. I have this recording on CD and she doesn't sound flat at all. And, if anything, Callas was a singer who tended to sing on the sharp side of the note, rather than the flat side. We all hear voices differently of course. Jessye Norman often seems flat to me. Ditto Regine Crespin.



If it were the youtube compression, that would regard the orchestra as well, wouldn't it. I listened to the clip again, and I could swear it's flat (and wanting in many aspects as well...)

Re hearing voices differently: Very odd, but true. I also hear Jessye Norman often as being flat.

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: matti on March 20, 2009, 10:04:39 AM
and wanting in many aspects as well...)



Wanting in what aspects exactly? Remembering, of course, that this was a test recording and never meant for release, she sails through the aria as if it is the easiest thing in the world, which of course it isn't. The breath control is prodigious; take, for instance, the way she phrases back into the reprise of "non mi dir". The coloratura is all accurately and cleanly articulated, but never once disturbs her peerless legato line. Furthermore, as always aware of the dramatic situation, she reminds us that (in Michael Scott's words), she is appealing to Don Ottavio, not about to throttle him. I find it one of the most affecting versions of the aria ever committed to disc. I only wish she had performed the whole role back in the early 1950s, when she could have encompassed its demands with consummate ease.

\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

matti

Wanting in delicacy and in phrasing Mozart demands. Matters of preference, of course. I prefer a voice like this for Mozart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAPg4v7SazQ

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: matti on March 20, 2009, 10:54:38 AM
Wanting in delicacy and in phrasing Mozart demands. Matters of preference, of course. I prefer a voice like this for Mozart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAPg4v7SazQ

Preferences vary, it's true, but I really don't see how Callas is wanting in either delicacy or in the phrasing demanded by Mozart. And actually the swifter tempo adopted by Callas and Serafin for the slow section is proabably closer to present day ideas of Mozart performance. I do like this Grummer performance, but Callas's singing of that slow section is every bit as limpid, and the phrasing is even more long breathed - indeed she hardly seems to breathe at all. When it comes to the cabaletta, Callas's voice is actually much more supple, and she sings the grace notes at the beginning, ommitted by Grummer. Not that Grummer is in any way clumsy. She actually gets round the notes with admirable ease, though she does have to slow down for the final flourish, which Callas tosses off as easily as Sutherland did in her 1959 recording for Giulini.

Yet again I find myself agreeing with the eminent critic Michael Scott;

[Callas's] singing causes us to reexamine the music;the most remarkable thing about it is its sense of style. She reminds us that problems of style are not, as is commonly supposed, historic but musical. There is nothing in the least contrived or arty-sounding about it, in the manner of many Mozartians. Her voice is easily produced, her tone perfectly supported, and her phrasing a model. She demonstrates this by her use of upward portameno, always discreetly employed. she chooses appropriate colours within a modest frame to suit the text. We notice here a characteristic of her art; how, although completely unselfconsciously, her voice seems to echo the timbre of the wind instruments in the orchestra, as is appropriate in classical music. She executes all the exacting fioritura impeccably and seems hardly to breathe through the spacious phrasing. Equally remarkable is the breadth of the leisurely rallentando before she embarks on the alegretto, 'Forse un giorno'. Altogether her singing admits of no technical problems;this aria, one of the most demanding ever written, appears not to cost her the slightest effort.

Callas once remarked in her master classes, that Mozart was, in her opinion, sung too delicately, as if the singer were almost performing on tip toe, when it should be sung as openly and cleanly as Verdi, and I feel she has a point. And the revers can often be true also. Certainly, Callas's singing of Leonora's arias from Il Trovatore, is, in a very positive sense, almost Mozartian in its attention to detail and phrasing.


\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

matti

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on March 20, 2009, 11:32:21 AM
Preferences vary, it's true, but I really don't see how Callas is wanting in either delicacy or in the phrasing demanded by Mozart. And actually the swifter tempo adopted by Callas and Serafin for the slow section is proabably closer to present day ideas of Mozart performance. I do like this Grummer performance, but Callas's singing of that slow section is every bit as limpid, and the phrasing is even more long breathed - indeed she hardly seems to breathe at all. When it comes to the cabaletta, Callas's voice is actually much more supple, and she sings the grace notes at the beginning, ommitted by Grummer. Not that Grummer is in any way clumsy. She actually gets round the notes with admirable ease, though she does have to slow down for the final flourish, which Callas tosses off as easily as Sutherland did in her 1959 recording for Giulini.

