# I feel bad because I don't love Callas more



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Both musically and dramatically she is one of the great geniuses of opera, and her voice was so much better when she was fat and young than after the Audrey Hepburn looks took over. Still and yet, even considering the truly astonishing things she did with the voice before around 1952, I just don't listen to her much as her voice is just not pretty enough for me for a steady diet.and this tendency has grown as I've aged. I know the Callas devotees will consign me to the deepest pits of hell for this. Tell me your thinking. Occasionally I will trot her out and eveything else about her will wow me before th voice starts grating on me.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Beauty over meaning. Gloss over substance. There is, of course, a certain irony about that in regards to Callas.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

Where I struggle with Callas is the generally poor quality of most of her recordings. The 1952 recording of Armida may contain some fabulous singing, but the audio quality is so bad I just can't listen to it. This is the case with a lot of her recordings. The 1956 recording of Il Trovatore is better, but still hard to listen to due to the poor recording. The problem is that no matter how great a singer she was, the audio recording systems of her time were incredibly poor and didn't really capture the full effect of the sound in either a studio of a live setting.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Aerobat said:


> Where I struggle with Callas is the generally poor quality of most of her recordings. The 1952 recording of Armida may contain some fabulous singing, but the audio quality is so bad I just can't listen to it. This is the case with a lot of her recordings. The 1956 recording of Il Trovatore is better, but still hard to listen to due to the poor recording. The problem is that no matter how great a singer she was, the audio recording systems of her time were incredibly poor and didn't really capture the full effect of the sound in either a studio of a live setting.


I used to feel the same about all pre-LP singers, but, after reading John Steane's amazing book _The Grand Tradition_, an absolute must for all those interested in singing and the human voice, I learned to listen through the sound, as it were, and so much amazing artistry was revealed to me. I am so grateful to him for that.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

GregMitchell said:


> I used to feel the same about all pre-LP singers, but, after reading John Steane's amazing book _The Grand Tradition_, an absolute must for all those interested in singing and the human voice, I learned to listen through the sound, as it were, and so much amazing artistry was revealed to me. I am so grateful to him for that.


That's a terrific book. You've put me in the mood to re-read it again. I'm going to stop reading your posts Greg, between this and the Vocal recitals thread I've hardly time to catch my breath.:lol:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

For me, appreciation of Callas's artistry has only grown with the years, and the singers I enjoy and listen to mostly are those with a superior level of artistry and musicianship. I like singing that is beautifully _expressed_ rather than merely beautiful. Consequently, though I used to enjoy, say, Sutherland's beauty of voice and fabulous coloratura technique, I hardly ever listen to her these days.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Barbebleu said:


> That's a terrific book. You've put me in the mood to re-read it again. I'm going to stop reading your posts Greg, between this and the Vocal recitals thread I've hardly time to catch my breath.:lol:


Hahaha! I've read it at least twice cover to cover, but find I refer to it often for his comments on individual singers.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

GregMitchell said:


> For me, appreciation of Callas's artistry has only grown with the years, and the singers I enjoy and listen to mostly are those with a superior level of artistry and musicianship. I like singing that is beautifully _expressed_ rather than merely beautiful. Consequently, though I used to enjoy, say, Sutherland's beauty of voice and fabulous coloratura technique, I hardly ever listen to her these days.


I greatly admire your opinions. I can understand your point of view. I have gone through periods of being blown away with Callas... often for many years.But Sutherland, who some consider a boring singing machine, is as they say in sports " my home team".


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

I'm no expert on singing, but I can't think of a more perfect recording of a soprano part than Maria Callas's Rosina in "Barbieri di Siviglia". If I want to demonstrate the beauty of opera singing to a newbie, I'd play one of her numbers from this record. Ironically, I believe I've read that she never performed the part on stage, only recorded it in a studio exactly once.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

^^^ Maria did perform the role of Rosina live with Gobbi during 56 season of La Scala.......










Check the complete cast and dates at La Scala archives, 9 performance run with last few Rosina's sung by Vicky DLA.......

http://www.teatroallascala.org/arch...2-cc9b-4553-bb36-f4b0304c95ef&objecttype=base


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Callas voice was a voice of many colors, some of which strike me as exceedingly beautiful and some of which can be unpleasant. It was partly nature and partly art. Most voices exhibit a more consistent timbre, and so there are voices I dislike for their basic timbre and just don't care to listen to, and voices I find entirely enchanting no matter what they're singing. I always know what to expect from these voices. With Callas I don't always know what to expect, but I do always expect something interesting. Her ability to use what nature gave her and alter the timbre of her voice to express varied emotions and even to characterize entire roles is unequaled by any other singer I can think of. Callas demands that we listen with full attention to what she's doing, but also be prepared to forgive some less than pleasing moments along the way. "Art," she said, "is more than beauty."

There's no obligation to enjoy any singer's voice, but even if we never find hers to be one that attracts us, the experience of Callas is a necessary part of any opera lover's - and any singer's, and perhaps even any musician's - education.


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

DarkAngel said:


> ^^^ Maria did perform the role of Rosina live with Gobbi during 56 season of La Scala.......


Thanks for clarifying. I know I read that she hadn't in a book about her so I am confused how I got this wrong, or perhaps the book I read had it wrong. Gobbi, of course, is the Figaro on the recording as well.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Why not just like them all? Of course, we have our favourites according to our taste but I can take in Callas, Sutherland and all the rest of the show. Great! Pick the ones that do the most for you. Then just sit back and enjoy without feeling guilty.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

I prefer emotions to mere sounds, so I’m not where you are and hope I never get there


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Don't worry you still have four days left of Lent to repent for this!

I know you aren't as interested in post 1952 Callas, but what about going for some very late Callas and giving the 1969 Verdi arias a listen? The voice is no longer there, but Callas tries to convince us with artistry alone and although she recorded these arias before she finds new insights with a fresh interpretation necessitated by her lack of vocal security.

Alternatively give the RAI recitals (in best sound on the Gala label) a spin!

N.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The Conte said:


> Don't worry you still have four days left of Lent to repent for this!
> 
> I know you aren't as interested in post 1952 Callas, but what about going for some very late Callas and giving the 1969 Verdi arias a listen? The voice is no longer there, but Callas tries to convince us with artistry alone and although she recorded these arias before she finds new insights with a fresh interpretation necessitated by her lack of vocal security.
> 
> ...


You just killed me.
What works for me is to take off several months, go back to her and be blown completely away. I did spend many years rather firmly in the Callas camp, but my tastes have changed. An earlier person who posted in this thread voiced a big regret of mine. Almost all of the recordings of her in prime voice other than the first Norma were all in rather poorly recorded live recordings... especially Armida. Even with the mono sound a studio recording from then would have been a big boon to her fans. Thanks for writing. I do like some later studio recordings. I am blanking on the I believe early Verdi aria that blows me away from this period where at the end of the aria she does a gorgeous run from up high to the very bottom of the voice and everything is PERFECT.
BTW, I have two speeches that I did on Callas For my Toastmaster clubsI've posted to Youtube so you can see I am interested.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

^^^^ I don't really hear a drop-off in overall vocal quality or limits to her technique until after Maria's 55 seasons, and in fact between her weight loss and thru 1955 her artistry is in sharper focus and she had the confidence and swagger of being queen of La Scala performing with maximum total dramatic impact, her 55 live performances are beyond compare really (Norma, Lucia, Traviata etc)

Also after the 1953 contract with Legge/EMI she was provided best available casts and sound recording capabilities available for studio albums.....

Even after 1955 she could have nights when all the stars aligned and the opera gods where at her back and she produced almost untouchable performances......one that comes to mind is live 57 Anna Bolena at La Scala, how could one surpass such artistry as displayed here, never has the betrayed queen truely come to life on stage as here......be patient SOF, Rome (and Callas love) was not built in a day 










Can you listen to this without being brought to near tears, Maria in complete command with technique and heartbreaking emotion, truely La Divina......


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

The acting is great. The early voice is great. But after I listened to her enough I started thinking she sounded like she was singing though a wad of *chaw*. Lucia Aliberti seems to do that too. I sure it is 90% my imagination, but ruined it for me.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I greatly admire your opinions. I can understand your point of view. I have gone through periods of being blown away with Callas... often for many years.But Sutherland, who some consider a boring singing machine, is as they say in sports " my home team".


Then Callas must be mine.

I did go through a period when I tried to like Sutherland more, and I listened to her quite a lot. I still think her _Bel raggio_ on _The Art of the Prima Donna_ is absolutey spectacular, but, for the most part, her mannerisms just irritate me. People usually use the word "mannered" pejoratively in discussions of Schwarzkopf, but her "mannerisms" rarely bother me, whereas Sutherland's (the mushy diction, the weak lower register, the moony, droopy portamenti) decidely do, and I find it hard to become involved in her performaces for that reason. Whereas I can perfectly understand why so many are bowled over by her voice and vocalism, I suppose I just have other priorities.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

GregMitchell said:


> Then Callas must be mine.
> 
> I did go through a period when I tried to like Sutherland more, and I listened to her quite a lot. I still think her _Bel raggio_ on _The Art of the Prima Donna_ is absolutey spectacular, but, for the most part, her mannerisms just irritate me. People usually use the word "mannered" pejoratively in discussions of Schwarzkopf, but her "mannerisms" rarely bother me, whereas Sutherland's (the mushy diction, the weak lower register, the moony, droopy portamenti) decidely do, and I find it hard to become involved in her performaces for that reason. Whereas I can perfectly understand why so many are bowled over by her voice and vocalism, I suppose I just have other priorities.


Just because we both have ears doesn't mean we hear the same way.I celebrate our differences! I can understand your point of view on La Stupenda.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

GregMitchell said:


> Then Callas must be mine.
> 
> I did go through a period when I tried to like Sutherland more, and I listened to her quite a lot. I still think her _Bel raggio_ on _The Art of the Prima Donna_ is absolutey spectacular, but, for the most part, her mannerisms just irritate me. People usually use the word "mannered" pejoratively in discussions of Schwarzkopf, but her "mannerisms" rarely bother me, whereas Sutherland's (the mushy diction, the weak lower register, the moony, droopy portamenti) decidely do, and I find it hard to become involved in her performaces for that reason. Whereas I can perfectly understand why so many are bowled over by her voice and vocalism, I suppose I just have other priorities.


I go through phases with Sutherland. She's someone of whom I usually prefer the earlier recordings. I am not as bothered by her lack of diction and crooning (which came in part way into her career). She was a phenomenon and it must have been wonderful being in the house to hear a voice of that size AND flexibility. My reservation with Sutherland is that she is often bland dramatically. In some ways she is better heard in coloratura show piece arias (whereas Callas is better in complete roles). Sutherland stuns with a run or a fast volley of notes, whereas Callas stuns with the delivery of two words on three notes due to the inflection and colouring of her tone. Both are amazing in their own way.

The studio recordings I like that Sutherland recorded tend to be those where neither Callas or Caballe recorded the opera. The one exception to that is Sutherland's second Norma where her voice is past its best, however she is totally committed to the role and it's one of her best performances from a dramatic point of view.

So here's a question SOF, what's your favourite recording of Anna Bolena? As DarkAngel has mentioned Callas' live recording is an example of her at her best, whereas Sutherland's was unfortunately caught far too late in her career. Which do you prefer, Callas in her prime or Sutherland past hers? (I know that's an unfair comparison, but I'm just wondering how far your love of Sutherland goes. I would rather listen to Sutherland's Prima Donna recital rather than the Callas/Di Stefano duets from '72.)

N.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The Conte said:


> I go through phases with Sutherland. She's someone of whom I usually prefer the earlier recordings. I am not as bothered by her lack of diction and crooning (which came in part way into her career). She was a phenomenon and it must have been wonderful being in the house to hear a voice of that size AND flexibility. My reservation with Sutherland is that she is often bland dramatically. In some ways she is better heard in coloratura show piece arias (whereas Callas is better in complete roles). Sutherland stuns with a run or a fast volley of notes, whereas Callas stuns with the delivery of two words on three notes due to the inflection and colouring of her tone. Both are amazing in their own way.
> 
> The studio recordings I like that Sutherland recorded tend to be those where neither Callas or Caballe recorded the opera. The one exception to that is Sutherland's second Norma where her voice is past its best, however she is totally committed to the role and it's one of her best performances from a dramatic point of view.
> 
> ...


I will say that whereas she is not at her best in her recordings of Anna, in the video clips on Youtube she is fabulous both in the concert and full opera version. She was around 60 and in great voice as well as dramativally. In my Youtube talk on Sutherland I used a clip from Anna Bolena and everyone went crazy. I can listen to it over and over and over.I can understand the preference for early Sutherland, but I like the darker, rounder voice up to about age 61. I never heard her in a house, but I prefer the steely D's from this period to the Eb's earlier. The vibrato is more distinct. She was very much a dramatic soprano in this era of her career. You will ask that I be barred from this forum when I say I never have heard Callas's Anna Bolena. I tend not to like her later work. I know that is unforgivable.
j


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

The Conte said:


> So here's a question SOF, what's your favourite recording of Anna Bolena? As DarkAngel has mentioned Callas' live recording is an example of her at her best, whereas Sutherland's was unfortunately caught far too late in her career. Which do you prefer, Callas in her prime or Sutherland past hers? (I know that's an unfair comparison, but I'm just wondering how far your love of Sutherland goes. I would rather listen to Sutherland's Prima Donna recital rather than the Callas/Di Stefano duets from '72.)


I choose the 57 live Anna Bolena because as good as the studio opera and studio recitals are Maria could push herself to more daring colortura live with a supportive crowd and secure voice Callas would go where eagles dare. The live "al dolce guidami" youtube more sublimely heartbreaking and the searing sustained high notes with scale runs before and after surpass the famous studio complete "Mad Scences" version (itself nearly untouchable) 

*









*BTW for me it is not a "zero sum game" I don't like Tebaldi, Price, Sutherland, Moffo etc any less than before......its just that my Callas love seems endless the more I listen to her prime performances


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

I was a hard sell on Callas, and I don't think it was that her singing wasn't something I considered gorgeous. I always loved her voice, but her popularity kind of soured me on her name. She'd been put on this pedestal and it's hard to really see the natural brilliance with that shine of admiration beaming on her name. It was the same with Pavarotti and Lanza. Both were these figures that reminded me more of a Liberace than the real deal, even if I thought their voices were great. 

As the years have progressed, I have really grown to appreciate these singers as singers. Sadly with Callas and Lanza, I feel they didn't get the productions their voices deserved. We've got these great samples of their talents, but they're just snippets. Lanza passed at the height of his talents, and Callas withdrew. Many argue she lost her vocal power, but the more I read about her, I think Callas' biggest enemy was Maria. She became this name that she had to live up to.

I've heard many post weight-loss recordings from her, and think she still had a wonderful voice. There was probably a lot more going on than voice issues. But that's a long source of debate and speculation. 

It took a while for me to stubbornly give the lady the appreciation she deserved. A "vocal goddess, above all others"? Perhaps not. A wonderful Soprano who represents a major shift in operatic performance? Absolutely! I adore the voice, and the more I hear about what kind of person Maria was, I can appreciate Callas more.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

SalieriIsInnocent said:


> I was a hard sell on Callas, and I don't think it was that her singing wasn't something I considered gorgeous. I always loved her voice, but her popularity kind of soured me on her name. She'd been put on this pedestal and it's hard to really see the natural brilliance with that shine of admiration beaming on her name. It was the same with Pavarotti and Lanza. Both were these figures that reminded me more of a Liberace than the real deal, even if I thought their voices were great.
> 
> As the years have progressed, I have really grown to appreciate these singers as singers. Sadly with Callas and Lanza, I feel they didn't get the productions their voices deserved. We've got these great samples of their talents, but they're just snippets. Lanza passed at the height of his talents, and Callas withdrew. Many argue she lost her vocal power, but the more I read about her, I think Callas' biggest enemy was Maria. She became this name that she had to live up to.
> 
> ...


Well thought out. I think another big factor was she had worked very, very hard for years and had put her personal life on hold. She was performing hard from around 20, living for music. When she met Ari she was dazzled by this glamorous man who was rich as Croesus and supposedly a prodigious lover and she was more interested in being a woman than a hard working operatic workhorse. Add all that to the fact that her voice was not working for her the way it once was and ir iS easy to see why she favored the casinos at Monte Carlo over La Scala.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I never have heard Callas's Anna Bolena. I tend not to like her later work. I know that is unforgivable.
> j


You should. She was in fine voice for that live performance right up to a stunning top D in the finale of Act I, and the sound, especially in its Divina incarnation, is pretty good.

In _Opera on Record 3_, Richard Fairman writes,



> Almost alone of latter-day artsts, she has the power to grasp the emotional crux of every line and put it across. Like her predecessor [Pasta], Callas is also economical in means. There is no place for melodrama or dazzling ornamentation, the easy effects of those who have followed her. It is rather an instinctive feel for the music that shapes her performance. No detail is false to the overall conception; in drama and vocal colour she is wholly consistent, always weighty in timbre, rich in sovereign authority. When the conductor Rescigno asked her after a concert why she had shaped a phrase of this role in a certain way, Callas remarked simply, 'Because she is a queen'. Donizetti's Anna Bolena has been reborn. In the autumn of 1958 she made a commercial recording of the final scene. This is a most accomplished piece of singing. Her command of the _bel canto_ line is supreme and in the rising turns of _Al dolce guidami_ the covered tone is so expressive as to suggest some uncanny distant voice singing from the depths of Anna's soul. It recalls, perhaps inevitably, one of Chorley's descriptions of Pasta. 'There were a breadth, an expressiveness in her roulades, which imparted to every passage a significance totally beyond the reach of lighter, more spontaneous singers... The greatest grace of all, depth and reality of expression was possessed by this remarkable artist.' It is not enough for other singers to take up forgotten _bel canto_ works just for the sake of novelty.These operas do have dramatic power; they will respond to serious study and devotion. Callas has established a tradition for others to follow.


This is something Caballé aknowledged when she said



> She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only great music but great ideas of interpretation. She has given us the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly possible before her. That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream. It is not right. I am much smaller than Callas.


In invoking the name of Giuditta Pasta, Fairman seeks to remind us that Donizetti wrote *Anna Bolena *specifically for her, as did Bellini *Norma* and *La Sonnambula*. Descriptions by contemporaries Stendahl and Chorley would suggest that, like Callas, this great artist's voice was not without its faults, but that its dramatic power was unparalleled.

