Tonight at 6:00 p.m. I will take part in a panel discussion about Gounod’s Faust and the critics at Lincoln Center. We will also touch on Boito’s Mefistofele.

Today, then, Maria Callas’s 1963 recording of Marguerite’s Air des bijoux. Walter Legge recalled that Callas had to repeat the last dozen bars of the aria for the better part of three hours in order to come up with an acceptable ending. But if those final bars are dodgy, the rest of the aria is a marvel, gossamer light and sparkling with quintessentially French charme.

Callas sang this aria during her Greek years and also taught it at Juilliard.

From the archives: Callas sings the Roi de Thulé song from Gounod’s Faust; Callas sings “L’altra notte” from Boito’s Mefistofele.

Callas on the beach.

Happy birthday to Maria Callas, who was born on 2 December 1923.

To celebrate, I offer her and you the online equivalent of a dozen red roses: a dozen favorite blog posts about Callas!

• Martha Graham on Callas
• Callas sings Boito
• Callas de cire, Callas de son
• Callas and Isolde
• Video of Callas as Cherubini’s Medea
• Callas in Bellini’s Il pirata
• Rufus Wainwright and Callas
• Callas in Mozart and Verdi
• Dacia Maraini and Callas
• Armen Ra and Callas
• Callas sings Berlioz
• Callas in the Norma finale

If you are looking for words, try my essay, my 2007 tribute to Callas, or the chock-full-of-Rossini birthday post.

This is a hard weekend for New Yorkers, hard as we reflect on our losses and hard as we reflect on the atrocities that have been committed in our name.

Though I don’t wish to give our commemorations an exclusively Christian cast (I’m not Christian myself), the “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s Otello, so beautifully sung by Maria Callas, seems an appropriate way to honor the dead and the living.

Pray for those who, adoring, bow down to you.
Pray for the sinner and for the innocent,
for the weak and oppressed and for the powerful man—
to him, too, wretched, show your pity.
Pray for those who bow their heads
beneath indignity and a woeful fate…

I remember in particular the brave men of Squad 18 down the street.

There is information about the recording in the archives. Til next week!

Maria Callas’s 1958 Los Angeles concert offers much to admire. I posted the Vestale aria last year; today I offer you “L’altra notte in fondo al mare” from Boito’s Mefistofele. 

Callas portrayed Margherita on stage three times in Verona in July 1954. She recorded “L’altra notte” under Serafin later that year, sang the aria in concert about a dozen times, and also taught it at Juilliard. At one point she was supposed to record Mefistofele for Cetra, though that never happened. 

To me, the Los Angeles concert is especially interesting because it allows us to hear Callas’s voice “with air around it” and to get a sense of its size and bright edge. (Her EMI recordings are infamous for their close miking, which tends to flatten and dry out even the most sumptuous timbres.) 

Some Callas admirers prefer this Los Angeles rendition of “L’altra notte” to her recording under Serafin. What do you think? In this case, I do prefer the EMI for its greater detail, though the Los Angeles recording is also wonderful. There’s also a 1959 London performance.