Maria Callas

[DarkAngel]

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.

That makes some sense, that all the blue shades of artwork background were meant to be the same series just some variation in production.
So we can really think of them as just black series and blue series

Also just wanted to mention that the Callas 100 recent release is a great bargain, 6 Cds for $14.
Organized by composer for each CD........many many Callas collections out there but this is a great value

[zamyrabyrd]

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.

Tsaras, I was thinking about your comment "innate musicality" and surely Callas had more than ample reserves to draw upon. But this would not be enough for a singer, as any instrumentalist can have "musicality" and not have a clue how to apply it to singing. Some teachers of mine talked about "singing intelligence" which probably had to do with connecting up the words to the music so the two become seamless, even though in composition they may have been haphazardly put together (the music written first and then the libretto or vice versa).

So it is not only language, the ability to color and project the meaning but also character. Callas, as an actress, had the uncanny ability to dive deeply into the character she was playing and proceed as that persona would have expressed her emotions in singing. I really don't know of too many singers who have been that committed and of course were able to come up with such results. Claudia Muzio comes to mind. Mary Garden, although reputedly less of an accomplished singer, was supposed to be that kind of singing-actress.

ZB

[DarkAngel]

Very cheap used Callas books at Amazon worth getting:



Large hardbound book with 544 pages for $2, great source of photos BW and color, a coffe table art book. (have not read text yet)





Large paperback with 264 pages for $1.50, gives performance review/insights to all easily found Callas performances (including supporting cast).
Great guide for collectors looking for the ultimate Callas versions to buy 

[Tsaraslondon]

Unsurprisingly, I have them both. The Ardoin is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Callas, and is a huge help when sifting through the various different live performances available.

[DarkAngel]

Tsaraslondon 
My Callas collection is rapidly growing thanks to this thread.............

[knight66]

But, are you listening to it? If so, could you give us some insights?

Mike

[DarkAngel]

But, are you listening to it? If so, could you give us some insights?
Mike

That is my intention of posting here...............but it will take many weeks, months to begin to absorb all this material.
I need to become more familiar with it to make some useful comments and comparisons, and am starting with minimal background in opera in general mostly aria and recital Cds, although I have a very large classical music overall collection of several thousand Cds

I intend to ask Tsaraslondon many questions as I proceed, if he doesn't mind too much 

[knight66]

Great.....I bought the Karajan Vocal box, about 70 or so discs. That was roughly a year ago and I still have about one quarter to get through. TL is certainly the man to ask about Callas. So I will enjoy the information when it comes up.

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

Darkangel, incredible as it may seem now, when I first discovered the voice of Callas (on a Pye Ember LP of her early Cetra recordings), almost all her recordings had been deleted. If I remember rightly, the only recordings still available were the stereo Norma and Tosca, Carmen, La Boheme and her recital of Puccini arias. I was actually still at school at the time, and managed to persuade various relatives to buy me these as Christmas and birthday presents, and for a short time they are all of Callas I owned. Understandably, I got to know those recordings very well as I listened to them over and over again. The next step was to scour various record shops for imports and second hand copies until EMI, around the time of her sad, and no doubt ill advised, final concert tour started to reissue all her recordings. From that day to this, Callas's studio recordings have remained a mainstay of the EMI catalogue, and will no doubt remain so, in whatever format we are listening to music in the future.

In retropsect, I now think that I was lucky, however frustrating it would seem at the time, because each recording I got my hands on, was seized on like manna from heaven, and it also gave me time to really listen and get to know both the performance and the work before moving on to the next one. I can say that, without exception, if there was a Callas recording of a work, it was that version through which I discovered the work, and Callas became an invaluable guide in my discovery of the Italian opera repertoire. Subsequently, of course, I listened to and acquired other performances of certain works, but, whatever their merits, there was always something personal Callas would bring to a role, that would be missing from these other (sometimes more generally recommendable) versions.

You have a fantastically rewarding journey ahead of you.

[knight66]

Yes, she has spoilt me for other singers in certain roles. It is a dangerous addiction. Like you I got her discs well spaced out in time.


Mike

[Lilas Pastia]

My first exposure to Callas' voice was from  radio programs around 1970-1. My first ever disc of hers (about the same time) was the first Callas à Paris album. It was - and still is - one of the most extraordinary vocal recitals ever made. It didn't show Callas in roles she was best known for (Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini), so in a sense she had the field unto herself with her renditions of Berlioz. Gluck, Bizet, Massenet et al. In these arias, she husbanded her vocal resources to stunning effect, letting in some squally top notes for the sake of dramatic truth. The second Callas à Paris album was a mixed success - something recognized by EMI when they reissued half of it along with the whole first album later on (cashing on the rekindled fervor aroused by her last recitals tour).

Lest that sound like gawky drooling from a finished fan, I've always said that she even made the rests between phrases become alive with meaning. To this day, I yet have to encounter such time suspending, throat choking pauses as those she used in the last phrases of Iphigénie's aria (Ô malheureuse Iphigénie), or the hyperventilating erotic little gasps she inserts in Marguerite's lament (D'Amour, l'ardente flamme), at "Je suis à ma fenêtre") or the devastating outpouring of sexual tension she lets go at "Ô caresses de flammes". Goose bumping stuff then, and it still is as I write about it.