It was the 1957 Callas/Visconti/Gavazzeni/La Scala production of *Anna Bolena* which really started the _bel canto_ revival. Reviews appeared in the international press, and the respected British magazine Opera dedicated seven pages of its June 1957 edition to a review by Desmond Shawe-Taylor.

The opera was heavily cut by Gavazzeni and, aside from Giulietta Simionato as Giovanna, the rest of the cast (Nicola Rossi-Lemeni as Enrico, Gianni Raimondi as Percy) is adequate rather than inspired, but it is a major milestone in operatic history, and should be heard by anyone interested in _bel canto_ opera.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

> Her voice type was what could be called a soprano sfogato. It was described by Stendhal as follows:
> 
> She can achieve perfect resonance on a note as low as bottom A, and can rise as high as C♯, or even to a slightly sharpened D; and she possesses the rare ability to be able to sing contralto as easily as she can sing soprano. I would suggest ... that the true designation of her voice is mezzo-soprano, and any composer who writes for her should use the mezzo-soprano range for the thematic material of his music, while still exploiting, as it were incidentally and from time to time, notes which lie within the more peripheral areas of this remarkably rich voice. Many notes of this last category are not only extremely fine in themselves, but have the ability to produce a kind of resonant and magnetic vibration, which, through some still unexplained combination of physical phenomena, exercises an instantaneous and hypnotic effect upon the soul of the spectator.*This leads to the consideration of one of the most uncommon features of Madame Pasta's voice: it is not all moulded from the same metallo, as it is said in Italy (which is to say that it possesses more than one timbre); and this fundamental variety of tone produced by a single voice affords one of the richest veins of musical expression which the artistry of a great cantatrice is able to exploit*.[SUP][7][/SUP]


Thank you GM for bringing up Miss Pasta who premiered many of the great Bel Canto operas we know today, we have no recordings to draw from since she retired from stage by 1840 well before any acoustic recording technology so we have only written accounts of her voice & performances.

Above voice description from Wiki Music and we can recognize the resemblance to Maria's own unique sound especially the change in tone/timbre from lower range to the top allowing a large variance in sound which can be artistically used to great effect by a gifted singer......








Pasta as Anna Bolena 1830

BTW another unique feature of Maria's voice is the size and projected power of the high notes, most singers as the voice moves up the scale naturally becomes smaller and sharper sounding, Maria somehow can maintain size and amplitude up the scale producing climaxes of devastating power when called for........


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> Thank you GM for bringing up Miss Pasta who premiered many of the great Bel Canto operas we know today, we have no recordings to draw from since she retired from stage by 1835 well before any acoustic recording technology so we have only written accounts of her voice & performances.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The photo is Rosa Ponselle.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> The photo is Rosa Ponselle.


Corrected picture posted


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> Corrected picture posted


Rosa and Giuditta convey their thanks.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

DarkAngel said:


> I choose the 57 live Anna Bolena because as good as the studio opera and studio recitals are Maria could push herself to more daring colortura live with a supportive crowd and secure voice Callas would go where eagles dare. The live "al dolce guidami" youtube more sublimely heartbreaking and the searing sustained high notes with scale runs before and after surpass the famous studio complete "Mad Scences" version (itself nearly untouchable)
> 
> *
> 
> ...


On your recommendation I listed to the 57 live Bolena. She sounded like 52!!!!!!!!!!! Even the Eb was great. Incredible character developent and musicianship! Thanks. I thought her voice was toast by then.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Seattleoperafan said:


> On your recommendation* I listened to the 57 live Bolena. She sounded like 52!!!!!!!!!!!* Even the Eb was great. Incredible character developent and musicianship! Thanks. I thought her voice was toast by then.


Maria rode the wings of the opera gods that night........

Almost every live performance from 55 season of La Scala is fabulous, worthy of adoration!


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Seattleoperafan said:


> On your recommendation I listed to the 57 live Bolena. She sounded like 52!!!!!!!!!!! Even the Eb was great. Incredible character developent and musicianship! Thanks. I thought her voice was toast by then.


Opening aria sequence 55 Lucia, Maria just crushes it here, listen to that vocal technique she is absolutely fearless, weight loss not effecting anything here (perhaps a bit less bloom but this is live recording remember) .....great BJR vinyl sample from callasfan


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> Opening aria sequence 55 Lucia, Maria just crushes it here, listen to that vocal technique she is absolutely fearless, weight loss not effecting anything here (perhaps a bit less bloom but this is live recording remember) .....great BJR vinyl sample from callasfan


"Never believe any soprano who says they don't listen to Callas. The first thing every soprano does when she wakes up is to pour herself a glass of orange juice, put on a Callas record, and try to figure out how she did it." (Katia Ricciarelli)


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Thanks for the insights. I am full of Callas now and will revisit her in summer most likely. Then I can hear her with fresh ears and ears that haven't grown tired of the way she sounds. IT is a failing of mine.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Listen more to her chest voice. That's been my favorite part of her voice from the get go, and it stays strong with age.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Listen more to her chest voice. That's been my favorite part of her voice from the get go, and it stays strong with age.


Totally... and it is all there in her speaking voice!!!!!!!!!!! It is my favorite also. Her Suicidio!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like the faster vibrato which winds way down up high.


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Why not just like them all? Of course, we have our favourites according to our taste but I can take in Callas, Sutherland and all the rest of the show. Great! Pick the ones that do the most for you. Then just sit back and enjoy without feeling guilty.


Exactly this. I have nearly every recording Callas ever made. I lover her. To me, I like uniqueness over run-of-the-mill. To me, that is the greatest thing about Callas - that distinctive voice. You just know it's her immediately. With other sopranos, if I don't know a recording well enough, it's hard to distinguish who is who. That being said, I listen to Callas in small doses, as her repertoire I don't care for much (save Verdi, _Il Barbiere_ and her recital discs). I much prefer to listen to the Baroque and Classical periods, as the romantics and post-moderns tend to bore me.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Seattleoperafan:
You shouldn't have to apologize for not "getting" the Callas that others who feel differently about her do. I completely understand your feelings.

For me it was an acquiring experience. I finally discovered that I was focusing only on a voice that didn't thrill me. It took a while for me to realize that there was something more than just her voice. She had a way of expressing the same words as others did but with such exquisite depth and feeling that it grabbed me in a way that no others could. 

Her musicianship was impeccable and her devotion to getting things right no matter how long it took proved to me her dedication to the art.

I was also mesmerized by the girlish charm of her off-stage personality which I found to be unique and down-to-earth, if not, at times, mean-spirited and nasty.

She was the complete package.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

One of the singers Callas sang with, or more likely one of the conductors she worked with, said he "couldn't separate the voice from what she expressed with it." That's is what she is to me: the total expression of the music she sings. I may not like the sound she makes, this or that sour note, the sometimes "fearfully uncontrolled" high notes (can't remember which critic said that - Philip Hope-Wallace?); however, whatever she sings remains in my memory as the *ideal* way to express it. 
"Majestic justness" as another critic (Musical America) put it (in _Norma_, I believe). No one can touch her. No one has matched or surpassed her interpretations. Prettier voices or perfect voices can't be as expressive or even approximate Callas's expression. Cuts don't matter if the "extra" music is not well expressed, or even as well sung as Callas sings.

*Callas rules!*


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I think with Callas it is vital to catch the voice at its best which, alas, was not very long. I am just listening to the 1955 Lucia with Karajan against the 1959 one with Serafin and the deterioration of the voice is noticeable even in those few years. The Karajan Lucia is one of the very greatest recordings of this artist even if the sound is duff.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

DavidA said:


> I think with Callas it is vital to catch the voice at its best which, alas, was not very long. I am just listening to the 1955 Lucia with Karajan against the 1959 one with Serafin and the deterioration of the voice is noticeable even in those few years. The Karajan Lucia is one of the very greatest recordings of this artist even if the sound is duff.


Vocal decline is a process for most singers (some seem to lose their vocal prowess overnight, but even then the signs were usually there beforehand). Callas was in superlative voice up to and including 1953 with the first slight imperfection in technique being displayed in the studio recording of I Puritani during the act one finale where there is strain in a high passage. Then the first (slight) wobble appears in the 1954 Puccini arias disc. The deterioration was slow and gradual after that and the point at which the lack of technique makes Callas unlistenable will depend on each individual's tolerance level, understanding of Callas' art and responsiveness to performances of unparalleled emotional depth.

Occasionally in later recordings (such as the Anna Bolena discussed above and the Carmen - that sits lower) Callas was able to put aside her technical issues and sang with a wonderful freedom in addition to her everpresent interpretative insights coupled with a strong identification with the role she happened to be singing.

Voices almost always lose their freshness (listen to Sutherland, Gheorghiou and De los Angeles - just to mention a few sopranos), that is when you really discover the artist beyond the voice. De los Angeles could still sparkle in song recitals despite her voice being a shadow of its former self. Sutherland's second studio Norma is possibly her most dramatically convincing performance and Gheorghiou's Violetta could still make you go through a box of cleanex in act two despite the stiff coloratura in her sempre libera the last time she sang La Traviata at the ROH. That's why we listen to Callas' recordings up to those last haunting sketches of Verdi arias in 69 when she was well past her best, because Callas was much more than a voice. Even when the voice was gone, she, the artist, the interpreter, the muse and the soul was still there.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> ...why we listen to Callas' recordings up to those last haunting sketches of Verdi arias in 69 when she was well past her best, because Callas was much more than a voice. Even when the voice was gone, she, the artist, the interpreter, the muse and the soul was still there.
> 
> N.


I find my wobble tolerance tends to vary from one listen to another. Sometimes I can't bear to listen at all, as all I can hear is the strain she is under. At others I barely notice it, so completely am I involved in the artistry and her unerring ability to get to the emotional core of what she is singing. Why this should be I have no idea.


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

GregMitchell said:


> I find my wobble tolerance tends to vary from one listen to another. Sometimes I can't bear to listen at all, as all I can hear is the strain she is under. At others I barely notice it, so completely am I involved in the artistry and her unerring ability to get to the emotional core of what she is singing. Why this should be I have no idea.


I seem to have the same experience. Like you sometimes I listen and marvel at the artistry and then the next time I have to stop listening pretty much immediately. Callas for me makes me the saddest of all singers who had vocal issues and when I listen to her later recordings I feel sad for her. You can sense that she tries her best and she simply can't do it. In many points she sounds so good that you forget and then comes the high note and it breaks your heart again. I can't even what it must have been like her for she was so self-critical and could so clearly after listening to a take hear what should be done differently on the next take. What it must have been like to not have been able to do it anymore and have to admit this is the best she could do. Then there are points when the old magic is back, like the famous Ritorna vincitor for instance.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Diminuendo said:


> Then there are points when the old magic is back, like the famous Ritorna vincitor for instance.


Which probably demonstrates that the problems were as much psychological as physical. As you no doubt know, that recording of _Ritorna vincitor_ had not been planned. She, Rescigno and the recording team were taking a break during sessions for the Verdi arias whe was recording in 1964, when Michel Glotz played a recording, made the previous day, of Crespin singing the aria. Callas was insensed at a performance so antithetical to her musical sensibilities. "This isn't Verdi or Aida," she exclaimed. "I remember when I prepared this with Maestro Serafin he wanted such agitation that I could hardly get the words in: this is like a funeral march." Having ascertained that the parts were still there, she turned to Rescigno and said, "Come on, Nicola, let's sing it." And they went out and did it there and then - in one take. The challenge had fired her up and the result is not only a fantastically dramatic performance, but one in which most of her former vocal security has returned.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

You know, I think if you were there, absorbing the godlike diva stage presence, that even at the end of her career, her artistry would trump the vocal decline , but we have a paucity of video record. My complaint is that even at her vocal peak, I am not always in the mood to enjoy her unique sound. The top was massive and thrilling, but never overly beautiful, although it might have sounded different in a house. But of course, all of this is subjective.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Some of the comments in this thread are pretty silly. Ironically, those who are talking about depth over flash are relying on a pretty superficial view of the matter:



> I prefer emotions to mere sounds, so I'm not where you are and hope I never get there





> Beauty over meaning. Gloss over substance. There is, of course, a certain irony about that in regards to Callas.


These are simplistic dichotomies, because beauty and meaning are _not_ independent things operating in isolation. A beautiful, pure pianissimo has a totally different effect than an ugly, shrill one. The "mere" sounds that singers make are what allow them to portray meanings. Expression comes through sounds. I'm not denying that ugly sounds are an important part of the repertoire of sounds for an opera singer. The problem with Callas is that her repertoire of sounds is deficient. She is frequently incapable of producing a high note without a serious wobble, which reduces the expressive range available to her. The excitement of a high note often comes from a quickening of the vibrato on that note. That effect, and many others, she cannot achieve. Now, I'm told that she makes up for these very fundamental and obvious flaws with great, almost mystical in some accounts, expression. Except, first, as I was just saying, I find her range of expression limited by her vocal flaws. But second, I just don't hear what is so unique in her interpretations. I don't hear musicality far in excess of any other singer, as I've often read claimed. I'm not saying she's unmusical. I'm just saying that I don't find her to be especially noteworthy in that regard. (If someone wishes to correct me, a thorough analysis of a specific part of a specific aria might help, but from experience I can say that throwing whole arias or operas at me and asking me to revel won't work.)

Additionally, voices, like all instruments, have natural expressive qualities. Flutes are purer than oboes, and oboes could never match their brilliance in this area, but the tart sound of an oboe likewise is an effect the flute can't achieve. The same is true of voices. The operatic voice has a particular range of expressive qualities, which do vary from singer to singer within limits, just as different violins of similar quality might have differences in timbre etc., that are unique, and to me, the most outstanding of any instrument. Just hearing a well produced operatic voice is a beautiful and emotionally powerful experience. There's nothing shallow or petty about it.

Some examples. Let's take the aria "Tu che le vanita." Callas did a famous version of this. The trick of this aria is in shifting moods of the text. The text opens with a declaration of the vanity of the world, and about escape from it in the grave. The words "mondo" and "profondo" are quite low, and clearly intended to be sung in chest voice (now I'm getting flashbacks to our discussion of Yannis Nezet-Seguin, but anyway.) But the thought turns to those who have holy pity in heaven, and to the lord himself. This part goes into the upper register, the sweet sound of which contrasts the bitter anger at the vanity of this world with the beauty and goodness of the next. The change in thought, providing characterization, is in the music itself. Now, so far this is all Verdi's genius. What the singer has to do to be properly expressive in this moment is have a strong, dark chest voice, and pure, beautiful top notes that can make this contrast. Let's listen to Callas and another singer.




Callas has the strong, dark chest register. Whatever my complaints about Callas, she usually had a good and thrilling lower register. But the top notes? The sound she makes on the word "cielo" at 3:10 is ironically infernal. It doesn't improve from there. It's shrill, and the forte top notes have bad vibrato. It isn't the pain of the character coming through, it's just painful. It's bad singing, full stop.





Selma Kurz, coloratura soprano, has both the strong, dark chest register and the pure, beautiful top notes to create the _contrast_ necessary to sing this aria expressively. The tone on the word "cielo" is positively gorgeous, a heavenly sound if there ever were one. It's not about me being some beauty junkie who just wants to bliss out and pretend there are no ugly sounds. Ugly sounds can be part a singer's expressive vocabulary. The problem is that for Callas they are not optional in far too many cases.

Let's take perhaps Callas' most famous role, _Norma_. This is a very famous live performance from La Scala under Serafin in 1955. It's often lauded as her best performance. Now, let's take the central aria for the character of Norma, Casta diva. This aria is again, through Bellini's genius, masterful setting of a text. Norma is praying for peace, but with the hidden motive of her love for Pollione, the Roman soldier who might be killed in a war between the Druids and the Romans. Now, this text lies mostly in the middle and upper middle, and is made up of extremely long, beautiful lines. Callas does well with these lines, but whenever she reaches the upper middle, the wobble sets in (for example, on the word "inargenti"). Apart from being ugly, this makes her sound out of control of the sound, which makes me hear the _singer_, Callas, and not the _character_, Norma. This breaks me out of my disbelief, and makes it hard for me to get involved in the dramatic moment.

Now we come to the climax of the aria. Norma asks the moon to turn her beautiful face to us, "unclouded and unveiled". The music reaches its height on "sembiante" or "face". This is the face of the god Norma as priestess is there to adore and supplicate. This should be a moment of ecstasy. Her high note on 2:49 is awful. Wobbly and shrill. This spoils the moment entirely and adds nothing in recompense.





Now let's listen to Rosa Ponselle. First off, Ponselle never ever has the slightest hint of wobble. Second, I hear much about Callas's unique gifts in phrasing, yet as a purely musical matter, I much prefer the way Ponselle delivers Bellini's melody. Third, listen to the key phrase, "il bel sembiante." Whereas Callas gives us four equal notes at roughly the same volume, then goes for the shrill, wobbly top note, Ponselle varies the length and quality, at first shortening them, but making each successive note longer and more intense, until she suddenly attacks the last note softly, and the crescendos again, using that intensity to peak on a beautiful, perfectly controlled high note. Not only is it more interesting and individual as a musical interpretation, but the dramatic effect is sublime. It is as though she is imploring the moon, and suddenly sees what she is after. The ethereal beauty of her tone here is essential to the characterization: it is a reflection of what happens in her soul as she reaches this climax (pun intended - this is after all, a moment of both religious and sensual ecstasy). It is a beautiful and moment full of character and drama. I would take Ponselle over Callas every day of the week and twice on Sunday.





Now, I've been rather harsh for polemical purposes. I think Callas did a lot of good work, and early recordings are better than later ones. Certainly many great singers have flaws and have made unintentionally ugly sounds or let their instrument get away from them. Absolutely true. Even in those early Callas recordings, though, I often do not care for her middle and upper middle. That's too much bad voice for great singing. Ironically, my favorite recording of Callas is with her as Kundry in _Parsifal_ in 1949. But for me, her status as a mythical, unique genius who brought musicality and characterization unheard of previously in opera is ludicrous hyperbole. The idea that vocal beauty is a shallow add on to real depth is also a strange and rather perverse notion.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^ How much you, I, or anyone else can respond to Callas's musical judgment and dramatic creativity will certainly depend partly on our reactions to how she realizes those things vocally. I agree with you that vocal deficiencies do work against her intentions in many cases, but not everyone will agree on how much an interpretation is ruined by a sour or wobbly high note. I do find Callas to be a precise musician with an extraordinary sense of how to pace and shape a musical line, and she's often uniquely insightful in finding specific ways to inflect words and phrases, bringing her roles to imaginative life as few other singers do. Her Medea, Violetta, Lucia, Norma, Lady Macbeth, Tosca, Butterfly, Santuzza, Gioconda and Carmen, at least, say more to me than anyone else's. That doesn't mean that other singers never handled any arias better than she did, especially during her years of vocal decline when the voice wouldn't do what she clearly wanted it to. I agree that there are technical problems in the "Tu che le vanita" and a few very bad notes. On the other hand, after 4:18 it has great musical and dramatic specificity that summons up the character of Elisabetta and the dark mood of the story in a way that I've not often heard even in singers with more perfect techniques.

