Maria Callas as Armida
\nDr. Robert Seletsky, a distinguished musical scholar, questions the attribution to Maria Callas of a \u201crevival of forgotten repertoire and the performance traditions that accompanied it.\u201d
\nHe notes that many of the works cited to bolster this assertion (including Il Turco in Italia, Il pirata, and Anna Bolena) had been produced in the twentieth century before Callas took them up. He also takes issue with Callas\u2019s \u201cinauthentic\u201d (modernist) approach to early Ottocento opera, entailing cuts, minimal ornamentation, and the interpolation of harmonically disfiguring tonic and dominant high notes.
\nIn Seletsky\u2019s view, Rossini\u2019s Armida, which Callas sang under Tullio Serafin at the 1952 Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, can be deemed \u201cthe only true Callas \u2018revival.\u2019\u201d In 1952 – \u201cArmida\u201d full version – Callas sings with staggering verve and audacity, and many critics believe that the recording documents one of the greatest nights in her career.
\nCallas returned to \u201cD\u2019amore al dolce impero\u201d in a 1954 RAI concert and reportedly attempted a studio recording of it in 1960, though to the best of my knowledge no trace of it survives. In recent years, the aria has been taken up byRen\u00e9e Fleming, Joyce di Donato (on disc only, for now), and others.<\/p>\n
Callas and Fiorilla
\nDuring her opening aria, Fiorilla extols the virtues of promiscuity to a group of her friends. Not only does the flirtatious girl have an old husband, she also has a young lover and is soon to pursue the wealthy Turk. No one in Milan needed to be reminded that Callas herself had an old husband and while her fidelity was not in question at the time, she shared other qualities with the volatile Fiorilla. It made for all the more fun.
\nJohn Ardoin and Gerald Fitzgerald, Callas<\/p>\n
Callas and Fiorilla II
\n1950 was an epic year in Maria Callas\u2019s career. According toFrank Hamilton\u2019s invaluable chronologies, at one point, in the space of six days (between February 23 and 28), she sang two performances each of Norma and Tristan und Isolde. She was twenty-six years old.
\nIn October, shortly after singing Tosca two evenings in a row and a month before she undertook Kundry in Parsifal, Callas sang the florid comic r\u00f4le of Fiorilla in Rossini\u2019sIl Turco in Italia in Rome, an excerpt from which appears above. In 1949, of course, she had won fame for singing Br\u00fcnnhilde in Die Walk\u00fcre and Elvira in I puritani in quick succession.
\nIn her ghostwritten 1957 memoirs, Callas recalled the 1950Turco performances:
\nWhile I was preparing myself under the direction of Maestro [Gianandrea] Gavazzeni in Rome to interpret this difficult opera, I had the opportunity to know better Luchino Visconti, who had previously complimented me. I remember my surprise at seeing a man of his distinction sit in attentively at almost all of the rehearsals, which lasted a minimum of three or four hours\u2014and we rehearsed twice a day.
\nWe will never know for sure whether the exploits of Callas\u2019s early years in Italy hastened her vocal decline, but one thing is certain: Her unrelenting activities in 1950 (including a strenuous Mexican season) took their toll on her health. She was forced to withdraw from several high-profile engagements at the end of the year because of an attack of jaundice.<\/p>\n
Callas and Fiorilla III
\nMichael Scott, the founder of the London Opera Society, has an acid tongue and, it seems, the constancy of a streetwalker.
\nIn his liner note for the Naxos reissue of Rossini\u2019s Il turco in Italia, Mr. Scott uses Maria Callas as a stick with which to beat Cecilia Bartoli. He cites the monumentally important Rossini scholarship undertaken by Philip Gossett and others, then remarks:
\nA recent recording, taking advantage of this scholarship,\u2026 suffers from a Fiorilla whose florid singing is full of aspirates [audible exhalations of breath]; so obviously is her voice caught in her throat, the analogy she conjures up is that of a turkey gobbling.
