by I have never heard Maria Callas sing. But I saw her once. In 1971, when I was a student on my first visit to the USA, I managed to get a back seat at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for a big performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo, with a young rising tenor the name of Plácido Domingo in the title role.
In the interval I entered the glitzy foyer of the Met. Standing at the foot of the staircase that curved up to the grand suite, I heard a clap from higher up. The crowd parted and, down the stairs came that woman completely unmistakable, instantly recognizable to any opera fan, and to millions of others as well.
Callas was on the hand of Rudolf Bing, the general manager of the Met, who had had an epic collapse with her in the 1950s, and was now beginning his final season at the helm in New York. She ran to me at the bottom of the stairs, almost close enough to touch. But, like everyone else, I was just suggesting. I don’t remember much about the opera that night. But I will never forget seeing Callas.
Six years later, she was dead in her apartment in Paris, aged just 53. Today, as we celebrate the centenary of Callas’ birth, she remains for many a non-pareil opera singer of the 20th century. Hers is the most interesting, exciting and instantly recognizable opera voice. Her unhappy life has nothing to do with this legacy, and of course there are plenty of other great singers to consider as well, but Callas’ grip on history is well justified. It stands for two things: first, the exceptional vocal and dramatic standards she set and often met; and, secondly, with the good fortune that her career happened at the same time as the explosion of the long record and the full recording of musicals.
Few singers before or after have been given such an opportunity. As a result, the Callas discourse is very extensive, including several operas that she recorded more than once, some of which she retired from obscurity, as well as many recordings (with variable sound quality) of live performances. As far as I know, there are no video recordings of Callas in full opera, but there are some outstanding passages worth tracking down.
Any choice of the following kind is personal and arbitrary, but here are my own five initial suggestions.
La Traviata
In many ways Violetta in La Traviata is Callas’ perfect role. Her commitment to Verdi’s doomed heroine is always shaky and always fully engaged. There are at least four Callas recordings of La Traviata, all very fine in different ways. The 1955 live recording at La Scala, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, is probably the one to have. But also try to search for the precious video clips from their live recording in Lisbon 1958 which contain precious moments.
Norma
One of Callas’ signature roles, even in her decline. Always sung with great mastery, the identification with the priest Norma is so complete that it is often difficult to separate Bellini’s writing of his tragic central character from Callas’ portrayal of him. As is often the case with Callas, the 1952 Norma, recorded at her Covent Garden debut with Vittorio Gui conducting, finds her in her best voice and sets the recording benchmark (it also has a small role for Joan Sutherland , a defining norm of a slightly later era). Callas can be seen singing Norma’s Casta Diva aria in the recently recolored and reissued video of her 1958 Paris concert of Italian arias, conducted by Georges Prêtre.
Factors
Callas is now most associated with Puccini’s 1899 opera. Part of this is due to the modern sentimentalisation of Callas as the female operatic martyr, a bit like Floria Tosca herself. It is largely because there is a complete video of her wonderful act two performances with Tito Gobbi’s matchless Scarpia from Covent Garden in 1958. Callas also recorded Tosca twice, and again it is the earlier studio version under the masterful direction of Victor de Sabata where she was at their best.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Donizetti’s promising and tragic heroine, based on Walter Scott’s 1819 historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor, provided some of the most iconic moments of Italian opera and one of her best roles with Callas. She made two studio recordings but, due to visceral intensity and a direct connection to something so special, it is Lucia live under Herbert von Karajan in Berlin in 1956 that stands out. Purists hate it for its cuts, and the sound isn’t perfect in the studio but Callas’ performance is moving, sensitive and on another level.
Parsifal
Surely some mistake? Callas singing Wagner? But, yes, she did, and incredibly well too, even though she was only in the early years of her career. In those days Brünnhilde in Die Walküre was a favorite of hers, as well as Isolde in Tristan und Isolde (said to contain a private tape of the Genoa performance). In her first studio work in 1949, Callas recorded Liebestod Isolde in Italian. But Callas-Wagner’s main recorded performance is his Kundry (again in Italian) in a complete recording of Parsifal under Vittorio Gui from Rome in 1950. An excellent performance, and an important reminder of his artistic range.
And, as an encore, one more moment small but in a wonderfully moving Callas way. She did not sing the role of mezzo soprano Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo on stage. By 1962, when the cameras were there to record her singing of the aria O don fatale – O don fatale – Eboli – in concert in Hamburg, the rasp in her voice was becoming more evident, and the vibrato could become apart. But what piercing intensity she brings, what dramatic mastery. This is infinitely more than a popular encore or garden recital. You can somehow sense that she knows how flawed her greatness is. But the abiding horror is there all the same, in this exciting glimpse that we all still miss so sorely today.