Not enough can be demonstrated about Callas's uniqueness through a process of cherry-picking arias and individual notes, which I fear is what you've offered us here. Compare one of her great roles, phrase by phrase, with someone else's interpretation of it. Then we can have a conversation. (Callas, by the way, would have agreed that Ponselle was incomparable, but I find Callas's phrasing of "Casta Diva," at least in some of her performances - there are quite a few - more detailed and expressive than Ponselle's in the above studio recording: 



)


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

True. I offered the above as representative examples of my experience of Callas's work compared with what I take to be representative of examples of the other singers, not as conclusive proof by themselves. I own quite a few Callas recordings and have listened to quite a bit of her work. I do find it difficult to listen to complete roles even when I try, however, as the voice is just too often veering into bad places. I was also trying to show with a representative example - apart from any claims about Callas - that beauty of sound is inextricably linked to characterization, interpretation, and drama, contra the earlier comments by a few other members. 

It's not so much the occasional flubbed high note. If she had a bad day (or even just a bad tail end of career) that would be one thing. It's that consistently, from early recordings to later recordings, the upper middle and high register is shrill and wobbly. That's a large part of the soprano's range that I have to ignore, especially in the high flying bel canto roles that she is most famous for. 

As for that studio Casta Diva, it is better than the one I used above - a bit fresher overall - but the fundamentals are the same. A nice opening with some good long phrases, but the climactic phrase "il sembiante" is actually rather bland and four square and the vibrato and tone problems are still there. I still much prefer Ponselle vocally and musically.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

When I get the chance, I will do an extensive comparison of her full _Tosca_ with other singers using the famous de Sabata recording. I might also do _Madama Butterfly_. I choose Puccini just because I know the Puccini discography (not to mention the operas themselves) better than most things she sang.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

The very first opera I ever heard was the Callas/De Sabata _Tosca._ It pierced me to the very core. I just love the vulnerability of the voice - rough, unpolished...but so full of passion and personality. It's like she transmutes herself into the role, and the character and the singer merge into one. I would urge anyone who hasn't heard or been able to understand her to listen to the aria _Casta diva_ from her recording of _Norma_. It's a miracle.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> The very first opera I ever heard was the Callas/De Sabata _Tosca._ It pierced me to the very core. I just love the vulnerability of the voice - rough, unpolished...but so full of passion and personality. It's like she transmutes herself into the role, and the character and the singer merge into one. I would urge anyone who hasn't heard or been able to understand her to listen to the aria _Casta diva_ from her recording of _Norma_. It's a miracle.


That's so interesting because I have what is perhaps the opposite experience or a different reaction to the same experience, I can't tell. When I hear Callas, all I ever hear is Callas. I never hear a character. I only hear Callas doing her thing.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

vivalagentenuova said:


> That's so interesting because I have what is perhaps the opposite experience or a different reaction to the same experience, I can't tell. When I hear Callas, all I ever hear is Callas. I never hear a character. I only hear Callas doing her thing.


Very interesting! I don't have very much experience with opera, and even less so with comparing recordings; so I would take your opinion to be closer to the truth (I feel a bit out of place on the opera forum because I'm such a newbie, but I try to learn as much as I can). I think at the very least her voice was capable of conveying a staggering variety of emotions requisite to the character she was supposed to be portraying. If you don't mind, what are some examples of singers who are most effective at character portrayal?In opera, is having a strong, individual personality or being a convincing actor more important?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> That's so interesting because I have what is perhaps the opposite experience or a different reaction to the same experience, I can't tell. When I hear Callas, all I ever hear is Callas. I never hear a character. I only hear Callas doing her thing.


I think your difficulty with her voice is standing in the way of appreciating her art. If you've read enough of my posts here, you'll know that I understand and appreciate vocal technique pretty thoroughly. But even when I can't enjoy some of the sounds Callas makes, I perceive a great power of characterization. She has such a distinctive timbre (which inspires everything from love to hate) that I can see where someone might have trouble listening through it. But do hear her Butterfly; she brings to it a voice that might be thought quite unsuitable to the little geisha, and through a wealth of inflections and shifts of vocal color she turns Cio Cio San into a figure of almost unbearable tragedy. After that, listen to her Medea (I recommend the live Dallas performance) or Carmen to experience her interpretive range. I'm not a great fan of either of those operas, but Callas transforms them for me and makes other singers seem generic or bland.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> I think your difficulty with her voice is standing in the way of appreciating her art. If you've read enough of my posts here, you'll know that I understand and appreciate vocal technique pretty thoroughly. But even when I can't enjoy some of the sounds Callas makes, I perceive a great power of characterization. She has such a distinctive timbre (which inspires everything from love to hate) that I can see where someone might have trouble listening through it. But do hear her Butterfly; she brings to it a voice that might be thought quite unsuitable to the little geisha, and through a wealth of inflections and shifts of vocal color she turns Cio Cio San into a figure of almost unbearable tragedy. After that, listen to her Medea (I recommend the live Dallas performance) or Carmen to experience her interpretive range. I'm not a great fan of either of those operas, but Callas transforms them for me and makes other singers seem generic or bland.


I think that's probably true, although again, part of the reason is that to me voice and art are inseparable. The listening _through_ is exactly what bothers me: shouldn't I be listening _to_? Shouldn't the voice be the medium of expression and not a barrier to it? But I will do a full listen of her _Butterfly_, an opera whose score and libretto I know very well and which I have taken some time to analyze in the past. I hope it changes my mind. I would rather have a new singer to listen to than not.

And I always have the highest respect for your comments on vocalism.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> That's so interesting because I have what is perhaps the opposite experience or a different reaction to the same experience, I can't tell. When I hear Callas, all I ever hear is Callas. I never hear a character. I only hear Callas doing her thing.


I find your post profoundly interesting because, like the majority of Callas naysayers, you didn't criticize the sound of her voice or her wobbles in high notes, but rather you honed in on her lack of character presentation -- the very thing that, to me, makes her stand out above all the rest (except for Magda Olivero).
So now I must ask you, please tell me what soprano you DO believe can grasp characters in roles, and what roles?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Yeah, a silly thread.

Callas had her haters and fanboys even when she was still singing.

I think her style and technique were WAY over the top, and I don't like hearing her recordings all that often, BUT I DO appreciate her artistry and influence.

The play MASTER CLASS by Terrence McNally is about her teaching an imaginary Master Class late in her life. It's just her and the accompanist, and then at various times three voice students. I've played the part of the accompanist in two different productions (he also has some dialogue). In between students (and sometimes while a student is onstage) she'll reminisce or rant. The students get to sing a various bits of their song (Verdi, Puccini & Bellini).

It culminates in a monologue about *sacrifice* taken in the name of art.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

pianozach said:


> Yeah, a silly thread.
> 
> Callas had her haters and fanboys even when she was still singing.
> 
> ...


Have you listened to tapes of her actual master classes? There's nothing theatrical about them, but it's interesting to hear her talking to young singers and occasionally demonstrating for them.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

nina foresti said:


> I find your post profoundly interesting because, like the majority of Callas naysayers, you didn't criticize the sound of her voice or her wobbles in high notes, but rather you honed in on her lack of character presentation -- the very thing that, to me, makes her stand out above all the rest (except for Magda Olivero).
> So now I must ask you, please tell me what soprano you DO believe can grasp characters in roles, and what roles?


Well, I don't like her wobbles either, and to me the two issues go hand in hand:a wobble isn't an effective characterizing tool, except for old ladies or something. But yes, I do have a strange sense of getting Callas and not the character.

Singers I think characterize well. I think it follows from what I've said that the greater the singer is vocally, the greater their capacity for characterization. So any great singer would likely do at least a good job. Still, there are a few I especially enjoy (in no special order):
1. Clara Petrella especially as Giorgetta in _Il tabarro_, though she's great all around
2. Beniamino Gigli in many diverse roles
3. Lina Bruna Rasa as Santuzza and Maddelena
4. Gino Bechi as Gerard, Alfio, Tonio, and Germont
5. Tito Gobbi as Michele and Gianni Schicchi
6. Eleanor Steber as Minnie
7. Mario Del Monaco as Dick Johnson in _Fanciulla_. And Andrea Chenier. And Otello.
8. Anna Moffo, especially as Violetta, but also Magda
9. Renato Capecchi as Iago and Gianni Schicchi
10. Mirella Freni as Butterfly and Mimi, even though she never sang it live
11. Oralia Dominguez as Amneris
12. Georges Thill as Werther
13. Obviously Rosa Ponselle in pretty much anything
14. Claudia Muzio in anything
15. Lauritz Melchior as Siegmund
16. Kirsten Flagstad as Isolde, Brunnhilde, and Dido
17. Apollo Granforte as Scarpia and de Luna
18. Ivan Kozlovsky as the Fool in _Boris Godunov_
19. Pirogov and Reizen as Boris
20. Helge Rosvaenge as Tamino and Otello
21. Hans Reinmar as Iago and Wotan


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Well, I don't like her wobbles either, and to me the two issues go hand in hand:a wobble isn't an effective characterizing tool, except for old ladies or something. But yes, I do have a strange sense of getting Callas and not the character.
> 
> Singers I think characterize well. I think it follows from what I've said that the greater the singer is vocally, the greater their capacity for characterization. So any great singer would likely do at least a good job. Still, there are a few I especially enjoy (in no special order):
> 1. Clara Petrella especially as Giorgetta in _Il tabarro_, though she's great all around
> ...


I think it's interesting that Nina has asked you for a list of Sopranos who characterise well and you give a list which includes baritones and tenors as well. Frankly del Monaco for all the glories of his voice would not be the one who I would reckon to characterise pretty well any more than John Wayne ever played more than one character in the movies. It is okay giving one character but a truly great singing actor will be able to give many characters and that is what Callas did whether you like her voice or not. In that she can be compared to an actor like Olivier. Can I ask you in your criticism of Callas and other singers, what is your own experience in singing and opera?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Well, I don't like her wobbles either, and to me the two issues go hand in hand:a wobble isn't an effective characterizing tool, except for old ladies or something. But yes, I do have a strange sense of getting Callas and not the character.
> 
> Singers I think characterize well. I think it follows from what I've said that the greater the singer is vocally, the greater their capacity for characterization. So any great singer would likely do at least a good job. Still, there are a few I especially enjoy (in no special order):
> 1. Clara Petrella especially as Giorgetta in _Il tabarro_, though she's great all around
> ...


I haven't read all this thread and I'm not sure I will. I've really had enough of all these threads. It doesn't really bother me that you or anyone else doesn't _get_ Callas. Posterity speaks in my favour and one of the reasons I like her is that she was one of the greatest _musicians_ of the twentieth century. How she brings the notes on the page to life was quite extraordinary.

Of the singers above you feel characterise well, Moffo is the surprise to me. The voice, especially in the earlier part of her career, was indeed lovely, but I hear very little depth in her characterisations. Indeed as Violetta, both on record and video, she just skates over the role's deeper meanings. It is nicely sung, but affects me not one bit, where Callas destroys me, even as late as 1958 at Covent Garden, which, for a lot of us, is her greatest Violetta. I do like other Violettas too - De Los Angeles, Cotrubas, Gheorghiu, Stratas, Scotto (at least in her earlier recording) - and Moffo, for me, doesn't get anywhere near their level of involvement.

I'm not sure why people find it necessary to defend their dislike of Callas, but these sort threads pop up on a regular basis. She was controversial when she was alive and she still is today, 55 years after she appeared on the operatic stage.

I don't much like Sutherland, but I never feel inclined to start a thread about it.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

vivalagentenuova:
Actually, you only touched on several who actually get to the depths of their character. I doubt that you could include many you named as fine portrayals as much as they all were great singers (in which I agree).
I think it is likely that instead you gave me a list of your favorite singers (including males that I never asked for) more than you did a true recognition of one who can actually feel the role and portray it. 
The proof is that you left off some pretty profound actor/singers like Rene Pape, Jonas Kaufmann, Marina Poplavskaya, Teresa Stratas, Felicity Palmer, Neil Shicoff, Magda Olivero or Patricia Racette as examples. (Yes, Patricia Racette! Just watch her sometime.) You may not think of these singers as great ones but there is no denying they get to the depth of their roles much more than many on your list.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Seattleoperafan:
Don't feel bad that you cannot love Callas more. We all have our own individual tastes and believe me, you are in a hefty group of others that don't "get" her either. And you are certainly entitled to feel that way, (or as Seinfeld would say, "not that there's anything wrong with that") LOL. 
But pushing aside the actual appeal of the sound of her voice, do you think you could at least acknowledge the dedication she devotes to the mechanics of singing, and her passion of following the composer's wishes to the letter, and her innate musicality, and her way of being able to create an unusual delivery even if it is not the appealing sound you are accustomed to?
The thing about Callas is that there is more to singing than just a beautiful voice (as she, herself has stated may times).
Perhaps, if you saw it in that light instead of just hearing a beautiful sound, it might help you to figure out what others who DO get her sound have discovered.
Anyway, it's a beginning...


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

1. I obviously misread your comment, and read "singers" instead of sopranos. Apologies for getting it so wrong.
2. Maybe we have different criteria for good characterization? I'm not sure. For me, first is that the singer have a legitimate voice. The voice is the _requisite means_ of expression. The operatic voice is not just some amplification so that the audience can hear the singer do their thing. It's a highly refined instrument with its own unique qualities just like other instruments. If you don't have a correct instrument, it takes away from your playing no matter how you try and compensate. Loudness is one necessary aspect (if the audience can't hear you, you are not musical or acting at all except maybe to yourself), but the various colors and qualities are necessary too. As is proper vibrato. Callas produces a wobble and often has a shrill quality to her voice. That is a major impediment to expression. 
3. If you look at how I describe Kurz and Ponselle above, I'm praising the way that they inhabit the spirit of the music as written by the composer. They get the characteristic effect that the composer was going for. It's not about literal reading of the score, it's about finding the expressive qualities of the music and then transmitting them to the audience with your voice. That's what Callas _does not do_ in those examples. She does _not_ achieve the contrast between dark chest and pure top that that aria demands. She does not achieve the characteristic effect that Kurz does. Kurz maybe doesn't put as much Kurz in the music as Callas does Callas, but Kurz sings the music and the character the music embodies better. When I listen to opera, I want to hear the characters the composers wrote. That can be done in many ways, but it should use the effects that composer would have tried to create according to the understanding of the performer. I don't want to hear a new character imposed on the score from a brilliant singer who does their own new thing better than the composer. If the character the composer wrote isn't interesting enough to be performed in the spirit of the music written for them, then it's a bad opera.
4. The singers that I listed perform the way I like They use their voices, their beautiful voices, to create the characters the composers wrote in their own way. Mario Del Monaco creates the heroic poet that Giordano wrote in _Andrea Chenier_. He uses his voice to express the righteous anger and steadfast resolve of the character. Notice I didn't say, "He gives us an intimate portrait of Chenier as a relatable everyday person who we might recognize from our daily lives." That's because Giordano and Illica never wrote that character. They wrote a more archetypal character (emphasis on the relative quality of _more_ - he's not a mere symbol either), and Del Monaco embodies that perfectly. Ergo, he did great characterization.
5. What is the role of ugly sounds? Well, they can be an important part of an opera singer's repertoire, but they should be used sparingly and only for a specific effect. Remember, Bel Canto, anyone? The major school of opera training and the major tradition of opera writing is literally called Beautiful Singing! Why are people acting like demanding that is some sort of shallow aberration? I can give you some examples of not-beautiful sounds I think are well used:




Stignani's whole aria up to the ending is beautifully sung. Then, when we get to "IL FIGLIO MIO" what is required by the composer is for her to cry out. Stignani takes away a little bit of the purity of tone, and makes a chilling, grittier sound that nonetheless has beautiful qualities to it. It's not the _most_ beautiful sound, like we'd normally want, but it's a specific effect that achieves a specific purpose in line with the kind of effect the composer wrote into the character at that moment. That's a good use of an uglier sound for character. It's not because she _couldn't_ produce a beautiful sound there, it's that she chose not to. My problem with Callas is that when the music and musical characterization do not give such options but _demand_ Bel Canto, beautiful singing, she, more frequently than other singers usually considered great, _cannot_ do it because of the limitations of her voice. I think that's not good singing. 
Another example:




TRE ASSI E UN PAIO is not sung, but declaimed in a strong, but harsh speaking voice. Thrilling moment. It's not exactly what the composer wrote. But I think it's in the spirit of what the composer wrote. I admit that Callas does make some great moments with her use of chest voice. I'm not saying everything she did was bad. Of course not. But on the whole her voice impedes characterization by my apparently idiosyncratic understanding of it. This moment from Tebaldi is not exactly the prettiest sound ever, but it's the right sound, a sound you could imagine the composer saying, "Ah, that's exactly the kind of thing that I wanted," or "I never thought of it like that, but it's perfect". It fits the spirit of the moment. When I hear Callas wobble on anything above a D, it doesn't give me that sense.
6.


> Rene Pape, Jonas Kaufmann, Marina Poplavskaya, Teresa Stratas, Felicity Palmer, Neil Shicoff, Magda Olivero or Patricia Racette


I've never heard Polavskaya or Palmer and Shicoff was a good singer when he was younger, but other than that none of these signers even produces a legitimate operatic sound. They are either collapsed, or no chest, or woofy, or caprino, etc.. 
7. I have a PhD in Wobbleology.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I haven't read all this thread and I'm not sure I will. I've really had enough of all these threads. It doesn't really bother me that you or anyone else doesn't _get_ Callas. Posterity speaks in my favour and one of the reasons I like her is that she was one of the greatest _musicians_ of the twentieth century. How she brings the notes on the page to life was quite extraordinary.
> 
> Of the singers above you feel characterise well, Moffo is the surprise to me. The voice, especially in the earlier part of her career, was indeed lovely, but I hear very little depth in her characterisations. Indeed as Violetta, both on record and video, she just skates over the role's deeper meanings. It is nicely sung, but affects me not one bit, where Callas destroys me, even as late as 1958 at Covent Garden, which, for a lot of us, is her greatest Violetta. I do like other Violettas too - De Los Angeles, Cotrubas, Gheorghiu, Stratas, Scotto (at least in her earlier recording) - and Moffo, for me, doesn't get anywhere near their level of involvement.
> 
> ...


