Puccini’s Manon Lescaut is one of several operas that Callas recorded but never performed on stage. (The others are Puccini’s La bohème, Bizet’s Carmen, and Leoncavallo’s I pagliacci.)

Today’s rendition of “Sola, perduta, abbandonata” comes not from her complete Manon Lescaut (1957) but from her 1954 Puccini recital under Tullio Serafin. She also taught the aria at Juilliard and sang it frequently in 1974, during her “farewell” tour.

John Ardoin underscored the simplicity and understatement that Callas brought to this aria: “Rather than a voice racked with desperation, hers is colored with tired resignation. This is a Manon who has faced and accepted her death. This idea is reinforced later by the sense of release with which Callas frames ‘Terra di pace mi sembrava questa.’”

When I received EMI’s latest Callas compilation, The Callas Effect, I noticed immediately that this aria closes the set. In artistic terms, it is an odd choice: Puccini was not especially close to Callas’s heart, Manon Lescaut was not important in her career, and many sopranos have sung this music at least as well as she. (I am especially fond of Mirella Freni in the rôle.)

If, however, one is determined to depict Callas as a pathetic mess at the end of her life, then I suppose it is the ideal choice. (Sigh!)

Hear Maria Callas in other music by Puccini here and in the blog archives.

Bon week-end à tous !

A self-portrait by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Hello, darlings! I’m sort of back—“sort of” because there is something wrong with the server on which this blog is hosted, and I sometimes cannot upload or save files. My dear and heroic webmaster is hard at work making things right.

From ViviMilano comes news of a Pasolini exhibit at Casa Testori. The show runs through 1 July and includes some fifty paintings and drawings by Pasolini (a true polymath!), manuscripts, unpublished correspondence, and a continuous projection of eight of his films.

According to ViviMilano, the exhibition will include readings and other events and “focusses on professional relationships, affinities, and friendships, ranging from Carlo Emilio Gadda to Maria Callas and Roberto Longhi.”

P.S. I also covered New York City Opera’s 2012–2013 season announcement for The Classical Review.

A modern Icon of the Resurrection.

For Maria Callas, a Greek Orthodox Christian, Easter (“real” Easter, as my Orthodox friends never fail to say) would have been the most important holy day of the year.

I may have this all wrong, but I believe that here you can find a homily read every year at Πάσχα, and here an explanation of the Icon of the Resurrection.

Handel performed by the Gabrieli Consort & Players has nothing at all to do with Orthodox Easter, and I suspect that Callas would have despised more or less everything about HIP. All the same, I don’t see why any of that should stop us from enjoying it.

Χριστός ἀνέστη!

Alessandro Manzoni.

In the meantime, my latest article for Capital New York concerns a performance of the Manzoni Requiem by a wonderful New York group, the Choral Society.

Back at you soon!

VIVA VERDI!

Verdi in an odd hat.

Darlings, I am on vacation, and I wish you all Chag Pesach Sameach, Happy Easter, or just “Have a nice day” if you celebrate neither of the above.

I did, however, head uptown to review the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of La traviata for The Classical Review.

Hei-Kyung Hong was a marvelous Violetta, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky was in sensational form.

Back at you soon!