\nNow that he is in Naxos\u2019s employ, Mr. Scott seems to have discovered heretofore unsuspected virtues in Maria Callas\u2019s performance. In his bitchy, hateful Maria Meneghini Callas (1991), he had written of her Fiorilla:
\nFrom the time Callas has lost weight we note the element of contrivance beginning to obtrude in her characterizations. However, spontaneity is essential to Rossini\u2019s style. Although Callas\u2019s Fiorilla may be remarkably different from her Leonora, it lacks charm and does not engage the listener\u2019s sympathy\u2026 Exaggerating was the nearest Callas could get to comedy.
\nJudge for yourself whether Callas\u2019s Fiorilla \u201clacks charm\u201d or, indeed, whether \u201cin her attempts to refine her characterization she loses sight of the basis of secure vocal emission: a correctly supported voice.\u201d
\nHer partner in this duet is Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, and Gianandrea Gavazzeni leads the La Scala orchestra.<\/p>\n
Callas and Fiorilla IV
\nMr. Karl H. van Zoggel, editor of Maria Callas Magazine, published by the Maria Callas International Club, kindly shared with me a recent issue. It includes original articles, interview transcriptions, reminiscences by readers, and a number of rare photos.
\nOne reader, a Peter S., shared these remarks about Callas:
\nFor me, her funniest recorded moment\u2026 comes about halfway through [Rossini\u2019s] Il turco in Italia when Fiorilla, being upbraided by her furious husband for her outrageous behaviour, uses what can best be described as \u201cfake weeping\u201d in order to bring him back into line (Mia vita, mio tesoro\u2026). She succeeds, of course.
\nMr. S. is quite right: This is one of Callas\u2019s great moments on disc, often overlooked for several reasons\u2014the (relative) rarity of the opera, the shredded edition used for the recording (unacceptable by today\u2019s standards), and the fact that we tend to associate Callas with tragedy and comedy.<\/p>\n
Callas in Il barbiere di Siviglia
\nMaria Callas portrayed Rosina in Rossini\u2019s Il barbiere di Siviglia at La Scala in 1956. It was one of her two comic r\u00f4les (along with Fiorilla in Il turco in Italia), and it was the greatest flop of her career.
\nThe production, a revival, was without distinction and under-rehearsed. Carlo Maria Giulini admitted, \u201cI conducted every performance with my head down so I wouldn\u2019t see what was happening on stage.\u201d
\nNicola Rossi-Lemeni (the Basilio) recalled that Callas was \u201caggressive, a viper,\u201d and treated Barbiere as a prima donna showcase rather than the ensemble piece that it is.
\nThat said, when Callas recorded the opera for EMI in 1957, she had rethought the r\u00f4le of Rosina. As John Ardoin writes, the set finds her both \u201cplayful\u201d and \u201csedate,\u201d and Alceo Galliera (a fine, underrated maestro) conducts with brio.
\nCallas\u2019s exchanges with Tito Gobbi\u2019s Figaro sparkle with complicity and malizia.<\/p>\n
Callas in Il barbiere di Siviglia II
\n\u201cUna voce poco fa,\u201d Rosina\u2019s cavatina from Rossini\u2019s Il barbiere di Siviglia, was a Callas favorite. It was part of her repertoire during her Greek years, and she sang it some twenty times in concert during the late 1950s\u2014including the night of the 1958 Paris gala during which Aristotle Onassis reportedly resolved to win her.
\nWhile her staged performances as Rosina constituted the biggest flop of her career, Callas\u2019s complete EMI set ofBarbiere and this 1954 \u201cUna voce poco fa,\u201d recorded under the baton of Tullio Serafin, are among her very finest recordings, brimming with merriment and sparkling vocalism.
\nToday, her name day, we remember Maria Callas with this joyous performance.<\/p>\n
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Maria Callas – “D’Amore al dolce Impero” (“Armida”) – M.\u00b0 Alfredo Simonetto conducts the Orchestra of RAI, San Remo Casino – Italy – 1954.<\/p>\n
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