I'm specifically referring to Moffo's film with Lanfranchi. I find that a well characterized performance according to the criteria I've laid out. I found it deeply moving.

You don't have to agree with me or even participate in the discussion, but why are you acting like it's unusual or silly to want to discuss singers? Isn't part of the point of an opera discussion forum to discuss what we do and don't like in opera, including singers? I happen to think such discussions are interesting. Look at the conversation here: it's not just about saying "Callas good!" "Callas bad!" It's about the nature of characterization in opera, about understanding how a singer communicates, and what should be the standards through which we assess what different singers offer. It's a deeper look at the relationship between performer and composer, about the nature and meaning of beauty; in short, it's just about everything interesting in aesthetics. Callas' merits or demerits are a trigger for and example of those larger issues. I happen to think that's very interesting and worthwhile to talk about.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Anyone else think Callas sounds like she has a mouth full of cotton sometimes?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I'm specifically referring to Moffo's film with Lanfranchi. I find that a well characterized performance according to the criteria I've laid out. I found it deeply moving.


Whereas it doesn't work for me. There is nothing real about her performance. It's nicely sung, she's very pretty and she moves well, but she doesn't involve me. I can see the nuts and bolts of her acting, whereas Stratas, whose voice is not so pretty and who is sorely stretched by the Act I arias, absolutely devastates me.



vivalagentenuova said:


> You don't have to agree with me or even participate in the discussion, but why are you acting like it's unusual or silly to want to discuss singers?


I'm sorry if I that's the way I came across. It's just that we rarely discuss other singers in such detail, nor so often and I find myself churning out the same arguments time after time. I realise I haven't had this discussion with you before, so forgive if, when I saw the thread had been revived, I thought, "Oh dear, here we go again!"

One observation I have made is that Callas seems to touch the two poles - laymen, who just respond to the emotion she conveys with her voice and musicians (I'm thinking conductors and instrumentalists here) who are astounded by her incredible and innate musicianship. To quote Victor De Sabata, as told to Walter Legge during rehearsals for *Macbeth*.



> If the public could understand, as we do, how deeply and utterly musical Callas is, they would be stunned.


And to Maria herself, regarding her timing and rhythmic precision,



> Maria, you are a monster; you are not an artist nor a woman nor a human being, but a monster.


When you remember that she was so short-sighted she couldn't even see the conductor, you realise how incredibly that was.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Open Book said:


> Anyone else think Callas sounds like she has a mouth full of cotton sometimes?


I've heard people say that before and I still don't understand what they are talking about.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

OK, doubters. Lets see what's special about Callas.

Here she is in her prime, characteristically raising gentle pathos to the level of tragedy. It's worth hearing the entire scene. 




My favorite performance next to Callas is Moffo, whose singing is gorgeous but who falls slightly short of the intentionality and precision of articulation and the deep sadness that Callas imparts: 




The always admirable Zeani brings her usual intensity and musicality to bear. She's less noble and classic in her phrasing than Callas, more manic in expression, her bright timbre incapable by nature of a comparable gravity: 




Sutherland has the right idea, but projects no particular individuality, is less specific in phrasing, lacks that infallible sense of timing that Callas has, and, needless to say, approximates words: 




Caballe comes nowhere close to Callas in sustaining a line and shaping a phrase, and indulges her fondness for pianissimo effects at the expense of musical logic: 




Freni loses the tension of the line by indulging in expressive "effects": 




Scotto exaggerates histrionically and is constantly hindering the tempo: 




Tebaldi would rather be singing _Fanciulla_ (or at least I would rather that she did): 




Gheorghiu clearly listened to her Callas recording every morning before breakfast, so I can't be objective about this: 




Opinions? Other singers you prefer in this music? I'm open to well-supported and well-reasoned argument.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I've heard people say that before and I still don't understand what they are talking about.


She can sound like she is singing through a mouth full of thick padding, like maybe it's filtering her voice as the sound waves pass through it and that it's binding up her tongue a bit. It's not really that pretty at its worst. It makes her voice distinctive.

I do recognize how gifted she is and that she is a great artist, little as I know about singing. It's just that her voice is peculiar.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Seattleoperafan:
> Don't feel bad that you cannot love Callas more. We all have our own individual tastes and believe me, you are in a hefty group of others that don't "get" her either. And you are certainly entitled to feel that way, (or as Seinfeld would say, "not that there's anything wrong with that") LOL.
> But pushing aside the actual appeal of the sound of her voice, do you think you could at least acknowledge the dedication she devotes to the mechanics of singing, and her passion of following the composer's wishes to the letter, and her innate musicality, and her way of being able to create an unusual delivery even if it is not the appealing sound you are accustomed to?
> The thing about Callas is that there is more to singing than just a beautiful voice (as she, herself has stated may times).
> ...


I am crazy about her stuff before the weight loss, but the sound isn't the best. The top back then was one of the wonders of the operatic universe. Later on I do love her Bell Song and Je Suis Titania and her first Bel Raggio from about 53, and I do trot those out a lot. Her Anna Bolena was simply amazing, although Sutherland is superior on the high notes. Her first Norma was superb. I love the miracle of her interpretation as she was a genius. There is no denying that. Most of the rest of her later stuff I tend to ignore. Although I do enjoy her Suicidio from the video recital, for the most part I just can't take her high notes from her TV recitals. The high notes were so much better before the early 50's. I am fascinated by her. I can't listen to her as a steady diet, but I will go on a binge a couple times a year and listen to the stuff I do love and ignore the rest. I do have a couple of Youtube lectures I did on her so I am not without admiration for her by any means. I love some Callas, but I listen to other artists more.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Open Book said:


> She can sound like she is singing through a mouth full of thick padding, like maybe it's filtering her voice as the sound waves pass through it and that it's binding up her tongue a bit. It's not really that pretty at its worst. It makes her voice distinctive.
> 
> I do recognize how gifted she is and that she is a great artist, little as I know about singing. It's just that her voice is peculiar.


I'm sorry. I don't hear it. Of all opera singers she always seems to me to be the one with the least manufactured voice.

When I was a student I was the only person in my houseshare who liked opera, but the only singer any of my housemates actually didn't mind was Callas because, as one of my housemate's put it, she was the only one who sounded like she was singing with a real voice. All other classical singers sounded artificial to them. I'm not saying I agree with them but I do see their point.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Okay. Here's my take on the above sopranos.
1. Callas
2. A toss up between both Moffo ((shocking for me) and Gheorghiu who were both similar in their approaches. Both had that sad sound, so very appealing in this aria
3. Caballe who just didn't give it enough passion for me
4. Freni - lovely but nothing out of the ordinary
5. Zeani - I normally love Zeani but the problem is her voice was too silver for my taste. Otherwise, she treated this aria beautifully
The rest?
6. Tebaldi - lovely but not enough emotion for me
7. Next on the list is Sutherland who, for me, is the one who sounds like she is singing through a mouthful of padding as referred to in the above post
8. Last is Scotto who decided to make her own pace and paid little attention to the written score.

(I find you unfair in the approach to Gheorghiu's singing. So what if she "imitated" Callas. If she's THAT good to do that, it's fine with me.)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Gheorghiu clearly listened to her Callas recording every morning before breakfast, so I can't be objective about this:


That's something I've noticed about Gheroghiu before, almost as if she is ghosting Callas versions. A friend of mine once played me lots of different sopranos to see if I could identify them. I did pretty well, but Gheorghiu I identified not becase of her voice, but because her phrasing in whatever the aria was (I can't remember now) was exactly the same as Callas's.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Sutherland who, for me, is the one who sounds like she is singing through a mouthful of padding as referred to in the above post


So it's not just me then!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> That's something I've noticed about Gheroghiu before, almost as if she is ghosting Callas versions. A friend of mine once played me lots of different sopranos to see if I could identify them. I did pretty well, but Gheorghiu I identified not becase of her voice, but because her phrasing in whatever the aria was (I can't remember now) was exactly the same as Callas's.


I think I've noticed it in other arias too. Gheorghiu has a beautiful voice and, obviously, good taste in models, but it's disconcerting to hear such outright imitation.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Sutherland...is the one who sounds like she is singing through a mouthful of padding as referred to in the above post.


Padding, or mothballs, or grapefruit, or something.

Others have commented on a "bottled-up" quality in Callas's middle voice, or observed that she had "three voices." These things are certainly subjective. About the only thing we agree on is that her voice was unique.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

In answer to your "outright imitation": Gee, not for me. I'll take her every time because she has one thing that sets her apart from Maria and an attractive one at that -- the sound in her throat that has a vulnerability to it that is extremely appealing, along with her gorgeous voice.
She is far from the only one who uses Maria as a mark. Radvanovsky does it too.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> In answer to your "outright imitation": Gee, not for me. I'll take her every time because she has one thing that sets her apart from Maria and an attractive one at that -- the sound in her throat that has a vulnerability to it that is extremely appealing, along with her gorgeous voice.
> She is far from the only one who uses Maria as a mark. Radvanovsky does it too.


Yes, I dare say many a soprano has pulled out her Callas records and learned a thing or two. I don't find either Gheorghiu or Radvanovsky the equal of Callas in musical potency or imagination, but I'm not denying their unique qualities.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

On that we both agree.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

> Gheorghiu clearly listened to her Callas recording every morning before breakfast, so I can't be objective about this:





Woodduck said:


> *Yes, I dare say many a soprano has pulled out her Callas records and learned a thing or two*. I don't find either Gheorghiu or Radvanovsky the equal of Callas in musical potency or imagination, but I'm not denying their unique qualities.


Some will even admit it, I remember this quote that got a smile on my face......



> Katia Ricciarelli was quoted as saying in David Lowe's book, CALLAS AS THEY SAW HER (Robinson Books, 1987): "Don't believe those sopranos who say they don't listen to Callas' records…All sopranos get up in the morning, pour the orange juice and coffee, and then settle down to listen to Callas' recordings to try to learn from them." Recciarelli had certainly learned much by listening assiduously to La Divina.


Love Zeani and buy everything I can find by her, her natural dramatic style works well with mad scence operas, perhaps more of a "falcon" compared to assoluta Maria lacking that deep lower voice to express the darker emotions, she had 30+ year career so her technique is solid especially considering the heavy roles she was known for



> The always admirable Zeani brings her usual intensity and musicality to bear. She's less noble and classic in her phrasing than Callas, more manic in expression, her bright timbre incapable by nature of a comparable gravity:


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

I can understand why some do not really like Callas. Initially I was turned off by the rather unique color of her voice. I didn't understand what the big deal was about her, but then I saw these:











She really makes you feel bad for poor Tosca, and you just want to cry because it's all just so sad.

Over time I began to warm to her voice. She didn't sing poorly; it's just that the sound she made was different. I saw past the timbre that initially made me hesitant and realized how effectively she could bring out emotion in what she sang. Plus, it's worth noting that there is more to her performance than just sound. As seen in the clips, she had a stage presence that effectively brought her character to life.

Maybe I'm just repeating what has already been said (I didn't read the whole thread either).


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

nina foresti said:


> Okay. Here's my take on the above sopranos.
> 1. Callas
> 2. A toss up between both Moffo ((shocking for me) and Gheorghiu who were both similar in their approaches. Both had that sad sound, so very appealing in this aria
> 3. Caballe who just didn't give it enough passion for me
> ...


As a fan and erstwhile student of cricket I remember a story about the great Australian fast bowler Ray Lindwall. He was once accused of imitating the great English fast bowler Harold Larwood, to which he replied, " What is the matter with imitating perfection?" something to which his idiotic critics had got no answer. I have actually got both recordings with Callas and Georghiu singing Tosca and assure you that if the latter has learned from the former she has done it very well. Same with Traviata. The thing is that great musicians don't appear to worry about learning from other great musicians. When Karajan recorded Tosca for Decca he had a copy of de Sabata's he would listen to. At one stage he said at a particular passage, "I can't do that! That's his secret!" This silly business where people say one imitates the other is for the small minded. No - great artists learn from one another. Even those of us who are small fry in our professions can learn from those higher up. Those of us who don't, don't tend to make progress


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> Love Zeani and buy everything I can find by her, her natural dramatic style works well with mad scene operas, perhaps more of a "falcon" compared to assoluta Maria lacking that deep lower voice to express the darker emotions, she had 30+ year career so her technique is solid especially considering the heavy roles she was known for


If Zeani had had a deeper, richer vocal timbre she would probably have made more recordings and we would talk about her more than we do.


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## brunumb (Dec 8, 2017)

nina foresti said:


> Seattleoperafan:
> 
> The thing about Callas is that there is more to singing than just a beautiful voice (as she, herself has stated may times).


I guess I would be saying that too, if I knew that I didn't have a beautiful voice


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

brunumb said:


> I guess I would be saying that too, if I knew that I didn't have a beautiful voice


You should say it no matter what kind of voice you have.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, I dare say many a soprano has pulled out her Callas records and learned a thing or two. I don't find either Gheorghiu or Radvanovsky the equal of Callas in musical potency or imagination, but I'm not denying their unique qualities.





> Don't believe those sopranos who say they don't listen to Callas's record. All sopranos get up in the morning, pour the orange juice and coffee, and then settle down to listen to Callas's recordings to try to learn from them


Katia Ricciarelli

Sorry to repeat Dark Angel's post. I saw it after I posted and of course we can't delete posts on this site.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I've heard people say that before and I still don't understand what they are talking about.


Thank goodness it's not just me that didn't understand this comment.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> So it's not just me then!


No, when people refer to singers sounding like they have their mouths padded it brings the idea of bad diction to my mind. Callas had very good diction, whereas Sutherland was weak in that area.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> No, when people refer to singers sounding like they have their mouths padded it brings the idea of bad diction to my mind. Callas had very good diction, whereas Sutherland was weak in that area.
> 
> N.


Yes. At her worst, she ignored consonants and reduced every vowel to a sort of "aw". Last Christmas I was playing her Christmas album and, as she started singing _It came upon the midnight clear_, my partner asked me what language she was singing in. He didn't know who she was and wasn't being funny. It was just that he knew the carol but couldn't make out a single word. It's that aspect of her singing that irritates the life out of me and it's one of the reasons I seldom listen to her.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Yes. At her worst, she ignored consonants and reduced every vowel to a sort of "aw". Last Christmas I was playing her Christmas album and, as she started singing _It came upon the midnight clear_, my partner asked me what language she was singing in. He didn't know who she was and wasn't being funny. It was just that he knew the carol but couldn't make out a single word. It's that aspect of her singing that irritates the life out of me and it's one of the reasons I seldom listen to her.


It's something that crept into her singing and became worse with time. I still enjoy listening to her as I find her voice genrally attractive and the vocal virtuosity is stunning. However, I'm far more likely to put on a Caballe or Callas recording of a bel canto opera to get a more complete dramatic experience. Those early Sutherland recital albums are stunning though, perhaps I should listen to them more!

N.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Yes. At her worst, she ignored consonants and reduced every vowel to a sort of "aw". Last Christmas I was playing her Christmas album and, as she started singing _It came upon the midnight clear_, my partner asked me what language she was singing in. He didn't know who she was and wasn't being funny. It was just that he knew the carol but couldn't make out a single word. It's that aspect of her singing that irritates the life out of me and it's one of the reasons I seldom listen to her.


Funny I have a set of Sutherland recordings and don't notice it that much the voice is so glorious. I just enjoy singers for what they have to offer.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Early Sutherland shows no mushy middles at all. Her "Art of the Prima Donna" is, indeed, a work of art and one of the top CD's.
Then her beloved Bonynge decided that she should place more "heft?" (what is the right word?) in the middle and trained her to do so. Result? Garbled, mushy vowels. So whatever he thought would be a positive influence on her singing changed the quality of her sound.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Early Sutherland shows no mushy middles at all. Her "Art of the Prima Donna" is, indeed, a work of art and one of the top CD's.
> Then her beloved Bonynge decided that she should place more "heft?" (what is the right word?) in the middle and trained her to do so. Result? Garbled, mushy vowels. So whatever he thought would be a positive influence on her singing changed the quality of her sound.


Yes, that's true, though even here I notice her diction is not quite as clear as it is on the Giulini *Don Giovanni*.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Good and bad.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

pianozach said:


> Good and bad.


This is quite late (1958) and she sounds tense. It's not her best version of the aria by any stretch, but please note that when the chorus go out of time, it is Callas who brings everything back together - and she couldn't even see the conductor!


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

pianozach said:


> Good and bad.


Callas is working with a different instrument. I fully appreciate what she brought and still brings to music.

I'd rather hear Aida Garifullina. So lyrical, such a beautiful tone.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> This is quite late (1958) and she sounds tense. It's not her best version of the aria by any stretch, but please note that when the chorus go out of time, it is Callas who brings everything back together - and she couldn't even see the conductor!


I heard someone say, the prettier she got the worse she sounded. You cannot take away the incredible musicianship she still shows here, but I'd rather remember her first Norma when the vocal beauty matched her artistry. Still, we are lucky to have the video record of her. My favorite video record is her first video Tosca, which is really very good and much better vocally than the second.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

pianozach said:


> Callas is working with a different instrument. I fully appreciate what she brought and still brings to music.
> 
> I'd rather hear Aida Garifullina. So lyrical, such a beautiful tone.


A lovely looking singer with a nice, lyrical voice, but she is no Norma. I see that at the moment she is singing light coloratura roles and I hope she continues to do so for some time. Her Italian is not good and she obviously hadn't a clue what she was singing about in the cabaletta, whch was tossed off as some sort of coloratura showpiece, not the private and painful reminiscence of a love that is dying.

If you don't like Callas, then try this.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

If the question is about loving Callas, there are arguably times when she was more lovable than others...

I think she is lovable in Turco in Italia: I'm not sure if it gets mentioned much given the number of records she made.





Her Mimi was for records only and pretty great




(Opera starts 06:22)

My introduction to her was as Gilda with Gobbi, di Stefano and Serafin. 





Just because she could sing esoteric and/or strenuous music _doesn't mean that listening to Callas has to be hard work. _Basically, I think it is worth repeating that she can be very enjoyable in more mainstream repertoire and middleweight roles which are more vocally comfortable.

Luckily, even if you only enjoy her in a fraction of her repertoire that can still encompass a swathe of interesting recordings.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

pianozach said:


> Good and bad.


Ok I'll grind my axe a little bit I guess. That clip you posted is of Callas in what I would argue is her very serious and sudden decline. A completely different experience than Callas before the decline.






