Hereafter,
a revised and expanded version of ''A Callas Primer,'' my list
of recommended recordings for newcomers to the art of Maria
Callas. I first published ''A Callas Primer'' on my personal
website in 1997, to mark the twentieth anniversary of Callas's
death and introduce others to her fierce and inspiring music-making.
The original version of ''A Callas Primer'' has received hundreds
of thousands of hits and remains one of the Internet's most
popular Callas pages.
The best overall guide to the dozens of studio and ''pirate''
recordings of Maria Callas is The Callas Legacy: The
Complete Guide to Her Recordings on Compact Discs by
John Ardoin. The late music critic of the Dallas Morning News,
Ardoin was a close associate of Maria Callas during the last
decade of her life. His analysis of her recordings is thorough
and even-handed, and he manages to illuminate specific musical
issues in a way that both beginners and those with a high degree
of musical literacy find meaningful.
Since 1995, when The Callas Legacy was last
updated, EMI has remastered and renumbered most (perhaps all)
of the recordings by Callas in its catalogue, and has also issued
a number of recitals and complete operas previously available
only as ''pirates.'' Furthermore, Callas's EMI recordings have
begun entering the public domain, and at least one label other
than EMI (Naxos) is already reissuing the earliest EMI sets.
Two words to the wise, then: Caveat emptor. Using Ardoin as
your guide, confirm recording dates, casts, and venues before
you buy, and steer clear of CDs with shoddy documentation. It
is impossible to generalize about sound quality, which ranges
from good to ghastly; however, informed listeners regularly
share their impressions of specific releases on the opera-l
mailing list, archived at http://www.opera-l.org.
In the meantime, here are my half-dozen top recommendations
(along with two bonus picks). Such is the splendor of Callas's
recorded legacy that another critic might propose an equally
compelling list consisting of six different recordings. (Indeed,
this very critic might well have chosen, say, the 1953 Tosca,
Anna Bolena, the Dallas Medea, and
the Verdi, Puccini, and ''mad scenes'' recitals. To say nothing
of the Covent Garden Traviata...) I have attempted
to create a balanced selection: three studio and three ''live''
recordings; three complete operas (representing Bellini, Donizetti,
and Verdi) and three recital discs.
~*~
Various, Lyric and Coloratura Arias, conducted by Tullio Serafin.
Recorded in 1954. EMI Classics 66458.
Were anyone to question Callas's standing as one of the supreme
musicians of the twentieth century, this disc alone would
silence his or her doubts. Callas's range of vocal, stylistic,
and dramatic mastery is nonpareil, encompassing the glittering,
high-flying fancies of Meyerbeer's Dinorah, the mournful,
desperate reveries of Boito's Margherita (Mefistofele),
and the saucy wit of Rossini's Rosina (Il barbiere
di Siviglia). Among the disc's highlights: Callas's
inward take on La Wally's ''Ebben? ne andrò
lontana,'' all sighs and gentle melancholy, and her dazzling,
almost insolent way with the Bolero from Verdi's Les
vêpres siciliennes, capped with a hard but
thrilling high E. (Also included: ''La mamma morta'' from
Giordano's Andrea Chénier, featured
in the film Philadelphia.)
Vincenzo Bellini, Norma, conducted by Tullio Serafin.
Recorded in 1960. EMI Classics 66428.
Norma was the role closest to Callas's heart, and Tullio Serafin
was the maestro she most revered. This, their final collaboration,
is their second commercial recording of the opera. The earlier
version (EMI Classics 56271), also superb, offers stronger
(if less subtle) vocalism from Callas, and there are several
stunning ''pirate'' sets, the most acclaimed of which is probably
the December 7, 1955 La Scala performance under Antonino Votto.
That said, this Norma has much to recommend it: spacious stereo
sound; a grand, authoritative reading from Serafin; the plush
vocalism of Franco Corelli as Pollione and Christa Ludwig
as Adalgisa; and a beautifully drawn interpretation from Callas.
Inward, tender, fearsome, and majestic, she is Norma, rising
to the vocal and interpretive challenges of Bellini's score
as no other soprano. Callas told one interviewer, ''It is
the most difficult role in my repertoire. The more you do
it, the less you want to.'' (To which spellbound listeners
respond that the more one hears Callas as Norma, the more
one wants to.)
Gaetano Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor, conducted
by Herbert von Karajan. Recorded in 1955. EMI Classics 66441.
This ''live'' recording captures an evening of grace: Callas
at her mesmerizing best, surrounded by colleagues in superb
form, all under the probing leadership of Karajan. Lucia
has never sounded so sublime as in this tense, febrile performance.
A frail, haunted bride of Lammermoor, Callas is in astonishing
voice: her tone clear and free, with no nuance of color, phrasing,
or meaning left unexplored. Giuseppe di Stefano falls short
of Callas's refinement, but his generous, full-throated tone
rings out with breathtaking ease. ''If I could own but a single
Callas set,'' writes Ardoin, ''it would be this one.''
Giuseppe Verdi, Un ballo in maschera, conducted by
Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Recorded in 1957. EMI Classics 67918.