For the record, there maybe an instance or two (no more) of less than perfect french pronunciation - which is way better than what most natives achieve,

[Tsaraslondon]

LP, I am reminded of RO's review on the occasion of the first reissue of this disc in 1982, which included the first ever release of Dalila's mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix) (but not Marguerite's D'amour l'ardente flamme, or Iphigenie's lament, both of which are from the second French recital, recorded in 1963).

The last of the Dalila items (Dalila, like Carmen, passionate, alluring, and, in Callas's rendering, intensely vulnerable) is new to the catalogues. It's the duet which our grandmothers knew as "Softly awakes my heart". Callas is glorious; and as there's no Samson on this recording it's left to us, at the appropriate moments, to touch in, with gratitude and affection, the adoring asides. Records like this change people's lives.

[DarkAngel]

Tsaraslondon
I may have to scale back and possibly sell some of the live Callas versions........I didn't realize the sound was so bad, makes it almost impossible to enjoy the great Callas vocals during her prime years, for instance the live 1951 Mexico Aida:



How do you listen through such a poor sounding performance?
I am used to listening to historical orchestral Cds so I have a tolerance built up, but this is just too much...........

[Lilas Pastia]

And yet, this version exhibits a real one-off, Callas surging above the assembled choruses and full orchestra at the climax of the Triumph scene with an eye-popping,  jaw dropping fortissimo High E flat. I don't think this has ever been attempted since (although it was done before). Personally I prefer to dip into these atrocious sounding live recordings strictly for the vocal thrills or sublime vocal moments. The 24 disc Membran anthology covers a lot of those and judiciously zooms on those fantastic moments. It's easy to find at a very good price and it has extraiordinary notes by Jûrgen Kesting.

The sound - and often the rest of the cast - is really so bad that it is dishonest to be present these performances as more than a curiosity.

[Wendell_E]

Callas surging above the assembled choruses and full orchestra at the climax of the Triumph scene with an eye-popping,  jaw dropping fortissimo High E flat. I don't think this has ever been attempted since (although it was done before).

Attempted, certainly, though I can't guarantee the results were as as eye-popping and jaw dropping.  There's a youtube video of Aprile Millo doing it in a performance at the Arena di Verona:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3tZAKBkMT4  There are links from that page to the 1951 Callas Mexico City version (of course, there's no video of that performance).

There was a thread on the subject at another board some time ago that mentioned another soprano or two who'd attempted it.  I think one was Lucine Amara, but I could be wrong.

[Lilas Pastia]

It was very brave of Millo to sing the note. She cuts it off a bit quickly I think she was turning sharp, a situation that would have caused a bad crack in the voice. anyhow, it's very well done, but clearly not on the same level. Callas keeps it up at full volume for a full 6 seconds - a giant pedal note, but in altissimo, something entirely different from the usual and much easier E flats that many sopranos achieve routinely in Traviata, Lucia, etc - well, you know, the standard Sutherland repertoire.

These youtube videos are really addictive. Checking that Aida clip leads to Callas' own take on the Triumph scene, and then to a hair-raising clip from the 1949 Nabucco (fantastic conducting and singing), a Sonnambula (no date given) where she sails up to a silvery high E flat, diminishes the note and lands gracefully back on the vocal line in one breath.  Caramba! 

What's important though is the extraordinary artistry behind everything she sings. I don't think her musicality has been equalled in most of the the roles she sang.

[zamyrabyrd]

I don't remember if this particular recording of Traviata with Callas in 1953 (seemingly a studio one in Turin) has been discussed but it was a pleasant surprise for me to take it out again. I usually reach for the Lisbon perfomance with Alfredo Kraus. Recorded live in 1958, the latter gives ample evidence of 5 more years of her developing the role and varieties of nuance, especially delving into the chest tones from the very beginning. (I read '58 though was the last time she appeared on stage with it.)  Her tone here was unwavering, showing the sweet and vulnerable side of Violetta that no doubt endeared Alfredo to her in the first place. (I didn't actually like some of the clips on youtube from '58 where she passes the line into verismo, too much for my taste.)

Quite outstanding was the warm, engaging tenor, Francesco Albanese, who according to the insert was born in 1912. His voice showed maturity and stability, with a kind of darkness in the tone that was very attractive, not strident in the least, as sometimes happens with di Stefano and even Domingo.  I really enjoyed listening to him.

Gabriele Santini, the conductor, born in 1886, was excellent. He had quite a career in opera, once a assistant to Toscanini and his accompaniments showed it, clear, subtle, forecful when needed, also considerate of the singer as in the intro to the tenor aria in Act II.  Those were certainly serious opera conductors then.

I liked particularly the harp at the end of Violetta's and Alfredo's first duet and the syncopated violins at the end of the chorus scene when they are leaving Violetta's apartment. (I guess I am a little nutty, noticing things like this, but all these years I more or less concentrated on the vocal parts almost to the exclusion of everything else.)

