La divina: maria callas

Maria Callas (1923-1977), American-born soprano of Greek parentage. Studied at the Athens National Conservatory from 1936 with the Spanish coloratura soprano Elvira di Hidalgo. Her Italian debut was in Verona, in 1947, in La Ciaconda. Her potentialities were recognized by the conductor Tullio Serafin when, in 1948, she was singing Brunnhilde in Venice. With Serafin and de Sabata, Callas revived operas wholly or relatively neglected in Italy for over a century, including Rossini's Armida and Il Turco in Italia, Cherubini's Medea, Donizetti's Anna Bolena, and Bellini's // Pirata, thereby changing the face of the post-1945 opera repertory. Maria Callas made her La Scala début in 1951. From then until 1959 she reigned supreme there, earning the title La divina in her vivid portrayals of Norma, Violetta, and Tosca, working with de Sabata, Giulini, Bernstein, and Karajan as conductors, and the pro­ducers Visconti and Zeffirelli. Her musicianship was impeccable, her insight remark­able, and her acting ability exceptional, so that she presented her roles as organic wholes. Her Norma, Tosca, and Violetta were unforgettable examples of dramatic opera singing-acting. Callas sang at Covent Garden in 1952-53 (Norma), 1957-59, and 1964, and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1956 (Norma). She retired from the stage in 1965 (her last performance was as Tosca at Covent Garden), but she continued to record and gave some concerts in 1973 and 1974.

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music

It has been suggested, and not without reason, that Callas' "voice had less going for it than any other voice that has achieved interna­tional celebrity via the phonograph - a medium that necessarily puts a premium on timbral endowment, since it cannot directly transmit physical and dramatic qualities." Yet it was a voice that was better than beautiful, for it was a voice which once heard could not be easily forgotten. It haunted and disturbed as many as it thrilled and inspired, and it was the very personal colours of her voice, combined with its deficiencies, which made her sound so strikingly individual.

Her manner of singing was equally arresting. Callas had a stern bel canto upbringing from her teacher Elvira di Hidalgo, a musical

109

outlook later reinforced by her mentor Tullio Serafin. This sort of vocal strait-jacketing was ideally suited to Callas' nature. She was a committed traditionalist, a musical puritan, who eagerly sought stylis­tic boundaries and flourished within them. The greater the confines, the greater was the challenge and, ultimately, the freedom. A score set forth the limitations of a given problem for her. The mastering of a problem was the incentive which spurred Callas on to conquer, and to set and meet new demands on her voice and her abilities. This, in turn, led to a prodigious grasp of such challenges as the trill, the acciaccatura,* scales, gruppetti and other abbellimenti.* These, combined with her open throat, an inborn sense of legato, and diction rooted in vowels, all predestined her prominence in the bel canto repertory, though her voice was basically that of a dra­matic soprano.

In the long run, however, Callas' distinct sound and her technical achievements would have been less influential if she had not em­ployed both to shape music to creative and expressive ends. All the resources open to a singer - breath, tempo, dynamic and agogic ac­cents,* embellishments, rubato,* even silences* - were used to their fullest to communicate impressions and moods. Indeed, Callas seemed incapable of being inexpressive; even a simple scale sung by her implied a dramatic attitude or feeling. This capacity to communi­cate is something she was born with. It was her capacity for hard work and her equally great curiosity which led her to question re­lentlessly what score demanded of her, and what she in turn de­manded of herself. Little by little she mastered the art of filling a phrase to exactly the right level of expression and producing unerringly the right stress to underline or highlight a thought. At her finest, Callas' voice became a mirror held up to human emotion. At her best, tone and intent were wonderously interlocked. She never offered a string of high points in performance mixed in with indif­ferent or unfinished patches, as many do. With Callas, a recitative was as integrated and thoughtful as an aria. Perhaps you could not agree with this or that aspect of her singing, and you might feel that she was as wrong for this role as she was right for that one, but Callas was usually able to force one to accept or reject her con­cept as a whole, so clear-eyed and consistent was her approach to a past. This was her ultimate justification as an artist.

From: The Callas Legacy by J. Aidoin