No wobbles, far less of that hooded quality which I think Open Book and others are talking about when they say she sounds like she has a mouth full of cotton. The high notes are far less shrill and unpleasant. Those things that people think they don't like about Callas's voice are largely those things that crept into her voice in her decline, and it never makes sense to me to gauge a singer by their decline.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

howlingfantods said:


> Ok I'll grind my axe a little bit I guess. That clip you posted is of Callas in what I would argue is her very serious and sudden decline. A completely different experience than Callas before the decline.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The main person responsible for this reputation would be Callas herself.

If you are vocally past your best in 1958 and continue to sing in public into the 1970s this will inevitably mean that is how you will be remembered by many people.

A lot of people will have attended concerts or the opera during that period and bought records since in good faith only to be somewhat disappointed when they hear rather a lot of sub par singing. Telling them that she sounded great in 1951 wouldn't have been much comfort, I think.

The wobbles and vocal frailties are obviously not the entire story but they are a big part of her story, compounded by the hype which still surrounds her art.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Revitalized Classics said:


> If you are vocally past your best in 1958 and continue to sing in public into the 1970s this will inevitably mean that is how you will be remembered by many people.


Oh, I dunno. People remember the Michael Jordan of the Bulls years, not the faded version of the Wizards years.

I think this is largely a result of the opera recording industry entering a new phase during her decline years, and relatively few of her recordings being from her pre-decline years. If you timeshifted Callas by even five years, so she entered her decline in 1958 instead of 1953, I think people's impression of her voice would be vastly different, and we'd probably have a lot more great recordings of her during her extremely impressive peak.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> Oh, I dunno. People remember the Michael Jordan of the Bulls years, not the faded version of the Wizards years.
> 
> I think this is largely a result of the opera recording industry entering a new phase during her decline years, and relatively few of her recordings being from her pre-decline years. If you timeshifted Callas by even five years, so she entered her decline in 1958 instead of 1953, I think people's impression of her voice would be vastly different, and we'd probably have a lot more great recordings of her during her extremely impressive peak.


 I completely agree. Isn't Norma the only full opera she recorded in a studio before she lost weight? The top was very different in her big aria from Armida from the early 50's live and the recital version just two years later after her weight loss. There was a noticeable loss of power on the high D as well as she just hit it in the recital rather than blasting it.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I completely agree. *Isn't Norma the only full opera she recorded in a studio before she lost weight?* The top was very different in her big aria from Armida from the early 50's live and the recital version just two years later after her weight loss. There was a noticeable loss of power on the high D as well as she just hit it in the recital rather than blasting it.


Callas complete opera studio recordings were as follows:

1952 - La Gioconda
1953 - Lucia di Lammermoor - I Puritani - Cavalleria Rusticana - Tosca - La Traviata
1954 - Norma - I Pagliacci - La forza del destino - Il turco in Italia

The weight loss was between 1953 and 54.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Revitalized Classics said:


> The main person responsible for this reputation would be Callas herself.
> 
> If you are vocally past your best in 1958 and continue to sing in public into the 1970s this will inevitably mean that is how you will be remembered by many people.
> 
> ...


You are being excessively hard on her. It can never be easy to admit to oneself that one's instrument is failing, especially as she was still young when she began to experience difficulties. She actually kept studying and even went back to her original teacher Elvira De Hidalgo in the hope that she could recover her voice.

After 1958 she severely curtailed the amount of performances she gave. In fact, save for a few performances of *Norma* and *Medea* at Epidaurus and of *Medea* at La Scala in 1960 and 1961, she had virtually given up until Zeffirelli persauded her to return to the stage in *Tosca* at Covent Garden, and *Norma* in Paris. The Covent Garden performances were a massive success. In fact they became the stuff of legend and people talked about them for years to come. Those that saw them still talk about them now. I doubt anyone who saw them would have been disappointed. If the *Norma* performances were less successful, public and critics still opined that she was still a great artist and got more out of the role than any other performer at that time.

After one final performance of *Tosca* at Covent Garden in 1965, she never appeared on the operatic stage again. The final concert tour she did with Di Stefano in 1973/1974 might be seen as a mistake, and I confess I find it hard to listen to or watch any of the performances, but audiences were keen to show their love, acknowledging in her ruin the great star that she was. In fact she only agreed to do the tour to help Di Stefano, who needed the money to pay for his daughter's cancer treatment.

And, incidentally, the recordings she made after 1958 were to fulfil her contract with EMI.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

The moment I will start to make comments and critic for LEGENDS like Callas, Richter, Fleming, Norman, Zimerman, etc. the very same moment I will stop to play and listen classical music and opera. I hate profoundly the YT phenomenon, a video with the XX Legend to have 10000 like and 20... ''experts'' who they didn't like it. (they make also, very often, ridiculous comment below the video) I don't like to see my self in this ''expert'' position, in one world class music forum.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

howlingfantods said:


> Oh, I dunno. People remember the Michael Jordan of the Bulls years, not the faded version of the Wizards years.
> 
> I think this is largely a result of the opera recording industry entering a new phase during her decline years, and relatively few of her recordings being from her pre-decline years. If you timeshifted Callas by even five years, so she entered her decline in 1958 instead of 1953, I think people's impression of her voice would be vastly different, and we'd probably have a lot more great recordings of her during her extremely impressive peak.


That's definitely a factor: I principally really wish that we had films  and better sound on recordings which were patently white hot like the Mexico Aida, the Turandot excerpts, Nabucco with Bechi etc would have been a real boost. I can savour them as they are but if beginners don't want to put up with pretty bad sound the later studio ventures can come as a disappointment.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> You are being excessively hard on her. It can never be easy to admit to oneself that one's instrument is failing, especially as she was still young when she began to experience difficulties. She actually kept studying and even went back to her original teacher Elvira De Hidalgo in the hope that she could recover her voice.
> 
> After 1958 she severely curtailed the amount of performances she gave. In fact, save for a few performances of *Norma* and *Medea* at Epidaurus and of *Medea* at La Scala in 1960 and 1961, she had virtually given up until Zeffirelli persauded her to return to the stage in *Tosca* at Covent Garden, and *Norma* in Paris. The Covent Garden performances were a massive success. In fact they became the stuff of legend and people talked about them for years to come. Those that saw them still talk about them now. I doubt anyone who saw them would have been disappointed. If the *Norma* performances were less successful, public and critics still opined that she was still a great artist and got more out of the role than any other performer at that time.
> 
> ...


I still think the emotional content of her performance of Elisabetta in Don Carlo with Di Stefano in the duet recorded by Philips (first version) hasn't been equalled by any other singer, despite their obvious technical superiority. It would never be a first choice for that piece, but there is still something special about it. Unfortunately the voice really had gone by the time of her London concert with Di Stefano where she can barely get through the piece.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> I still think the emotional content of her performance of Elisabetta in Don Carlo with Di Stefano in the duet recorded by Philips (first version) hasn't been equalled by any other singer, despite their obvious technical superiority. It would never be a first choice for that piece, but there is still something special about it. Unfortunately the voice really had gone by the time of her London concert with Di Stefano where she can barely get through the piece.
> 
> N.


I've never heard any of the Philips sessions. I'd heard such bad things about them that I never wanted to.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> You are being excessively hard on her. It can never be easy to admit to oneself that one's instrument is failing, especially as she was still young when she began to experience difficulties. She actually kept studying and even went back to her original teacher Elvira De Hidalgo in the hope that she could recover her voice.
> 
> After 1958 she severely curtailed the amount of performances she gave. In fact, save for a few performances of *Norma* and *Medea* at Epidaurus and of *Medea* at La Scala in 1960 and 1961, she had virtually given up until Zeffirelli persauded her to return to the stage in *Tosca* at Covent Garden, and *Norma* in Paris. The Covent Garden performances were a massive success. In fact they became the stuff of legend and people talked about them for years to come. Those that saw them still talk about them now. I doubt anyone who saw them would have been disappointed. If the *Norma* performances were less successful, public and critics still opined that she was still a great artist and got more out of the role than any other performer at that time.
> 
> ...


It is harsh,

I'll explain that I felt in the discussion so far that the pendulum had swung too far away from what I take to be legitimate criticism of her singing in the 1958 Paris debut towards actually blaming listeners for not seeking out better recordings (!) like the 1951 version mentioned.

I don't think that other singers get the same latitude.

If a singer wobbles for about 20 years out of a recorded legacy of 24 years (1949-1973) (including unfortunately all surviving video recordings ) then I think it is fair to call it out without being accused of cherry-picking.

I continue to give Callas the benefit of the doubt as singer and human...but there are limits


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Revitalized Classics said:


> It is harsh,
> 
> I'll explain that I felt in the discussion so far that the pendulum had swung too far away from what I take to be legitimate criticism of her singing in the 1958 Paris debut towards actually blaming listeners for not seeking out better recordings (!) like the 1951 version mentioned.
> 
> ...


Though, as I think we've pointed out, her commercial recording legacy lasted from 1952 to 1965, a mere thirteen years, and all but three of the complete sets were made in the 1950s. During this time she made complete recordings of La Gioconda (twice), Lucia di Lammermoor (twice), I Puritani, Cavalleria Rusticana, Tosca (twice), La Traviata, La Forza del Destino, Il Turco in Italia, Norma (twice), Pagliacci, Aida, Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, Il Trovatore, La Boheme, Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Sonnambula, Turandot, Manon Lescaut, Medea and Carmen, plus ten recital records. By any standard this is an inpressive body of work and many of the complete recordings are still considered refererence recordings.

I honestly don't know which twenty years you are referring to. She made her Italian debut in 1947 and her last stage performance was in 1965. That's only 18 years! You really can't count the years from 1965, when she was in virtual retirement, nor even the years between 1960 and 1964 when she did so little.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> It is harsh,
> 
> I'll explain that I felt in the discussion so far that the pendulum had swung too far away from what I take to be legitimate criticism of her singing in the 1958 Paris debut towards actually blaming listeners for not seeking out better recordings (!) like the 1951 version mentioned.
> 
> ...


This seems a bit misleading. I don't know anyone with an understanding of singing who doesn't acknowledge Callas's increasing problem with her high notes, or who actually blames anyone for not knowing how good she was in her prime. To say that Callas wobbled for 20 years gives no idea of the technical excellence of her singing as a whole, even for some years after the deterioration set in. Even in 1964, in the Tosca from Covent Garden, the wobble is conspicuous, and then not always, only from the top of the staff upward; throughout most of her range the vibrato is still tight-knit and unobtrusive. By contrast, there are many major singers active today whose voices are so burdened with out-of-control vibrato that a full third of their vocal range (or more) is pretty much unlistenable to me.

For a little perspective, compare Patricia Racette in 2013






with Callas in 1964






Compare Eva-Maria Westbroek in 2013 and Callas in 1957:










 (aria begins at 10:45)

Now listen to Natalie Dessay wobble her way through an aria that should suit her well (2008):






It doesn't suit Callas well in 1963, and the high notes are a strain, but she's nonetheless able to shade her dynamics and make music out of the aria in a way that Dessay can't imagine:






I'll end with "Suicidio" from La Gioconda. Here's Callas in 1959, supposedly in an advanced state of deterioration:






By contrast, this is what we now endure from one of our biggest "star" sopranos:






I have to disagree with you emphatically: other singers - any number of them - get _far too much _latitude, from both audiences (who may not know better) and critics (who should). Tune into any Met broadcast for a demonstration. We would be damned lucky to have Callas's combination of technique and artistry, even as heard in the early 1960s, on our stages today. Arguing over whether her voice is "beautiful," or how much wobble is too much for anyone's refined sensibilities, is a bore.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

A little odd, to post a comparison of Callas in her mid 30s to prove that she sounds better than other sopranos (who absolutely no one has ever claimed are in competition for greatest recorded soprano in history) in their mid to late 40s. I mean, yes, I do prefer Callas in her decline to other singers in their much more advanced declines, if that's the argument being made.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> A little odd, to post a comparison of Callas in her mid 30s to prove that she sounds better than other sopranos (who absolutely no one has ever claimed are in competition for greatest recorded soprano in history) in their mid to late 40s. I mean, yes, I do prefer Callas in her decline to other singers in their much more advanced declines, if that's the argument being made.


The argument I'm making is 1.) that focusing on Callas's wobble gives an inaccurate idea of her technical capabilities, which were on the whole impressive and superior to those of many other "star" singers even in her declining years, and 2.) that the statement that "other singers don't get the same latitude" is wrong; they get_ too much_ latitude from both audiences and critics. The truth is that there are few, if any, sopranos active today who can do as much, vocally, as Callas could, and second- or third-rate Callas still outclasses first-rate (insert name of present-day prima donna). The high notes may not have been pretty in 1960, but she could still outsing anyone else as Norma or Medea. And if we must talk about wobble (or a distortion of vibrato in general), there's something to be said for one that afflicts only the upper fourth of a singer's range, as opposed to one that seems a basic part of a singer's technique and pervades much of the voice. I could have searched for any number of other singers to illustrate the latter, which Callas didn't exhibit even when her voice was at its worst in the 1970s. You can hear firm, tight-knit tone from her middle voice even in some of her Juilliard master classes. Perspective, perspective.

If you'd prefer to go back to Lehmann and Ponselle and Gadski and Muzio for comparisons - well, that's another discussion. Those were the days... But Callas at her peak belonged in their company.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck: Have you either seen or heard Sondra Radvanovsky's entire _Norma_?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Woodduck: Have you either seen or heard Sondra Radvanovsky's entire _Norma_?


I don't think so. I have heard her Donizetti queens from the Met. She's good. She isn't Callas, if that's where you're going.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

But can you really say that with such strong conviction BEFORE you heard or saw the production? You don't seem to me to be the closed minded type, even though you are Callas prone. Yet even so, I think you have too good an ear and are too astute not to recognize a spectacular performance when you hear/see one that just might, by some miracle, come up to that of La Divina.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> But can you really say that with such strong conviction BEFORE you heard or saw the production? You don't seem to me to be the closed minded type, even though you are Callas prone. Yet even so, I think you have too good an ear and are too astute not to recognize a spectacular performance when you hear/see one that just might, by some miracle, come up to that of La Divina.


I would think Donizetti's queens would be sufficiently revealing of a soprano's strengths and weaknesses, since they demand a full range of technique. Radvanovsky may be an effective Norma. But if you're suggesting that she equals Callas in the role, my other experiences of her make me more than skeptical.

Just for you, I've listened to this: 




I find any of Callas's performances superior in strength of phrasing, rhythm and articulation. Radvanovsky seems listless and soggy. Uninteresting.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Maybe we should leave the last word to Maria herself,



> Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me. Because if I don't like something, I simply don't bother with it.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I've never heard any of the Philips sessions. I'd heard such bad things about them that I never wanted to.


The Philips sessions were recorded in two tranches, the first in Nov-Dec 1972 and the second in May 1973. The Don Carlo duet from 72 is her best recording of that part of the opera and she is more emotionally involved than in the subsequent concert tour with Di Stefano. I can still listen to sum of the Philips material with pleasure as there is some artistry still there and therefore Callas still 'had it' IMO. It's the final concert tour that I never listen to as by that point it wasn't just the voice that had gone, there was nothing really left.

N.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Her love affair with Onassis is so tragic 4 me...Her holding on to him even after he put her through hell is so typical for some womens behaviour so sad.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I would think Donizetti's queens would be sufficiently revealing of a soprano's strengths and weaknesses, since they demand a full range of technique. Radvanovsky may be an effective Norma. But if you're suggesting that she equals Callas in the role, my other experiences of her make me more than skeptical.
> 
> Just for you, I've listened to this:
> 
> ...


"Listless,soggy (?), uninteresting?
CASE CLOSED!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

“Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don’t like it shouldn’t come to hear me. Because if I don't like something, I simply don't bother with it”

I think that just about sums it up. I think the only reason people need to apologise for not liking Callas is the almost goddess like status with which she is regarded by some people. To me this is OTT as she was just a singer - maybe a very fine artist -but a singer. So she can be regarded in the same light as other artists who when they go on my CD player become my servants for my enjoyment. If I don’t enjoy hearing an artist I simply don’t play them, whether they be Callas or anyone else. I just advise everyone to chill out and do the same.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> This seems a bit misleading. I don't know anyone with an understanding of singing who doesn't acknowledge Callas's increasing problem with her high notes, or who actually blames anyone for not knowing how good she was in her prime. To say that Callas wobbled for 20 years gives no idea of the technical excellence of her singing as a whole, even for some years after the deterioration set in. Even in 1964, in the Tosca from Covent Garden, the wobble is conspicuous, and then not always, only from the top of the staff upward; throughout most of her range the vibrato is still tight-knit and unobtrusive. By contrast, there are many major singers active today whose voices are so burdened with out-of-control vibrato that a full third of their vocal range (or more) is pretty much unlistenable to me.
> 
> For a little perspective, compare Patricia Racette in 2013
> 
> ...


Gee, what a low blow to poor Patricia Racette and _Casta Diva_ -- to put on such a horrible example of her supposed "characterization". I mean, isn't that what we were referring to with her? Her wonderful way of being able to express the depths of a character? 
All I heard was off-key singing at it's worst and then a comparison to a beautiful early Callas. Who ever mentioned anything about Racette's voice? 
Were you trying to prove with that clip what a lousy actress Racette was?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Gee, what a low blow to poor Patricia Racette and _Casta Diva_ -- to put on such a horrible example of her supposed "characterization". I mean, isn't that what we were referring to with her? Her wonderful way of being able to express the depths of a character?
> All I heard was off-key singing at it's worst and then a comparison to a beautiful early Callas. Who ever mentioned anything about Racette's voice?
> Were you trying to prove with that clip what a lousy actress Racette was?


That wasn't early Callas. It was Callas in 1964, when her voice was supposedly "gone." And it was "Vissi d'arte," not "Casta Diva."

The object of the post was "wobble." I think you missed the context.

As far as Racette is concerned, she was a very fine singer, but in her late stage appearances (in the 2000s) she had a pervasive wobble you could drive the proverbial truck through. She did a "La mamma morta" in the Met's _Andrea Chenier_ that was excruciatingly awful. Even at the end of her stage career, Callas would have sung rings around it.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> That wasn't early Callas. It was Callas in 1964, when her voice was supposedly "gone." And it was "Vissi d'arte," not "Casta Diva."
> 
> The object of the post was "wobble." I think you missed the context.
> 
> As far as Racette is concerned, she was a very fine singer, but in her late stage appearances (in the 2000s) she had a pervasive wobble you could drive the proverbial truck through. She did a "La mamma morta" in the Met's _Andrea Chenier_ that was excruciatingly awful. Even at the end of her stage career, Callas would have sung rings around it.