Yet again I find myself agreeing with the eminent critic Michael Scott;

[Callas's] singing causes us to reexamine the music;the most remarkable thing about it is its sense of style. She reminds us that problems of style are not, as is commonly supposed, historic but musical. There is nothing in the least contrived or arty-sounding about it, in the manner of many Mozartians. Her voice is easily produced, her tone perfectly supported, and her phrasing a model. She demonstrates this by her use of upward portameno, always discreetly employed. she chooses appropriate colours within a modest frame to suit the text. We notice here a characteristic of her art; how, although completely unselfconsciously, her voice seems to echo the timbre of the wind instruments in the orchestra, as is appropriate in classical music. She executes all the exacting fioritura impeccably and seems hardly to breathe through the spacious phrasing. Equally remarkable is the breadth of the leisurely rallentando before she embarks on the alegretto, 'Forse un giorno'. Altogether her singing admits of no technical problems;this aria, one of the most demanding ever written, appears not to cost her the slightest effort.

Callas once remarked in her master classes, that Mozart was, in her opinion, sung too delicately, as if the singer were almost performing on tip toe, when it should be sung as openly and cleanly as Verdi, and I feel she has a point. And the revers can often be true also. Certainly, Callas's singing of Leonora's arias from Il Trovatore, is, in a very positive sense, almost Mozartian in its attention to detail and phrasing.






No point arguing on this matter any longer. Unlike you and Michael Scott, I hear her singing off pitch and that spoils it all for me at the very starting point, plus I do not get her phrasing. I DO like Callas a lot in 19th century rep, I did not mean my criticism to be a rant against her at all. I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: matti on March 20, 2009, 12:02:07 PM
I did not mean my criticism to be a rant against her at all.

Nor did I take it to be one. I'm just puzzled. I was beginning to think my ears were deceiving me, but I've just listened again and still can't hear it as flat. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the voice is a lot darker than those we are used to hearing in Mozart. But, yes, we'll just have to agree to disagree  :)

\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

matti

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on March 20, 2009, 12:15:28 PM
I'm just puzzled. I was beginning to think my ears were deceiving me

I am no authority on purity of pitch! But as you said earlier, you also hear Norman often as flat. I've heard informed people on this forum say Mattila was flat... I don't hear her flat though I'm no fan of hers. So...  ??? ??? ???


Lilas Pastia

My take: I've never warmed to Callas' Anna - either that test pressing or the later versions. She sounds too imposing, not vulnerable enough. I don't detect any sharpness or flatness - just that I prefer a more focussed, diamantine sound: Margaret Price is my ideal. Grümmer is not far behind, but Furtwängler's heavy soup is not my kind of thing. IMO Callas was striking, but strangely inadequate as Anna. She would have killed Giovanni with a single frown.

Sarastro

Quote from: Lilas Pastia on March 20, 2009, 09:55:35 PM
not vulnerable enough.
She would have killed Giovanni with a single frown.

Well, I never heard Donna Anna as vulnerable. If you read the libretto, in the first scene, she sings that she will kill Don Giovanni ("Heaven come to my assistance, I'll pursue thee unto death"), then swears to avenge her father. In her recitavio and aria Or sai che l'honore she sings how anger enforced her to fight the intruder, then she calls for vengeance, and after she announces that Don Ottavio should wait for a year, if I'm not mistaken. And in fact, she is the only strong enough character to confront Don Giovanni's figure in the opera. Elvira is vulnerable, Zerlina is weak, Masetto gets beaten every time, Leporello is a servant, and Ottavio just sings beautiful arias. Only Anna and Commendatore truly pursue Don Giovanni.

Anyhow, I don't like Callas' Non mi dir at all, Konstanze's aria sounds more dramatic and exuberant to me.

Tsaraslondon

#229
Well I am obviously in a minority here. But nothing anyone can say will change my mind. LP says she sounds too imposing, but I don't hear that at all. To my mind, Callas is no more imposing here than she is as Amina or Bellini's Elvira. Nilsson, Tomova-Sintov, Arroyo are, as far as I'm concerned, the singers who sound as if they would have "killed Giovanni with a single frown", and none of them sings it with anything like Callas's accuracy; with her peculiarly plaintive and plangent tone.

Sarastro too has a point. I can't say I've ever thought of Anna as being vulnerable. She is surely one of the strongest characters in the opera, stronger than Ottavio certainly. And, incidentally, LP, my admiration for Margaret Price's more central Donna Anna does not prevent me from enjoying Callas in the aria, though I would prefer not to listen to the later 1963 version.



