Callas in Dallas, 1959.

Well hello, everyone! Sorry to have been away from you for so long. By the time my webmaster fixed this once gimpy blog, I was up to my ears in writing assignments. Go here and follow the links to learn what I have been up to. (I saw Parsifal six times and would have been glad to see it sixty times. It was by far the most moving and beautiful operatic performance I have ever had the good fortune to witness, and I cannot wait for the DVD.)

Above is a photo I found on Facebook that I have never seen before. It supposedly shows Maria Callas in Dallas, reading through the Lucia libretto, in 1959. She sports her post-Meneghini coiffure, which I believe was created by Alexandre in Paris, and I think that the poodle’s name is Toy.

Shall we listen to Callas in Lucia? Though I do not favor her earliest recordings, this excerpt from Donizetti’s opera as performed in México in 1952 finds Callas in lush and secure voice. (The Dallas Lucia, by contrast, was fraught for many reasons and marked her final appearnces in Donizetti and Cammarano’s dramma tragico.)

The siffleur is exceedingly loud, and the music is embedded in a Flash player, which you may not see if you view this blog on a mobile device. (Incidentally, last night I heard the world premiere of a song cycle by Anders Hillborg that, like Lucia, calls for a glass harmonica.)

How are you darlings? I have hundreds of comments, mostly spam, to wade through, but hope to be back soon.

John Ardoin wrote in The Callas Legacy about the 1955 Berlin Lucia led by Herbert von Karajan, “If I could own but a single Callas set, it would be this one.”

There was a bis of the sextet, and I offer you this bit today. Along with Callas (listen for the amazing diminuendo), you hear Giuseppe di Stefano, Rolando Panerai, Nicola Zaccaria, Giuseppe Zampieri, Luisa Villa, and Mario Carlin.

(Io son vin-to-ho so-hon co-hom-mosso: Forgive me. I have no love for di Stefano. I know that the sound was glorious, but who cares?)

Hear Callas here and in the blog archives in other music led by Herbert von Karajan.

Anna Bolena, Donizetti’s 1830 masterpiece, is in the news. Maria Callas sang the final scene of Bolena in a Dallas concert in November 1957. The rehearsal was recorded, and it is one of the most compelling documents of her at work that we have. John Ardoin discusses the rehearsal in detail in The Callas Legacy.

Callas’s honor and professionalism as an artist are especially germane to considerations of Bolena:

You see, a musician is a musician. A singer is no different from an instrumentalist except that we have words. You don’t excuse things in a singer you would not dream of excusing in a violinist or pianist. There is no excuse for not having a trill, for not doing the acciaccatura, for not having good scales. Look at your scores! There are technical things written there to be performed, and they must be performed whether you like it or not.

Earlier posts: Maria Callas and Giulietta Simionato in Anna Bolena; Maria Callas in a studio recording of music from Bolena.

[G]ood singing (for the Romantic composers) and bel canto (for the pre-Romantics) was not revived as a result of intervention from musicologists, opera historians, critics, or conductors, but thanks to one singer: Maria Callas… The starting point was to think back to a pre-verismo state, even in certain respects a pre-Verdian state, which brought four guiding principles: [the re-introduction of diverse and analytical phrasing; a return to genuine virtuosity; the return of pre-Romantic or Romantic cantabile; and] the return of archetypes from classical and proto-Romantic music theatre, which had been debased by the interpretive practices of late Romanticism and verismo: the queen, the priestess, and the magician.
—Rodolfo Celletti