When it comes to wobble and Callas, it seems for some people the two are constantly connected, rather lilke Schwarzkopf and "mannered" (whatever that's supposed to mean).

Let's try an example, Aida's _O patria mia_, an aria that never suited Callas nearly as much as the more dramatic _Ritorna vincitor_, even back in Mexico when she could hurl out a massive Eb _in alt_ in the triumphal scene. The climactic phrase takes her up to a top C, which Verdi instructs should be sung _dolce_. The only singer I've heard who really manages to sing it _dolce_ is Caballé on the Muti recording, who sings the note _pianissimo_ with ample reserves of breath. You feel she could stay up there for ever.






Callas's top C in the studio recording has variously been described as seesawing rather than soaring, or with a wobble you can drive a truck through. Now I've listened to this many times waiting for the wobble, and it's really not that bad. It's not the nicest of notes, I grant you, and it's hardly _dolce_ as Verdi asks, but, though the note vibrates a bit, I'd hardly call it a wobble, and I must say I prefer it to the frail, watery sound you get from Harteros on the new Pappano recording.











I'd have to admit Callas sounds a lot more secure here though, and we should remember that, though she sang Aida a good deal in the early part of her career, her last stage performances had been in London in 1953.






The aria suits Price a lot better, and she is ravishing, though she sings the note _mezzo-forte_ (well sweet doesn't have to be soft).






In some ways it's more integrated into the whole aria, where Caballé sounds as if she is pulling off a vocal trick, which in a way she is. The trick was one she overused in later years, but I have to say I love it here.

The top C troubled Tebaldi quite a bit, and on some of the live performances she is perceptibly flat, so let's play one of her best performances - the Karajan recording, though even here there is a hint of strain and you feel she is thankful to get off the note. The rest of the aria she sings beautifully of course.

I remember John Steane remarking about the second recording of *Norma*, when it was reissued shortly after her death, that the wobble was nowhere near as bad as he remembered, or expected, and that maybe we'd become used to far more dire wobbles from some of the sopranos singing at that time - this was in the late 1970s. I wonder what he'd have thought now.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Seattleoperafan said:


> On your recommendation I listed to the 57 live Bolena. She sounded like 52!!!!!!!!!!! Even the Eb was great. Incredible character developent and musicianship! Thanks. I thought her voice was toast by then.


The Ballo from La Scala around the same time is also fabulous.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> That wasn't early Callas. It was Callas in 1964, when her voice was supposedly "gone." And it was "Vissi d'arte," not "Casta Diva."
> 
> The object of the post was "wobble." I think you missed the context.
> 
> As far as Racette is concerned, she was a very fine singer, but in her late stage appearances (in the 2000s) she had a pervasive wobble you could drive the proverbial truck through. She did a "La mamma morta" in the Met's _Andrea Chenier_ that was excruciatingly awful. Even at the end of her stage career, Callas would have sung rings around it.


Citing even-wobblier singers doesn't actually makes it any more lovable in Callas...

The crux is why listeners might be convinced to forgo lovelier sounds like Victoria de Los Angeles, Moffo, Caballe, Sutherland, Tebaldi, Varady, Verrett, Leontyne Price, Margaret Price etc or whoever.

So Callas at her worst sounded better than Racette on what you've described as "excruciatingly awful" form? That is not exactly a ringing endorsement...

Even as a fan I'm not sure, per the thread title, that Callas' art in the main was lovable. Sure, it was fascinating and exciting and challenging. Some of it is lovable, a lot is admirable and some more are a trial.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> That wasn't early Callas. It was Callas in 1964, when her voice was supposedly "gone." And it was "Vissi d'arte," not "Casta Diva."
> 
> The object of the post was "wobble." I think you missed the context.
> 
> As far as Racette is concerned, she was a very fine singer, but in her late stage appearances (in the 2000s) she had a pervasive wobble you could drive the proverbial truck through. She did a "La mamma morta" in the Met's _Andrea Chenier_ that was excruciatingly awful. Even at the end of her stage career, Callas would have sung rings around it.


"Vissi d'arte" of course. Mea culpa.
With that out of the way, I see now that you were only comparing wobbles. But if you check back you will see that "characterization" was the only reason I ever put the name of Patricia Racette out there in the first place. One cannot just "hear" characterization. To be really fair, one needs to see the actor visually as well. 
That is why I was rather surprised to see her being compared to (of all singers) Maria Callas in a singing wobble match. She shouldn't even be in that round-up. In that case, ANYBODY could win over Racette, whether they were in their prime or later on. Hers was clearly the worst. And that particular choice was simply an abominable one, poor thing.
I only introduced Patricia Racette at all because characterization was the subject at hand at the time.
However, if you wish to show examples of her depth of expression in a role compared to others visually, I'd be happy to see how many come anywhere near her great talent for "becoming" the character. There are relatively few. In that she shines. (IMO of course)
And there are others I have seen who share her talent as well. Some who come immediately to mind are: Callas, Olivero, Palmer, Scotto's Butterfly, Zeani, Stratas, Cotrubas, perhaps Yoncheva (I have not seen enough of her yet) and Damrau.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> "Vissi d'arte" of course. Mea culpa.
> With that out of the way, I see now that you were only comparing wobbles. But if you check back you will see that "characterization" was the only reason I ever put the name of Patricia Racette out there in the first place. One cannot just "hear" characterization. To be really fair, one needs to see the actor visually as well.
> That is why I was rather surprised to see her being compared to (of all singers) Maria Callas in a singing wobble match. She shouldn't even be in that round-up. In that case, ANYBODY could win over Racette, whether they were in their prime or later on. Hers was clearly the worst. And that particular choice was simply an abominable one, poor thing.
> I only introduced Patricia Racette at all because characterization was the subject at hand at the time.
> ...


I would not for a moment dispute Racette's dramatic capabilities.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Citing even-wobblier singers doesn't actually makes it any more lovable in Callas...So Callas at her worst sounded better than Racette on what you've described as "excruciatingly awful" form? That is not exactly a ringing endorsement..


Why are people missing the point? My point is that the constant talk about "wobble" in connection with Callas, but not with many other singers whose wobble is in some respects worse than hers, is peculiar, and tends to obscure a larger perspective on her, and others', vocal technique. Wobble has a number of causes, and may affect voices to differing extents. It never invaded her middle range, as it does that of many singers whose singing is now offered as "normal" on the stages of major houses.

Is this, or is it not, a legitimate observation?



> The crux is why listeners might be convinced to forgo lovelier sounds like Victoria de Los Angeles, Moffo, Caballe, Sutherland, Tebaldi, Varady, Verrett, Leontyne Price, Margaret Price etc or whoever.


The question is: who is trying to convince anyone to forego any singer they happen to enjoy? The existence of Callas doesn't stop me, or anyone I know, from enjoying dozens of other sopranos.



> Even as a fan I'm not sure, per the thread title, that Callas' *art* in the main was lovable. Sure, it was fascinating and exciting and challenging. Some of it is lovable, a lot is admirable and some more are a trial.


Do you mean her "art" - or her voice? In what respect would her _art_ be a trial? And is there an objective standard for "lovability"?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I remember John Steane remarking about the second recording of *Norma*, when it was reissued shortly after her death, that the wobble was nowhere near as bad as he remembered, or expected, and that maybe we'd become used to far more dire wobbles from some of the sopranos singing at that time - this was in the late 1970s. I wonder what he'd have thought now.


If Steane could come back and hear some of the forced, wobbly singing now quite regularly heard at the Met, he'd wish he hadn't.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Why are people missing the point? My point is that the constant talk about "wobble" in connection with Callas, but not with many other singers whose wobble is in some respects worse than hers, is peculiar, and tends to obscure a larger perspective on her, and others', vocal technique. Wobble has a number of causes, and may affect voices to differing extents. It never invaded her middle range, as it does that of many singers whose singing is now offered as "normal" on the stages of major houses.
> 
> Is this, or is it not, a legitimate observation?


My dear Woodduck:
I think the problem stems from the fact that during my discussion of"characterization"with "vivalagentenuova" etc., you ran with the ball and brought up an entirely different aspect of Callas' voice -- wobbles. Therefore there was some confusion as to your opinion of Callas vs. others on "characterization". And by that I mean someone who you not only have heard on cd's but have actually seen live or on DVD's as well, and not just by an aria but by seeing an entire production.

But to answer your question: Your post on wobbles is certainly a legitimate observation, and further, one that I agree completely with.

However, I am still waiting to hear opinions from someone, somewhere (except vivalagenenuova" who was more than explicit in her /his opinions) on sopranos with exceptional characterization.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Why are people missing the point? My point is that the constant talk about "wobble" in connection with Callas, but not with many other singers whose wobble is in some respects worse than hers, is peculiar, and tends to obscure a larger perspective on her, and others', vocal technique. Wobble has a number of causes, and may affect voices to differing extents. It never invaded her middle range, as it does that of many singers whose singing is now offered as "normal" on the stages of major houses.
> 
> Is this, or is it not, a legitimate observation?


In what alternate universe do you live in where people don't constantly bring up wobble problems with all the singers you cited?

Here's a crude measure--Google searches of the singer's last name plus the term "wobble":

Callas "wobble" - 25,800 results
Racette "wobble" - 8,530 results
Netrebko "wobble" - 54,100 results
Westbroek "wobble" - 5,240 results
Dessay "wobble" - 48,400 results

Compare to the number if you search for their full names, to control for relative fame:

Maria Callas - 13.4 mill
Patricia Racette - 243k
Anna Netrebko - 2.84 mill
Eva Maria Westbroek - 185k
Natalie Dessay - 937k

So the wobble is mentioned in around 1.9% of webpages about Callas, 3.5% about Racette, 1.9% Netrebko, 2.8% Westbroek, and 5.1% (ouch) for Dessay.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

I've been very hard on Callas in this thread, so let me praise her: 




If her voice had remained at this quality, she would be one be among my favorites. Her tone, vibrato, chest voice, everything here is excellent. (Totally unrelated: I love the intimate sound of these old RAI broadcasts.) I hear a character because I hear a voice that can express character in the ways that are meaningful to me: through proper operatic vocal sounds.

Now, Tebaldi for example also went through a vocal decline. Both singers were victims of bad mannerisms/bad advice, although in Callas's case I think there were health problems too. There's a lot more vocally great material from Tebaldi as far as I'm concerned, even if her voice was almost never captured fully in studio recordings. Here's a live recording from 1950 that contains the most ravishing singing from a female voice I've heard:




This is at the very beginning of her career, and the voice is astonishingly fresh. Although it's a recital, I still feel like I'm getting characterization for the reason I've stated before: the kind of effects that the composer was looking for are rendered as well as they can be. Verdi's characterization, Cilea's characterization etc. come through for me, while Tebaldi's sound delights me.

Nine years later, here she is just as good:




Again, I can imagine someone saying: "But she's just singing the music beautifully, where's the characterization" It's in the beautiful singing of the music! The characterization is there, minutely described by Puccini's careful composition and shading and his and Illica/Giacosa's meticulously selected words. To have that delivered through the operatic voice is what I want. If the voice isn't there, the magic isn't there for me because the character lives in the sound of the voice as written for by the composer. This is why I don't enjoy modern opera performances at all. I never hear characters because I don't hear them in the voices. I hear singers struggling to make sounds beyond their abilities. No acting on stage, or close ups, or chicanery is going to change that.

Of course, Tebaldi made a number of very bad recordings in her career, the prime of which was much shorter than it should have been. I don't want to judge Callas based on her decline; the problem for me is that most of her records were made during her decline, which set in much sooner than Tebaldi's. I just don't enjoy them or get much out of them for the reasons I've stated. Still, I will be trying out her Butterfly and Tosca again to reevaluate, and I own her Norma and listen to certain low-lying passages
from time to time. Her chest voice was always sumputous.

And, of course, wobbles have vastly increased in frequency (pun intended), and I would prefer Callas to all the sorpranos I've heard in the Met livestreams, for example, as at least there's half a real voice.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> In what alternate universe do you live in where people don't constantly bring up wobble problems with all the singers you cited?
> 
> Here's a crude measure--Google searches of the singer's last name plus the term "wobble":
> 
> ...


Gosh, I didn't know I was in an alternate universe. Thanks. I'd better tell the post office.

I don't hang out on Google looking up that sort of thing. I'm so pleased to know that someone cares enough to keep us all informed. Of course we know what crude statistics have to do with reality. I just Googled "Natalie Dessay wobble" and got 3510 results. In the first page of entries, I find the following:

"however, there isn't anything really troubling, like a wobble or ugly spread on top"

"as time passed [Sutherland] developed a heavy beat in the voice that could be mistaken for a wobble"

"such a wobble in his voice now that it is difficult to enjoy his singing"

"a few stray squawks apart, Dessay never wobbles"

"the overture was awful: brass notes wobbling and dying"

"a piece of scenery will wobble"

So much for statistics. That's an alternate universe it's best not to visit without a detailed guidebook.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I don't hang out on Google looking up that sort of thing. I'm so pleased to know that someone cares enough to keep us all informed.


Your argument was that no one talks about wobble with these other ladies, but people talk about wobbles all the time with Callas. I characterized my measure of google searches as "crude" in my post, but if you have another better way of measuring the frequency with which people talk about "wobble" in the context of specific singers, I'm all ears.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I've been very hard on Callas in this thread, so let me praise her:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Fascinating to revisit Callas's Italian Kundry. Like her Italian "Liebestod" from 1949, it's sung with her customary precision and sounds like no one else's. I don't think she was particularly into the strange character of Kundry, though, and I get no real sense of the dangerous seductress here (although, to be fair, I don't get it from most singers in the role). Proper operatic vocal sounds can only go so far, and Callas certainly never thought they went far enough. Neither do I.

On the matter of vibrato and wobble, her Parsifal here is quite shocking in contrast to her clarity of tone. How would he sound different if he were actually singing trills on every note?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> Your argument was that no one talks about wobble with these other ladies, but people talk about wobbles all the time with Callas. I characterized my measure of google searches as "crude" in my post, but if you have another better way of measuring the frequency with which people talk about "wobble" in the context of specific singers, I'm all ears.


I can only report my own experience and the impressions it leaves me with, which is all any of us can do unless we've done careful studies of a subject. My impression is that whenever the subject of the Callas voice comes up, someone talks about the wobble, and usually in a way that shows little or no understanding of its place in her overall vocal technique. If someone can show that my impressions are incorrect, I'll gladly revise my estimate of the situation.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Vivalagentenova: You said: "I can imagine someone saying: "But she's just singing the music beautifully, where's the characterization" It's in the beautiful singing of the music! The characterization is there, minutely described by Puccini's careful composition and shading and his and Illica/Giacosa's meticulously selected words. To have that delivered through the operatic voice is what I want. If the voice isn't there, the magic isn't there for me because the character lives in the sound of the voice as written for by the composer."

Coming from an acting background it is difficult for me to accept that explanation as characterization. It's just not enough for me to have it come through the voice only. Some, like Callas, Olivero etc. can express through their voices, but very few have that talent.
I watch Renata Tebaldi, (you mentioned her so I am using her as an example, but there are myriad others) -- she with the voice of an angel -- and nothing happens to my innards even though I am enjoying the sound of her beautiful voice as a singer. But NOT as the character she is portraying, because she's stiff, smiles a lot, and doesn't present depth of character to me in most of her roles, save her spectacular Minnie when she screams, "tre assi e un paio!" Now THERE was characterization!! Brava signora!

Problem is, many would counter, "that's late in the game for her and her voice isn't what it once was." Well for me, she was "better" than her "perfect voice" days. I don't need a perfect voice and that is why Callas' wobbles never upset me because there's so much more to her than just her wobbles.

For me characterization takes on a completely different aspect. I need to see expression, body language, even singers, we call them "re-actors", who are not engaged in the action at the moment yet are still showing themselves to be very much into their character anyway. How many true "re-actors" can you name?

This spells Callas to me and the previous list of sopranos I noted in the posts before this one.
A beautiful voice is special but without the depth of feeling coming through with their actions, I just miss that special thrill of a consummate portrayal of the character.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

howlingfantods said:


> In what alternate universe do you live in where people don't constantly bring up wobble problems with all the singers you cited?
> 
> Here's a crude measure--Google searches of the singer's last name plus the term "wobble":
> 
> ...


I always think it's always amusing when these 'experts' talk about things Like wobble. I think there was even a singer on one of those early pirate LPs named Helge Wobbel! Some of us just get on and listen and say whether we like it or not


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> *I've been very hard on Callas in this thread, so let me praise her:*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm interested in the fact you are making judgments on two of the greatest opera singers of the twentieth century. Of course, you are quite free to do so on a forum like this (as am I) but I am interested what your own experience of singing / teaching / coaching / stage is. I'm interested as to where and what angle you are coming from.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I always think it's always amusing when these 'experts' talk about things Like wobble. I think there was even a singer on one of those early pirate LPs named Helge Wobbel! Some of us just get on and listen and say whether we like it or not


What are "experts"? Can one talk about vocal wobble without being so characterized? Is it for some reason better to "just get on" and know nothing about the things we like?


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I can only report my own experience and the impressions it leaves me with, which is all any of us can do unless we've done careful studies of a subject. My impression is that whenever the subject of the Callas voice comes up, someone talks about the wobble, and usually in a way that shows little or no understanding of its place in her overall vocal technique. If someone can show that my impressions are incorrect, I'll gladly revise my estimate of the situation.


And my experience is that people talk about wobbles with every opera singer that has a wobble, whether it's Theo Adam or Maria Callas, or recently Netrebko. It's peculiar to me that your experience is that this only comes up with Callas when I see it virtually any time we're talking about an opera singers in their mid to late 40s, so it does make me wonder if this is confirmation bias.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Why are people missing the point? My point is that the constant talk about "wobble" in connection with Callas, but not with many other singers whose wobble is in some respects worse than hers, is peculiar, and tends to obscure a larger perspective on her, and others', vocal technique. Wobble has a number of causes, and may affect voices to differing extents. It never invaded her middle range, as it does that of many singers whose singing is now offered as "normal" on the stages of major houses.
> 
> Is this, or is it not, a legitimate observation?


Not for me, I'm afraid.

"Wobble" in her case was not a minor issue. It may be a clumsy term but it is synonymous in Callas' career with strident high notes, forced tone, off-key singing, and ran concurrent with the vocal fatigue which shrank her repertoire and ended her career.