Another ''live'' set, this time showcasing Callas's genius
as an interpreter of the music of Giuseppe Verdi. Once again,
she finds herself in strong company (di Stefano, Simionato,
Bastianini) and led by a fiery maestro. It is hard to believe
that the same artist who produced such diaphanous tones and
delicately limned phrases as Lucia could sing one of Verdi's
heaviest soprano roles with comparable authority, but there
is the greatness of Callas. She conveys the passionate sweep
of Verdi's music as if she had been singing Amelia for years,
when in fact this Scala run and the 1956 EMI studio recording
mark her only assumptions of the role. This performance opened
the La Scala season: it found Callas at the height of her
prestige and confidence as an artist, and the excitement in
the air fairly crackles. Not to be missed!
Various, Callas à Paris I, conducted by Georges
Prêtre. Recorded in 1961. EMI Classics 66466.
This disc finds Callas in uneven vocal form: high notes in
particular sometimes turn glassy or are marred by a distressing
wobble. Still, Callas's musicianship and sense of style are
exalted, and her insight into the souls of the fascinating
range of characters she portrays (including Orphée,
Carmen, Juliette, and Louise) is keener than ever. She is
most imposing in the three arias from Saint-Saën's Samson
et Dalila: suave and quietly seductive in ''Printemps
qui commence''; feline and redoubtable in ''Amour! viens aider,''
with thrilling plunges into the ink-black depths of her chest
register; and at her most inspired in ''Mon cœur s'ouvre
à ta voix.'' This last was never approved for release
during Callas's lifetime, presumably because she struggles
to support its lowest phrases. Still, I have never heard this
music sung with such menace or elegance. Callas begins with
a caressing, gently insinuating tone; through her subtle handling
of the text, use of portamento, and exquisite tapering of
phrases, she conveys an air of overwhelming confidence and
allure.
Various, In Rehearsal Dallas 1957, conducted by Nicola
Rescigno. EMI Classics 67921.
This dim recording is something of an oddity: Callas in rehearsal
for a concert to benefit the Dallas Civic Opera Company, a
session sprinkled with stops, repeats, and chatter. Yet it
finds her in wonderfully free and relaxed form, working with
one of her favorite colleagues (the splendid, underrated Maestro
Rescigno) on the mad scenes from Donizetti's Anna
Bolena and Bellini's I puritani,
the Act I scena from Verdi's La traviata
and ''Vieni, t'affretta!'' from Macbeth,
and ''Marten aller Arten'' from Mozart's Entführung.
Like the first disc in ''A Callas Primer,'' this recording
shows the vast range of Callas's musical and dramatic sympathies.
A high point comes, as Ardoin and others have observed, when
Callas, singing a cappella, demonstrates for the orchestra
musicians some of the finer points of rhythm and phrasing
in the Donizetti style. This recording documents a uniquely
great artist at work behind the scenes, creating music for
herself according to her own exacting standards.
~*~
Bonus
picks
Maria Callas: RAI Recordings 1949-1956. The Callas
Edition CED 100341, available from http://www.opera-rara.com.
In 1949, a month shy of her twenty-sixth birthday, Callas
made two 78 rpm recordings that rank among her finest:
''Qui la voce'' from Bellini's I puritani,
and the Liebestod (or ''Morte d'Isotta'') from Wagner's Tristan
und Isolde, both with the RAI Orchestra of Turin
led by Arturo Basile. (A ''Casta diva'' from the same sessions
is of silken vocal quality but a touch impersonal.) The ''unexpected''
Bellini/Wagner pairing is, as Callas shows, the most natural
thing in the world: Bellini's long, ecstatic melodies loomed
ever large in Wagner's mind, not least when composing Isolde's
''transfiguration.'' Callas sings Elvira's mad scene with
the utmost delicacy, but with the kind of lush, molten tone
one often associates with Wagner. Her vocalism is staggeringly
accomplished, with downward scales that flow like oil and
a secure, triumphant final high E-flat; her depth of expression
(repeated cries of ''mai più!'' that stab at the heart)
is no less wondrous. Callas's Isolde, on the other hand, is
unusually girlish and fragile, and she pays scrupulous attention
to Wagner's rests and gruppetti. ''The final impression,''
Ardoin notes, ''is of one gigantic phrase embracing the music
in a feeling of earthiness.'' This three-CD set includes a
number of choice recordings and rare interviews, but the Bellini
and Wagner reign supreme.
Various, Callas at La Scala, conducted by Tullio Serafin.
Recorded in 1955. EMI Classics 66457.
Before the public domain issue threatened the profitability
of EMI's Callas catalogue, these scenes (from Cherubini's
Medea, Bellini's La sonnambula,
and Spontini's La vestale) were included
as bonus tracks in earlier CD releases of Callas's aria recitals.
No matter: The two Vestale arias alone are
worth the price of the disc. Like Rosa Ponselle before her,
Callas brings to bear on Spontini's stately, proto-Romantic
music the full arsenal of bel canto genius: a flawless legato
line, beautifully focussed tone, and a patrician sense of
style and proportion. In 1954, La vestale marked
the first collaboration between Callas and director Luchino
Visconti, perhaps accounting for the extraordinary sense of
solemnity and concentration she summons here.
© 2003-04
Marion Lignana Rosenberg. |