\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Lilas Pastia

These are obvious elements of Anna's character. But there's still an element of vulnerability in her pride and desire for vengeance. She is not a firebrand or a shrew (Elvira is).  I think that at heart she's an easily hurt soul.

I gues I'll have to re-listen to Callas in the EMI test pressing. The 1963 one is painful to hear but, maybe because of that, the character's anguish comes through. I also like Danco's Anna (the Krips Decca). She is probably the most fiery of the lot. Moser is also a formidable character, vocally awesome - but her colours let us hear the part's underlying plaintiveness.

DarkAngel

Found the Callas 70 CD studio boxset on EBay for $79 including shipping so I took the plunge, for $1 per CD can't go too wrong  ;)

Previously I had several Callas collections and recitals plus a handful of full operas, so this is a huge leap and will take a long time to digest it all, but I have fallen under the spell of la Divina

DarkAngel

#232
People have already mentioned the expensive live Callas performances released by Divina Records, but has anyone looked into the much cheaper versions available from Myto and Naxos?

 

DarkAngel


zamyrabyrd

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on March 20, 2009, 11:32:21 AM

[Callas's] singing causes us to reexamine the music;the most remarkable thing about it is its sense of style. She reminds us that problems of style are not, as is commonly supposed, historic but musical. There is nothing in the least contrived or arty-sounding about it, in the manner of many Mozartians. Her voice is easily produced, her tone perfectly supported, and her phrasing a model. She demonstrates this by her use of upward portameno, always discreetly employed. she chooses appropriate colours within a modest frame to suit the text. We notice here a characteristic of her art; how, although completely unselfconsciously, her voice seems to echo the timbre of the wind instruments in the orchestra, as is appropriate in classical music. She executes all the exacting fioritura impeccably and seems hardly to breathe through the spacious phrasing. Equally remarkable is the breadth of the leisurely rallentando before she embarks on the alegretto, 'Forse un giorno'. Altogether her singing admits of no technical problems;this aria, one of the most demanding ever written, appears not to cost her the slightest effort.


Thanks for the quote. Surely this is not a Mozart coming out of a mold and not what the public has come to expect, the depth of character instead of a stylized "classic" sound. There is ONLY one Bb, the first in a string of upbeats that was little off towards the end of the coloratura section but she recovered on the second note. Everything else is exactly on target, as Callas used to say about "the center of the tone".

This was a test pressing anyway so really it's not fair to go through it with a microscopic tuning apparatus.  Callas, as you say, if anything, tended to be slightly sharp in the highest register but as Marco Rothmuller told me in 1982, this was by design. He said it is more correct acoustically to do so.

ZB
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Tsaraslondon

#235
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on March 25, 2009, 10:07:12 AM
Thanks for the quote. Surely this is not a Mozart coming out of a mold and not what the public has come to expect, the depth of character instead of a stylized "classic" sound. There is ONLY one Bb, the first in a string of upbeats that was little off towards the end of the coloratura section but she recovered on the second note. Everything else is exactly on target, as Callas used to say about "the center of the tone".

This was a test pressing anyway so really it's not fair to go through it with a microscopic tuning apparatus.  Callas, as you say, if anything, tended to be slightly sharp in the highest register but as Marco Rothmuller told me in 1982, this was by design. He said it is more correct acoustically to do so.

ZB

Thanks, ZB. You reiterate one of the points that I was trying to make, that this was a test recording, not intended for release; a simple run through of an aria Callas knew from her student days. This is not a performance in any real sense of the word, but even under such circumstances, Callas is incapable of being dull, a sure sign, if ever there was one, that her musicality was instinctive, rather than studied. This is not to say that she didn't study hard, nor that she didn't learn deeply first from her teacher Elvira De Hidalgo, and then from Tullio Serafin, but without that innate musicality, she would never have been the artist she became.

\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Tsaraslondon

#236
Quote from: DarkAngel on March 22, 2009, 12:54:39 PM
People have already mentioned the expensive live Callas performances released by Divina Records, but has anyone looked into the much cheaper versions available from Myto and Naxos?

 

The Divina records ones are expensive, because of the documentation and the amount of work that goes into finding the best sound source they can. They also try to ensure that all performances play at the same pitch they were being sung on the night. If any of the performance has been lost in transmission, they will say so, sometimes splicing in bits form other performances for continuity (but they will track these bits separately, so you can omit them if you prefer). Altogether they are a labour of love; luxury items and well worth the extra outlay.