You advocate a "larger perspective on her [...] vocal technique" which involves normalising her vocal flaws in the context of a subsequent precipitous decline in standards.

The "larger perspective" might just as easily involve the uninitiated asking why Callas is continually described in glowing terms as a technician while this appears to have only been the case, in the strictest sense, for about three days around 1952 when the sun was shining...



> The question is: who is trying to convince anyone to forego any singer they happen to enjoy? The existence of Callas doesn't stop me, or anyone I know, from enjoying dozens of other sopranos.


You used her as a stick against all the modern sopranos you mentioned when you thought the comparison was flattering to her.

You said that she could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Lehmann, Ponselle etc.

I asked you to make comparisons with her celebrated peers and it is suddenly odious to make comparisons?



> Do you mean her "art" - or her voice? In what respect would her _art_ be a trial?


Both: they are mutually exclusive.

Her 'art' encompassed her technical skill, her artistic choices, her repertoire choices, her professional choices. These were frequently at odds with what she could deliver physically.

I'm happy to acknowledge she had prodigious technical skills: it's just that she chose to exceed them in many of the projects she tackled.



> And is there an objective standard for "lovability"?


No, which is why the original poster shouldn't feel guilty about having difficulty reconciling Callas' legacy with their expectations: I think many fans are in that boat.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I've been very hard on Callas in this thread, so let me praise her:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well we are not really comparing like with like here as far as Tebaldi and Callas are concerned. Although Callas did record all the arias on this recital, they were not really Callas roles, whereas they were very much calling cards for Tebaldi, who was much more at home in _verismo_, a field Callas only touched on rarely in the theatre. At La Scala between 1951 and 1960, Callas actually only sang two _versimo_ roles, Maddalena in *Andrea Chénier*, which she learned in a few days (The originally scheduled operas was *Il Trovatore*, but Del Monaco, claiming indisposition, requested the change.) and Fedora. She sang no Puccini, not even Tosca. Callas's roles at La Scala were Elena in *I Vespri Siciliani*, Norma, Constanze in *Die Entführung aus dem Serail*, Lady Macbeth, Gioconda, Leonora in *Il Trovatore*, Medea, Lucia, Alceste, Elisabetta in *Don Carlo*, Giulia in *La Vestale*, Maddalena, Amina, Fiorilla in *Il Turco in Italia*, Violetta, Rosina, Fedora, Anna Bolena, Iphigénie en Tauride, Amelia in *Un Ballo in Maschera*, Imogene in *Il Pirata* and Paolina in *Poliuto*, few of which Tebaldi could even have attempted.

Unlike you, I hear very little of Butterfly's character in Tebaldi's singing of _Un bel di_. The character she presents doesn't sound any different to Tosca really. For all the beauty of Tebaldi's voice, I'd prefer to hear it sung not just by Callas, but by De Los Angeles, Freni or Scotto, all of whom I find much more convincing.

I simply cannot accept your assertion that for most of the 1950s, Callas was an artist struggling to make sounds beyond her capablities. She was an impeccable musician, who executed the details in the score with incredible accuracy. I think it was Grace Bumbry who once said that if you were to write down what Callas sang, you would write down exactly what was in the score. I was noting only the other day how you can hear the difference between tenuto and staccato, and can even do so within a single phrase, how she differentiates between a simple scale and one separated into duple quavers, as she does in _Sempre libera_, an aria which, incidentally, Tebaldi had to transpose down and in which her coloratura is clumsy and sketchy, to say the least. Certainly the character lives in the voice as written for by the composer, but he also presumably put all those little markngs in the score because he wanted his singers to observe them.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

As I mentioned earlier, I like early Callas primarily, mostly up until around 54, and during that period she did not have any wobble to her voice. That did not come till later, unfortunately when most of her studio recordings occurred. During the first studio Norma her voice was rock solid thoughout, and it was before she lost the weight. The wobble was not there for a couple of years after the weight loss as well. It started to come in later. I think it important to assert that she did not have any wobble during the first part of her career and not to over generalize.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Actually Seattle, she did have a wobble way way back when she was studying with Elvira de Hidalgo. It was always an annoying problem with her when she was in classes. Obviously, it progressed as time went on but it had nothing to do with her weight loss.

"De Hidalgo did a great deal to lessen the wobble in Mary's voice, and indeed eliminated it temporarily. 'Yes, there was some unsteadiness in her notes,' says Lola Ritsou, 'but De Hidalgo did a lot to correct it without ever mentioning the word "wobble". Once she had identified the problem she gave her some special exercises. But Mary's wobble was not nearly as noticeable as it was to become fifteen or twenty years later. We only noticed it when De Hidalgo kept on setting her those exercises . And you could see that the problem immediately faded or even disappeared altogether. '"

Circa: 1940_ The Unknown Callas_, By Nicholas Petsalis-Diomidis (page 258)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> As I mentioned earlier, I like early Callas primarily, mostly up until around 54, and during that period she did not have any wobble to her voice. That did not come till later, unfortunately when most of her studio recordings occurred. During the first studio Norma her voice was rock solid thoughout, and it was before she lost the weight. The wobble was not there for a couple of years after the weight loss as well. It started to come in later. I think it important to assert that she did not have any wobble during the first part of her career and not to over generalize.


The weight loss occurred between 1953 and 1954. Here she is around the time of the first recording of *Norma*










She sang the role of Alceste in April of 1954 and recorded Norma the same month.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> The weight loss occurred between 1953 and 1954. Here she is around the time of the first recording of *Norma*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You know more than me. In the Norma recording from 54 she appears much heavier than this in the on stage photos presented, so I was going from those photos. Even here, she is not nearly as thin as she became. Thanks for your great knowledge!!!!


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Well we are not really comparing like with like here as far as Tebaldi and Callas are concerned. Although Callas did record all the arias on this recital, they were not really Callas roles, whereas they were very much calling cards for Tebaldi, who was much more at home in _verismo_, a field Callas only touched on rarely in the theatre. At La Scala between 1951 and 1960, Callas actually only sang two _versimo_ roles, Maddalena in *Andrea Chénier*, which she learned in a few days (The originally scheduled operas was *Il Trovatore*, but Del Monaco, claiming indisposition, requested the change.) and Fedora. She sang no Puccini, not even Tosca. Callas's roles at La Scala were Elena in *I Vespri Siciliani*, Norma, Constanze in *Die Entführung aus dem Serail*, Lady Macbeth, Gioconda, Leonora in *Il Trovatore*, Medea, Lucia, Alceste, Elisabetta in *Don Carlo*, Giulia in *La Vestale*, Maddalena, Amina, Fiorilla in *Il Turco in Italia*, Violetta, Rosina, Fedora, Anna Bolena, Iphigénie en Tauride, Amelia in *Un Ballo in Maschera*, Imogene in *Il Pirata* and Paolina in *Poliuto*, few of which Tebaldi could even have attempted.


While that's true of La Scala during those years, it is not as if comparisons are hard to find. Any intrepid listener can compare them in complete operas including a lot of the core repertoire

Andrea Chenier
La Boheme
La Traviata
Madama Butterfly
Aida
Il Trovatore
Tosca
Forza del Destino
Manon Lescaut
Gioconda
Ballo in Maschera
Cavalleria Rusticana

Arias they both recorded include excerpts from
Tristan und Isolde
Carmen
Samson et Dalila
Manon
Norma
Puritani
Sonnambula
Nabucco
Don Carlo
Suor Angelica
Turandot
Adriana Lecouvreur
La Wally
Mefistofele

At times it seems like they only went into the recording studio out of one-upmanship and trying to pinch each other's roles


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Revitalized Classics said:


> While that's true of La Scala during those years, it is not as if comparisons are hard to find. Any intrepid listener can compare them in complete operas including a lot of the core repertoire
> 
> Andrea Chenier
> La Boheme
> ...


You actually don't know much about Callas's repertoire, which isn't that surprising as Callas's studio recordings don't really give a true picture of her stage career.

Taking each one on the list.

Andrea Chénier Callas only sang once whereas it was a Tebaldi speciality.
La Boheme Callas never sang on stage
La Traviata was undoubtedly a Callas role. Tebaldi sang it a bit at the beginning of her career, but she had to transpose down Sempre libera and her execution of the coloratura was, as I said, clumsy and sketchy.
Madama Butterfly Callas only sang once in Chicago in 1955.
Aida figured a good deal in Callas's early career, but she never sang it on stage after 1953. The recording was made in 1955.
Il Trovatore was another Callas speciality, Callas restoring to it all its bel canto graces. Critics said it was as if an old master had been lovingly brought back to life. Tebaldi never sang the role on stage and her singing of the music ignores most of the trills and fioriture Verdi wrote.
Tosca was a major role for both, though, after the De Sabata recording in 1953 Callas only sang it in her two Met seasons before she returned to it in 1964 for her comeback.
Forza was Callas's first Verdi opera, but she only sang it on two occasions and for the studio recording. Tebaldi sang it quite a lot.
Manon Lescaut Callas never sang on stage.
Gioconda was the role of Callas's Italian debut, but she didn't sing it that often though she made two recordings. I don't know if Tebaldi sang the role on stage, but she recorded it quite late in her career.
Ballo Callas only once sang at La Scala in 1957, having made a studio recording of the opera the previous year. 
Cavalleria Rusticana Callas only sang in Greece before she was internationally known. In fact she wasn't even supposed to be on the studio recording, but ended up stepping in for a mezzo-soprano who was hving trouble with her top notes.

The four cornerstones of Callas's career were Norma, Violetta, Lucia and Medea and these were the roles she sang more than any other. Violetta was not one of Tebaldi's best roles and she (wisely) never attempted the other three.

Tebaldi may have sung arias from Norma, I Puritani and La Sonnambula but she sounds hopelessly out of her element, which she was, whereas these roles were three of Callas's greatest successes. Really the two singers have very little in common and it seems crazy now that they were ever considered rivals.

As for the assertion that they were trying to outdo each other by recording each other's roles, that is an aboslute nonsense. Tebaldi recorded for Decca, Callas for EMI, both companies at the dawning of the LP age. Both companies were trying to build up a library of complete operas. As their star sopranos, it was inevitable that they would record the core repertoire, but it was much more representative of Tebaldi's stage career than it was of Callas's.


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## Andante Cantabile (Feb 26, 2020)

Tsaraslondon said:


> ......
> 
> Tosca was a major role for both, though, after the De Sabata recording in 1953 Callas only sang it in her two Met seasons before she returned to it in 1964 for her comeback.
> 
> ...


Just a few points to add to your quite comprehensive survey:

-Callas sang three nights of Tosca in March 1954 at Teatro Carlo Felice, Genova (just before Alceste at La Scala in Apr 1954). It was not a major appearance in her career and no review of the performance exists, thus explaining its relative obscurity.

-Callas indeed didn't sing Gioconda often, in fact only in 1947 (Verona) and 1952-53 (Verona and La Scala). She dropped the role from her stage repertoire after early 1953 (note: she was at her stoutest then, so nothing to do with weight loss).

-Tebaldi did sing Gioconda on stage in the later part of her career (i.e. post-1963). In fact during that stage it became one of her main vehicles.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Augastine said:


> Just a couple of points to add to your quite comprehensive survey:
> 
> -Callas sang three nights of Tosca in March 1954 at Teatro Carlo Felice, Genova (just before Alceste at La Scala in Apr 1954). It was not a major appearance in her career and no review of the performance exists, thus explaining its relative obscurity.
> 
> -Tebaldi did sing Gioconda on stage in the later part of her career (i.e. post-1963). In fact during that stage it became one of her main vehicles.


Yes, I'd momentarily forgotten about those Genova performances, but it did seem that after the recording she sang it as little as possible.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

You're reading a great deal into my statements.



Revitalized Classics said:


> "Wobble" in her case was not a minor issue. It may be a clumsy term but it is synonymous in Callas' career with strident high notes, forced tone, off-key singing, and ran concurrent with the vocal fatigue which shrank her repertoire and ended her career.


I didn't call it a minor issue. It will be minor for some listeners, major for others. I did say that it could have been worse than it was, and I'll say that anyone who can watch her extraordinary Covent Garden Tosca and care about a few wobbly high notes lives in a different musical world from mine.



> You advocate a "larger perspective on her [...] vocal technique" which involves normalising her vocal flaws in the context of a subsequent precipitous decline in standards.


I've never normalized any vocal flaws. Wobble is not normal.



> The "larger perspective" might just as easily involve the uninitiated asking why Callas is continually described in glowing terms as a technician while this appears to have only been the case, in the strictest sense, for about three days around 1952 when the sun was shining...


The "uninitiated" would not ask about a nasty little falsehood just invented by you. The INITIATED know that Callas had a technique which enabled her to execute virtually any music written for the soprano voice, and this can be heard from her earliest recordings until well into the period of her decline. A poor vocal technique would never have allowed her to place on her instrument the demands she did. Breath control, dynamic control, strong development of the registers, flexibility, accuracy, consistency of vibrato in most of her range, clear diction - her control of the mechanics of singing was outstanding and remained so for quite a few years, enabling her to do a wide range of things that most large-voiced singers can't equal. Singers know this, and it's one reason, among others, that she has their continuing admiration and interest.



> I'm happy to acknowledge she had prodigious technical skills: it's just that she chose to exceed them in many of the projects she tackled.


Which projects in particular? Does this refer to anything more than the difficult high notes? Is there anything else substantially deficient in most of her work up until the end of the 1950s? I do suspect that the extraordinary demands for expression that she placed on her voice exacerbated her difficulties, but I've never felt, in most of her recordings and recorded live performances from those years, that she failed to deliver the goods. As Ricciarelli commented, sopranos try to figure out how she did what she did.



> You used her as a stick against all the modern sopranos you mentioned when you thought the comparison was flattering to her.


I used comparisons to make a point about wobble. Apparently that point - that worse wobbles than hers are common among supposedly leading singers of today - still escapes you.



> You said that she could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Lehmann, Ponselle etc.


In her prime, I said. In her prime she, like those sopranos, could sing just about anything well.

EDIT: I want to add, for those who think that Callas's voice was functional for only a few years and that her career was short, that she made her operatic debut in 1941, and her exceptional abilities were recognized even then among her colleagues. She is not unique in having sung for many years before attaining international fame. Beverly Sills was said by the press to have had an "overnight success" with Cleopatra in 1966, but she had made her operatic debut in 1947 and had sung in operettas for years before that. She remarked, "If mine was an overnight success, it was the longest day's journey you ever saw."


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## Andante Cantabile (Feb 26, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> ......
> 
> I want to add, for those who think that Callas's voice was functional for only a few years and that her career was short, that she made her operatic debut in 1941, and her exceptional abilities were recognized even then among her colleagues.


Just to add some more facts regarding the wartime Greece years, the earliest part of Callas' career:

-Callas' professional operatic debut occured indeed in 1941, as Beatrice in Franz von Suppe's operetta *Boccacio*, as a regular member of the Greek National Opera, yet her stage debut actually took place earlier, in 1939 (at the age of 15) as *Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana*, at the Olympia Theatre in Athens, in a performance put up by the Athens Conservatory. 
-She sang *Tosca* (at age of 18) in 1942, with 18 performances.
-She sang *Marta in Eugen d'Albert's Tiefland* (a dramatic soprano part, in which she enjoyed a triumph), as well as several performances as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana in 1944 (age 20). 
-Some more in 1944: *Fidelio* (11 performances), in which she enjoyed another great success. The performance was said to have been broadcast on German Radio (Greece then being occupied by Germany), but unfortunately no aircheck survived.
-1945: 3 more performances as Marta in Tiefland

According to Callas herself, physically she was an early developer ('I was a BIG girl then'). If that 'Nina Foresti' aka 'Anita Duval' singing 'Un del di' on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour in 1935 was really her, then her puberty occurred around the age of 11. With early puberty, menopause inevitably occured early (at 33 in 1957), which alone had a damaging impact on her voice.


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## Andante Cantabile (Feb 26, 2020)

Photos of Callas early in her career in wartime Greece:

*Tosca, Greek National Opera, 1942*


https://imgbb.com/

*Marta in Tiefland, Greek National Opera, 1944*


https://imgbb.com/

*Fidelio, Greek National Opera, 1944*


https://imgbb.com/


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> Unlike you, I hear very little of Butterfly's character in Tebaldi's singing of Un bel di. The character she presents doesn't sound any different to Tosca really. For all the beauty of Tebaldi's voice, I'd prefer to hear it sung not just by Callas, but by De Los Angeles, Freni or Scotto, all of whom I find much more convincing.


It would help me to know what you mean by convincing. (It might help if you pointed to something really specific that Callas does with her voice that gives you a really strong sense of "this character as a character" just so I could hear what you mean.)

There are different views on this. For example, I've never been one of the school that says singers should sound like they actually are the character they're singing in a literal sense. E.g. that if they're young, they should sound more fragile and light; if they're dying they should sound like they're actually dying. I mean, Verdi gives Violetta a pretty big high note right before she keels over from TB. Either we accept that there's a degree of removal from verisimilitude here, or a lot of opera becomes badly written. I think of the vocal part as expressing the inner life of the character moreso than the outer life, just as much text in classical theater is poetry, a form that nobody speaks in in real life except the most refined courtiers in special circumstances. Just as their dialogue doesn't sound like something someone would actually say in the moment, the music doesn't sound like what people would actually sound like in the moment. (As Rossini allegedly reminded Wagner, they don't sing, after all.) Over time in opera there became more and more interest in making things sound like real conversation, but that's just a total fantasy, as real conversation doesn't occur to music. It's also a strange goal for opera; if that's the goal, why not just put on a play with background music? In opera, the vocal part is always going to represent something stylized.

With that in mind, the actual sound of an operatic voice, combined with the text, in context of the dramatic moment, is what provides the sense of "feeling what is in the character's soul" for me. Tebaldi's Tosca and Cio-Cio San sound different to me because they have different music. The characterization is written into the music. nina foresti objected to my definition of characterization by referring to acting; well, the big difference between opera and acting is that in addition to having a script, the actor in opera also has all the line readings written out! I really see opera as drawing from its tradition as declamation in the style of classical theater. It's a stylized, non-subjective form of dramatic writing that actually doesn't have so much room for individual interpretation in the sense of making the character into a real-seeming person. I mean, most operatic characters are fairly two-dimensional anyway. Most are archetypal. Even those with more depth like a Wotan or a Minnie are still more like characters from Sophocles than from Tolstoy.



> I simply cannot accept your assertion that for most of the 1950s, Callas was an artist struggling to make sounds beyond her capablities.