I can't understand why Flora is usually cast with a wobbly, ugly voice most of the time. But this is probably true to character.  Even Germont, Ugo Savarese, born in the same year as the tenor, sounded much older than him because of the usual uncertainties of pitch that usually plague this role.

ZB

[Lilas Pastia]

Thanks for this post, ZB" The 1953 Violetta you refer to is pprobably the one she recorded on the Cetra label (EMI couldn't have in in Violetta because of some contractual problems - I wonder which though  ). That's probably why the secondary roles were not cast from strength, which is a pity. A great performance form the principals is not necessarily a recipe for a great recording. Personally I've always felt the 1958 Lisbon performance uneven, even for Callas. I'll try to get hold of that 1953 recording.

[zamyrabyrd]

Thanks for this post, ZB" The 1953 Violetta you refer to is pprobably the one she recorded on the Cetra label (EMI couldn't have in in Violetta because of some contractual problems - I wonder which though  ). That's probably why the secondary roles were not cast from strength, which is a pity. A great performance form the principals is not necessarily a recipe for a great recording. Personally I've always felt the 1958 Lisbon performance uneven, even for Callas. I'll try to get hold of that 1953 recording.

The recording is from Cetra put out by "Dino" Classics. It is quite a consistent and convincing performance overall.

Looking back over the thread (to see if there were a discussion of this performance) I found the link to Constanza's aria from the Abduction done by Callas in Italian. I heard it before and something bothered me about it, that I finally discovered why after hearing Sutherland. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk7vgxixk1A

Someone mentioned that having to play classical sonatas on the piano may have prompted a remark that "some of Mozart's music is boring" by her. Indeed, if one learns such music according to the traditional Czerny-Hanon exercise punching-out-every-note (that is stylistically wrong anyway), sure it becomes not only boring but unbearable. Sutherland has a much wider range of expression. The scales are lighter (the way they should be on the piano as well) and the overall structure is seen through the notes, not the individual  notes obscuring the lines.

I actually had a voice teacher in 1982 who told me I had to get over my piano habits.
ZB

[Tsaraslondon]

I don't remember if this particular recording of Traviata with Callas in 1953 (seemingly a studio one in Turin) has been discussed but it was a pleasant surprise for me to take it out again.
ZB

This was the recording, by which I first got to know Callas's Violetta, and, indeed the opera itself. I had it on LP, and was very satisfied with it, until I heard the live Giulini/La Scala from 1955 and the 1958 Covent Garden performance. These are the two I now have on CD. I have heard the Lisbon performance a couple of times, but, for me, it doesn't match the special quality of the London performance, which I find the most all round satisfactory of all her recorded Traviatas, not just for Callas, but for the opera as a whole. Being a BBC Third programme boroadcast, it is also in far better sound than both the La Scala and Lisbon performances. I assume it must exist somewhere in the BBC archives, so it has always been a mystery to me why it has never appeared either on EMI or the Royal Opera House's own Heritage series.

Of all the roles in Callas's repertoire, it is the role of Violetta, which constantly underwent a refining of her art, and there are extant recordings of her in the role from Mexico in 1951 (6 months after she had first sung the role in public), right up to the Covent Garden performances of 1958,  just four months before her final performances in the opera in Dallas later that year. The Cetra recording represents her early thoughts on the role, before she really got to grips with it, and, as such I find it somewhat uneven, though, simply as singing, there is much that is glorious. In the Giulini performances of 1955, one can feel the hand of Visconti, who directed the production, and, as a consequence, the role is much more thoroughly thought through. What lets this performance down badly is Bastianini, who, though he sings with wonderfully firm tone, is rather too generous with it, and pays little heed to character or intent. It is little short of a miracle that Callas is able to do so much in the long Act II duet, with so little coming back from her partner. Fortunately the Germont in the London performances is the excellent Mario Zanasi, who gives us a most sympathetic Germont. Valetti is a non pareil of an Alfredo, and we have Marie Collier, no less, as Flora. Rescigno brings sanity and song to the performance, and Callas, by now, has fined the role down to essentials. Though the voice is certainly not what it was in 1951, or even 1953, she nonetheless makes a profound effect in the role, and it is, musically at least, one of her most telling interpretations. This is the recording of  La Traviata I return to most often.

On the subject of Martern aller Arten, ZB, I find myself in sharp disagreement with you. Though Sutherland makes a prettier sound, with a lovely, flutey sustained top C at the aria's climax, I feel she works within a much narrower range of emotions, and find her singing far less responsive to the dramatic situation. To be honest, after Callas I find it beautiful, but, as I often do with Sutherland, rather dull. Callas's performance brims with fire and defiance, as it should, and yet she manages to sound feminine and vulnerable at the same time. Technically, notwithstanding a somewhat sour sustained top C, it is a tour de force, the final scale passages sung at a speed that would defeat many a smaller voice, faster even than Sutherland. The only other performance I know which comes close is Schwarzkopf's of 1946, though the coloratura is not so easily voiced. Callas may have once said she found the music of Mozart boring, a remark that will no doubt dog her for ever, but, whatever her faults, I doubt she ever delivered a boring performance, even of Mozart's music.