The Naxos performance are generally transfers from good LP sources of original EMI recordings. The transfers have been generally well achieved, but unlike EMI, they do not have access to the original masters. Many of these Callas studio recordings are now available on EMI's budget historic series, which retail at the same price as Naxos. I understand that Regis have also started issuing these complete sets, but they are very rough and ready, and in no way to be prefered to EMI or Naxos.

I don't know these Myto transfers. If they are anything like the Myto releases I have had in the past, the transfers will be pretty much ok, but not as good the Divina versions, nor do you get the extensive documentation

\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

DarkAngel

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on March 26, 2009, 03:17:54 AM
The Divina records ones are expensive, because of the documentation and the amount of work that goes into finding the best sound source they can. They also try to ensure that all performances play at the same pitch they were being sung on the night. If any of the performance has been lost in transmission, they will say so, sometimes splicing in bits form other performances for continuity (but they will track these bits separately, so you can omit them if you prefer). Altogether they are a labour of love; luxury items and well worth the extra outlay.

The Naxos performance are generally transfers from good LP sources of original EMI recordings. The transfers have been generally well achieved, but unlike EMI, they do not have access to the original masters. Many of these Callas studio recordings are now available on EMI's budget historic series, which retail at the same price as Naxos. I understand that Regis have also started issuing these complete sets, but they are very rough and ready, and in no way to be prefered to EMI or Naxos.

I don't know these Myto transfers. If they are anything like the Myto releases I have had in the past, the transfers will be pretty much ok, but not as good the Divina versions, nor do you get the extensive documentation



Yes EMI is releasing some Calls operas in thier new budget historical line.......I think they come with reduced booklet info though, becomes confusing all the choices EMI has now. My complete Callas studio boxset arrived from Ebay for $79 total for 70 CDs, will be a long time to work through all these performances.   :D

I did get a couple Myto label versions cheap from Berkshire Records $10, and ordered a couple Naxos versions since they were mastered by Mark Obert Thorn......see how he did with them compared to EMI

DarkAngel

#238
I do have a question about EMI packaging of full price individual Callas operas..............

They use same artwork layout  but comes in three color schemes for background
-black
-dark blue
-medium blue

Does each color represent some distinct performance style or period, seems confusing but they may be a simple logic that escapes me.
The black seems to be studio performances.......

Unfortunately those Divina versions of Callas operas are very hard to find used, that is perhaps a good sign and verifies thier quality

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: DarkAngel on March 26, 2009, 04:39:35 AM
I do have a question about EMI packaging of full price individual Callas operas..............

They use same artwork layout  but comes in three color schemes for background
-black
-dark blue
-medium blue

Does each color represent some distinct performance style or period, seems confusing but they may be a simple logic that escapes me.
The black seems to be studio performances.......

Unfortunately those Divina versions of Callas operas are very hard to find used, that is perhaps a good sign and verifies thier quality


Originally the black EMI pressings were all at full price, and all, except the Lisbon La Traviata, were of studio performances. The blue sets (if there are two different shades, I have a feeling that this might just be the result of different print runs) were all at mid price, and included all the other live sets issued by EMI (ie Anna Bolena, Il Pirata, Macbeth, Ifigenia in Tauride, the Bernstein and Cologne Sonnambulas, , the Berlin Lucia di Lammermoor and the Giulini Traviata), plus studio versions of operas she recorded twice. Confusingly, the first Norma was at full price, the second at mid price, the second Lucia at full price, the first at mid, and the second Tosca was also at mid price. The studio version of Medea, not originally recorded by EMI, but by Ricordi, was also, for some unfathomable reason, issued at mid price. To make things even more confusing, when Naxos started issuing EMI sets from the 1950s at bargain price, they decided to compete by bringing out their own bargain versions of the sets, in completely new digital remasterings, with minimal documentation. More recently many of the sets have become available in EMI's Great Recordings of the Century series, which are all at mid price, and come with complete libretti and notes.

If you have the 70 CD Box, you also get the recordings she made for Cetra, so it is pretty much complete.

The Divina sets are really collector's items, so it is not surprising they are hard to find second hand. So far, I only have their release of the 1955 La Scala Norma, in my view the best performance she ever gave in this role, and therefore worth the outlay. The sound is much clearer than on any other version I have heard, and in fact is easily as good as the Berlin Lucia di Lammermoor, which always enjoyed the best sound of any of the live Callas sets. I am waiting for them to issue the Covent Garden la Traviata, which is, again IMO, the best of her preserved Violettas. I am surprised that this performance hasn't surfaced in the Royal Opera's own Heritage series yet.




\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas