Maria Callas: A Warning

This Saturday, January 20th, the Metropolitan Opera will air a repeat of their 1956 broadcast of LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR. The Met's taking a break from performing now and they've chosen this performance from their archives as a tribute to Maria Callas. The LUCIA of December 8, 1956 was the only time Callas sang on a Met broadcast and this Saturday's repeat marks the 50th anniversary of the performance, just a few weeks late.

For me, it's a back-handed tribute if there ever was one. Callas was in parlous vocal estate at that time; her tone quality is very dark and covered, and she cracks the highest notes and leaves out the E-flats of the Mad Scene.  Of course there are illuminating phrases - you get those in any Callas performance, even the worst ones -  and she does convey the emotions of the hapless Lucia with her usual innate sense of character. But the vocal insecurities are quite blatant in this bel canto role.

I can't imagine they would have doctored the tapes, and playing it as it was performed seems almost like a cruel joke. Allegedly an homage to the diva, the re-broadcast might be viewed as a way of deflecting criticism from some of the Met's less-than-scintillating current sopranos. "This is the great Callas? Certainly _____________ and ___________ today are her equal if not her better."  Callas on this form almost makes the recent controversial Netrebko PURITANI sound good. (Note the word 'almost'.)

If I wanted to salute the great diva, I would turn immediately to the 1955 La Scala opening night NORMA which is preserved on the Gala label. Callas was not just in excellent voice, she does what she's always been famous for doing: she becomes the character she's portraying. Even without seeing her, she just IS Norma. A couple of risky notes create audible audience reactions, building the atmosphere. The mythical high-D which Callas sustains at the conclusion of the trio has to be heard to be believed, but it's only the most 'obvious' moment in a long evening of vocal astonishments. No one could weep with the voice like Callas did, and in the end, begging her father to care for her children, the Callas Norma makes the strings of the Scala orchestra weep with her.

Sharing the Scala spotlight that night were those titans of Italian grand-style vocalism, Mario del Monaco and Giulietta Simionato. They give it everything they've got and they spur Callas on to the heights.

I'll never forget my first experience with the Callas voice. I was 13 years old and while my parents had very kindly given me some opera LPs (which I played to death), I wanted so much to start buying things for myself. So I saved up some money from my paper route & from working in my father's store. After an orthodontist appointment in Syracuse, my Mom waited for me in the car while I went on my own into the record store. It was one of my first brushes with 'adulthood' and I remember feeling both uneasy and awkwardly thrilled by the attentions of the older male customers, one of whom was quite aggressive. But I had my focus: to buy a Callas recording. And I did: her EMI disc of Verdi Arias.

It seemed like the trip home took forever.  At last, after supper, I had the record player in the rec room to myself. Carefully unwrapping the disc, I started it. BALLO IN MASCHERA: the gallows aria. The orchestral introduction was thrilling (it still thrills me today) and then there was this moment of silence...and then Callas began to sing.

I hated it. Totally. What an ugly sound, so nasal, so veiled and dark. The tone fluctuated as she went higher.  For me, accustomed to the voices of Tebaldi and Milanov, it sounded just terrible. I didn't even get thru the aria. Then I skipped the needle around a bit and found everything to be the same.  Sadly I realized I had wasted my money and squandered my first real choice of an addition to my collection. I had read so much about her and I was just demoralized by what I heard after so much anticipation.

It was months, maybe years, before I ever listened to the disc again. It wasn't until I heard the 1955 Scala NORMA which my friend David Abramowitz had given me on reel-to-reel that I finally started listening to Callas and appreciating what she was doing. In the end, it was her live performances up until 1955 - and sometimes slightly beyond - that were the key to admiring her. I never became a Callas addict; I have hardly any of her studio recordings and I don't listen to her all that much. But at least once a year I devote an afternoon to that 1955 NORMA and each time I am both fascinated and deeply moved by her singing.

UPDATE: Listening to the re-broadcast on Saturday I realized that this Callas Lucia was a triumph of technique and will-power over a seriously deteriorated instrument. Several people at my opera chat group thought it was "much better than expected" after hearing warnings about it over the years (even John Ardoin, the most loyal Callas chronicler, rates it 'possibly her poorest Lucia').  It is amazing, really, how she manages to cover almost all her deficiencies, except for the high notes which are either precarious, missed entirely, or eliminated.

Callas once said, in decline: "I still have my voice but have lost my technique." She had it backwards: she had ravaged the voice over the years by attacking unwritten notes in-alt, by over-working the chest voice, by singing too many demanding roles too frequently, and by compromising her support system with a rapid weight loss. All that, added to her abandoning her life to Onassis, resulted in a very brief heyday and a shortened career.

But her technique never abandoned her; even in the Juilliard Master Classes she was able to  demonstrate 'how' things should be sung despite not having the sheer voice to actually do it.

Comments

[Nicole]

I totally agree with you on the 1955 La Scala Norma. It's absolutely AMAZING! LOVE IT. Out of all of my Callas recordings, it's my favorite.