It's certainly not true of everything she tried to do. She was extremely successful at singing in the lower register, and often in the middle. She did not succeed, if she tried, at producing a correct top too often for my taste. Again, I don't mean to say everything she did was bad. Far from it!



> I simply cannot accept your assertion that for most of the 1950s, Callas was an artist struggling to make sounds beyond her capablities. She was an impeccable musician, who executed the details in the score with incredible accuracy. I think it was Grace Bumbry who once said that if you were to write down what Callas sang, you would write down exactly what was in the score. I was noting only the other day how you can hear the difference between tenuto and staccato, and can even do so within a single phrase, how she differentiates between a simple scale and one separated into duple quavers, as she does in Sempre libera, an aria which, incidentally, Tebaldi had to transpose down and in which her coloratura is clumsy and sketchy, to say the least. Certainly the character lives in the voice as written for by the composer, but he also presumably put all those little markngs in the score because he wanted his singers to observe them.


Observing the letter of the score is different from observing the spirit. It's impressive that Callas could sing with such accuracy, but that doesn't make great music. (I'm not trying to write Callas off as a literalist, just making a general point that literalism isn't what matters to me.) It's about getting at the right effect to serve the music, and sometimes that means doing something different from exactly what they wrote. We know this in part because a) music is full of such unwritten conventions, and the whole point of interpretation is to supply that missing piece ,b) Virtually all players from the time in which these pieces were written did not reproduce the score (in the case of someone like Tetrazzini or Battistini, it certainly wasn't from lack of ability), and c) because composers themselves frequently disregarded their markings in their recordings. Mascagni conducted _Cavalleria_ and did different tempos, dynamics, etc. from what he wrote.

I'm not saying do what you want willy nilly, I'm not saying be sloppy. And I'm not saying that that's what Tebaldi was doing. I expect she just wasn't adept enough at fioritura to fully master the role. You'd have to go back to people like Lilli Lehmann, Frida Leider, and Lillian Nordica to find dramatic sized voices that could handle such things. Tebaldi was great but had her limitations, absolutely. She was trained and worked in an era of decline in singing. She was the last truly great spinto soprano. (And not my favorite soprano.) Also, not all roles are for all singers. Part of my problem is that it is precisely the roles that Callas is most acclaimed in, her bel canto roles, that require a large number of high notes and high lying passages, which makes that painful for me and makes it hard for me to follow along with her as an actress.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> You actually don't know much about Callas's repertoire, which isn't that surprising as Callas's studio recordings don't really give a true picture of her stage career.
> 
> Taking each one on the list.
> 
> ...


I listed all those recordings because they allow any listener to compare the singers in a broad swathe of repertoire which, you've conveniently confirmed, did largely revolve around the many stage roles they did have in common. Many thanks.

I was under no misapprehension regarding Callas' stage repertoire, thank you. For some reason you hallucinated that I said anything about both sopranos performing all these roles on stage- moreover that they sang them frequently. Further still, you think that I made comment on their suitability for said roles and how significant the roles were in each soprano's career?

What I had thought was odd, was that in order to emphasise the differences between the two sopranos you had decided to only list the performances they gave in one theatre - La Scala- in a nine year period chosen by you. If you happened to pick a different period there is much less of a dichotomy.

You didn't, for instance, choose the period 1948-1953 when they were both singing throughout Italy Aidas, Tosca, Traviata - which Tebaldi sang 102 times in total but who is counting? - Forza, early Verdi (Macbeth vs Giovanna d'Arco), Wagner (Tristan and Parsifal vs Lohengrin and Tannhauser), Rossini (Armida v Siege de Corinthe) and Mozart (Serail v Don Giovanni) among others.

Indeed, Walter Legge was intrigued at the prospect of them alternating as Norma and Adalgisa but that wouldn't fit your interpretation.



> As for the assertion that they were trying to outdo each other by recording each other's roles, that is an aboslute nonsense. Tebaldi recorded for Decca, Callas for EMI, both companies at the dawning of the LP age. Both companies were trying to build up a library of complete operas. As their star sopranos, it was inevitable that they would record the core repertoire, but it was much more representative of Tebaldi's stage career than it was of Callas's.


You've been at pains to show that Callas' recordings don't accurately reflect the emphasis of her stage career. Now you're adamant that coincidence rather than commercial competition determined the repertoire.

The discrepancy in repertoire is resolved when you acknowledge Callas' EMI records were made in the context of direct competition to Tebaldi's Decca recordings which were frequently published first.

Boheme- Tebaldi 1951, Callas 1956
Butterfly- Tebaldi 1951, Callas 1955
Aida- Tebaldi 1952, Callas 1955
Tosca- Tebaldi 1952, Callas 1953
Manon Lescaut - Tebaldi 1954, Callas 1957

You only have to open one of the early Penguin guides to see how directly there was a tit-for-tat comparison about how each label's recordings compared technically and vocally. It made commercial sense and Culshaw and Legge were acutely aware of the competition.

We know that it also worked the other way: Tebaldi was still eyeing the competition much later when she listened to Callas' version before recording her own Gioconda in the late 60s. She was patently up to mischief recording arias from Callas' repertoire like Sonnambula for that 'festival' record.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I listed all those recordings because they allow any listener to compare the singers in a broad swathe of repertoire which, you've conveniently confirmed, did largely revolve around the many stage roles they did have in common. Many thanks.
> 
> I was under no misapprehension regarding Callas' stage repertoire, thank you. For some reason you hallucinated that I said anything about both sopranos performing all these roles on stage- moreover that they sang them frequently. Further still, you think that I made comment on their suitability for said roles and how significant the roles were in each soprano's career?
> 
> ...


Where did I say it was coincidence? I said that the companies were building up a library of the core repertoire and therefore no surprise to find Callas and Tebaldi recording the same operas at the same time. I doubt either of the two ladies had much choice as they would just have been contracted to record a certain amount of operas for their company. The choice of operas was certainly not laid down in Callas's initial contract.

Yes, Tebaldi did sing some of the same sort of repertoire Callas was singing (if not the same roles) at the beginning of her career, but she quickly shifted to _verismo_ and late Verdi, where Callas concentrated more and more on Bellini and Donizetti. Inerestingly Callas dropped Aida from her repertoire and Tebaldi Violetta. The two ladies knew what they were about. I know Legge entetained the idea of them alternating in *Norma* (after all, it would have been a great publicity coup) but, though Callas found the idea exciting, Tebaldi flatly refused, presumably knowing that she would have been out of her element.

Callas certainly wanted to record *Anna Bolena* and *Il Pirata*, but Legge would have none of it, saying that they would not have been commercially viable, so instead she recorded *Turandot*, a role she gave up at the very beginning of her career and *Manon Lescaut*, which she never sang and would never have considered. Legge wouldn't even let her record *Medea*, which she recorded for Ricordi, having badgered Legge into letting her do it. She didn't much like Puccini, not even *Tosca* and nothing changes the fact that her stage career was very different. You only have to look at the list of operas covered in Warner's _Callas Live Remastered_ to see how different it was.

Nabucco (1949)
Parsifal (1951)
I Vespri Siciliani (1950)
Aida (1951)
Armida (1952)
Rigoletto (1952)
Norma (1952)
Macbeth (1952)
Medea (1953)
Alceste (1954)
La Vestale (!954)
Andrea Chénier (1955)
La Sonnambula (1955)
Lucia di Lammermoor (1955)
Anna Bolena (1957)
Ifigenia in Tauride (1957)
La Traviata (1958)
Il Pirata (1959)
Poliuto (1960)
Tosca (1964)

They only shared a few of these roles and Tebaldi never sang any of the _bel canto_ repertoire that was a Callas staple.

Somehow I also doubt Tebaldi was 'up to mischief' when she recorded "Festival". By 1970, when the record was issued, Callas had virtually retired. She hadn't sung in public since 1965 and, in any case, she and Tebaldi had had a huge and much publicised reunion when they publicly buried the hatchet. In later years, Tebaldi stated that the rivalry was largely a media creation anyway and that the attendant publicity had probably done neither of them any harm.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

vivalagentenuova said:


> There are different views on this. For example, I've never been one of the school that says singers should sound like they actually are the character they're singing in a literal sense. E.g. that if they're young, they should sound more fragile and light; if they're dying they should sound like they're actually dying.


There, that will be what it is then! :devil:

Seriously, whilst there is a difference between someone who is fragile in real life (and therefore wouldn't be able to sing without amplification) and operatic fragility and you wouldn't want someone who really sounds like they are literally dying, I do want realistic expression within the style of the composer's music and Callas achieved that better than any other soprano.

I believe this is what she meant when she said that her art and career were about trying to find the truth and present it to the public. Some people can't handle the truth.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> There, that will be what it is then! :devil:
> 
> Seriously, whilst there is a difference between someone who is fragile in real life (and therefore wouldn't be able to sing without amplification) and operatic fragility and you wouldn't want someone who really sounds like they are literally dying, I do want realistic expression within the style of the composer's music and Callas achieved that better than any other soprano.
> 
> ...


And if "beauty is truth, truth beauty" then Callas's voice was undoubtedly beautiful.

Odd that that quote should come from Keates's _Ode on a Grecian Urn_.


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## visionquest1972 (Mar 20, 2019)

I agree. I find Callas' voice to be beautiful but not very powerful. I am a Wagnerite and her voice was definitely not built for Wagner.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

visionquest1972 said:


> I agree. I find Callas' voice to be beautiful but not very powerful. I am a Wagnerite and her voice was definitely not built for Wagner.


Though according to those who heard her in her early days, when she sang Brünnhilde, Isolde and Kundry, it was very powerful, "colossal" Sutherland called it when she sang Clotilde to her Norma at Covent Garden in 1952. There is no doubt, however that, after the weight loss and with the shift in repertoire to _bel canto_ roles it became lighter. That said, there was never any difficulty hearing her.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> "Callas had a technique which enabled her to execute virtually any music written for the soprano voice, and this can be heard from her earliest recordings until well into the period of her decline."


I'll address this point as I think it goes to the heart of the debate.

Callas herself probably believed she could sing the lot. The closest she came to trying was calendar year 1952 when she sang in Armida, Puritani, Traviata, Lucia, Rigoletto, Tosca, Gioconda, Norma and Macbeth.

I'd suggest that it is a fallacy that even at that date she could sing all this repertoire with equal facility, which is rather the point.

I believe this hyperbole can be traced back to Walter Legge in, if memory serves, a sort of obituary essay soon after Callas died. While I can understand his enthusiasm and sentiment under those circumstances, it distorts her actual recorded legacy.

I don't have so long to write today so I'll summarise the argument that

>Up until c. 1953, Callas' voice was warm, rich and had a wide range. I find her more successful in dramatic parts like Gioconda, Lady Macbeth and Medea but less successful than expected in Lucia and Traviata given legend. Basically I find her approach rather lugubrious compared to 1955. The Mexico performances in particular are pretty wild.

>Mid fifties, peak in coloratura despite less secure high notes including Norma, Traviata, Sonnambula. Already spotty vocally in Butterfly, Aida, Chenier. Certainly could not sing Isolde, Brunnhilde, Turandot or Abigaille by then with previous success so "virtually any music written for the soprano voice" already out the window.

>Late fifties onwards, all bets are off: great nights like Anna Bolena but very inconsistent. Can be summed up by an incongruously good recording of Gioconda from 1959 in the studio and a roughly contemporary Lucia in the studio which is probably her least satisfactory remake.

That's why I kidded that if you wanted to hear Callas firing on all cylinders - vocally, artistically, cooperating with Serafin and Legge and settled emotionally - perhaps there was a fortnight in '53 where it all came together.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

visionquest1972 said:


> I agree. I find Callas' voice to be beautiful but not very powerful. I am a Wagnerite and her voice was definitely not built for Wagner.


Erm... There's quite a bit of variety to Wagner's female roles. De los Angeles didn't have the largest of voices, but she made a superb Elisabeth at Bayreuth. Callas never sang Wagner in German, so the few recorded examples of her in Wagner have something strange about them. That said, she was a wonderful Kundry and I can imagine she would have been a superb Brunhilde. Venus is probably the role I think she would have suited best and I can't think why you don't think she was 'built' for Wagner.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I'll address this point as I think it goes to the heart of the debate.
> 
> Callas herself probably believed she could sing the lot. The closest she came to trying was calendar year 1952 when she sang in Armida, Puritani, Traviata, Lucia, Rigoletto, Tosca, Gioconda, Norma and Macbeth.
> 
> I'd suggest that it is a fallacy that even at that date she could sing all this repertoire with equal facility, which is rather the point.


Recordings exist of her singing all those roles in 52. What is missing in her singing of all those roles?

Can you name another singer who sang all those roles (or similar) in one season with 'equal facility'?

I'm dying to know the answer as she must be amazing and I want to buy all her recordings.

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

According to Ardoin's "Callas" (and several other biographies), hers was an unusual voice in that she was able to affect contralto sounds as well as coloratura without effort. It is called Soprano Sfogato. (sometimes also referred to as Soprano Assoluta)
If I recall, Pasta too had the same kind of unusual sound.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> According to Ardoin's "Callas" (and several other biographies), hers was an unusual voice in that she was able to affect contralto sounds as well as coloratura without effort. It is called Soprano Sfogato. (sometimes also referred to as Soprano Assoluta)
> If I recall, Pasta too had the same kind of unusual sound.


Well of course we don't know what Pasta sounded like, but Stendhal left us quite a good description,



> She can achieve perfect resonance on a note as low as bottom A, and can rise as high as C♯, or even to a slightly sharpened D; and she possesses the rare ability to be able to sing contralto as easily as she can sing soprano. I would suggest ... that the true designation of her voice is mezzo-soprano, and any composer who writes for her should use the mezzo-soprano range for the thematic material of his music, while still exploiting, as it were incidentally and from time to time, notes which lie within the more peripheral areas of this remarkably rich voice. Many notes of this last category are not only extremely fine in themselves, but have the ability to produce a kind of resonant and magnetic vibration, which, through some still unexplained combination of physical phenomena, exercises an instantaneous and hypnotic effect upon the soul of the spectator.
> 
> This leads to the consideration of one of the most uncommon features of Madame Pasta's voice: it is not all moulded from the same metallo, as it is said in Italy (which is to say that it possesses more than one timbre); and this fundamental variety of tone produced by a single voice affords one of the richest veins of musical expression which the artistry of a great cantatrice is able to exploit


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I'll address this point as I think it goes to the heart of the debate.
> 
> Callas herself probably believed she could sing the lot. The closest she came to trying was calendar year 1952 when she sang in Armida, Puritani, Traviata, Lucia, Rigoletto, Tosca, Gioconda, Norma and Macbeth.
> 
> ...


My assertion was that she "had a technique which enabled her to execute virtually any music written for the soprano voice...from her earliest recordings until well into the period of her decline," which means from 1949 until sometime in the late 1950s. I presume as well that she had developed that technique well before 1949. This is not the same as saying that her voice was equally well-suited to any repertoire at all points during that period (or in fact at any time in her life). It's to say that she could meet the technical challenges posed by the music. Except for "less secure high notes," which we had agreed on at the very start, you mention no categories of vocal incapacity to refute my assertion.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> It would help me to know what you mean by convincing. (It might help if you pointed to something really specific that Callas does with her voice that gives you a really strong sense of "this character as a character" just so I could hear what you mean.)
> 
> There are different views on this. For example, *I've never been one of the school that says singers should sound like they actually are the character they're singing in a literal sense. E.g. that if they're young, they should sound more fragile and light; if they're dying they should sound like they're actually dying.* I mean, Verdi gives Violetta a pretty big high note right before she keels over from TB. Either we accept that there's a degree of removal from verisimilitude here, or a lot of opera becomes badly written. I think of the vocal part as expressing the inner life of the character moreso than the outer life, just as much text in classical theater is poetry, a form that nobody speaks in in real life except the most refined courtiers in special circumstances. Just as their dialogue doesn't sound like something someone would actually say in the moment, the music doesn't sound like what people would actually sound like in the moment. (As Rossini allegedly reminded Wagner, they don't sing, after all.) Over time in opera there became more and more interest in making things sound like real conversation, but that's just a total fantasy, as real conversation doesn't occur to music. It's also a strange goal for opera; if that's the goal, why not just put on a play with background music? In opera, the vocal part is always going to represent something stylized.
> 
> ...


What you are saying, of course, is that you prefer the sound of a voice to vocal acting. It is a point of view that prefers an actor like John Gielgud to Lawrence Olivier - of the declamation of the text over the character, only vocally. It is a point of view. Of course, there are some of us who believe that a character who is playing a young girl should, at least, sound young (and if seen look young), if she is to be believed in a dramatic production. Callas had an extraordinary dramatic range even if the sheer beauty of her voice couldn't be compared with (eg) Tebaldi. In this she is Olivier to Tebaldi's Gielgud. George Solti, whose dispute with Callas over Tosca at Covent Garden nearly brought about his resignation even though he wasn't conducting, said of her, "People often talk about the Callas legend, but for me she did not have as great a voice as her rival, Renata Tebaldi. Callas, however, had a magic about her; when she was on stage you couldn't take your eyes off her." Which I think just about sums it up. Of course, in opera, one it is often a case of roundabouts and swings. Some of the greatest voices have not been endowed with the greatest looks and sometimes one must trade 'reality' of vision (a false term in opera anyway) for beauty of sound. Why I find Wagner on stage to be generally unconvincing dramatically as it requires singers who are often the wrong age (and the wrong shape) to produce a convincingly dramatic stage experience. Whereas Mozart and Rossini can be done with young singers who look the part.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Simply stated: Flaws and all, Maria Callas exuded charisma from every pore of her being. She was a legend in her own time.
I don't think you can name too many of those.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> According to Ardoin's "Callas" (and several other biographies), hers was an unusual voice in that she was able to affect contralto sounds as well as coloratura without effort. It is called Soprano Sfogato. (sometimes also referred to as Soprano Assoluta)
> If I recall, Pasta too had the same kind of unusual sound.


Yes, this has been said a number of times about Callas. I'm not necessarily a fan of the concept of a Sfogato or Assoluta as a category. It just seems to be a euphemism for a singer with accomplished technique. The idea that a singer can affect contralto sounds as well as coloratura shouldn't be extraordinary or lead to the conclusion that they are of a special voice type. All singers should have a developed chest voice with flexibility. That's what technique IS!

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Yes, this has been said a number of times about Callas. I'm not necessarily a fan of the concept of a Sfogato or Assoluta as a category. It just seems to be a euphemism for a singer with accomplished technique. The idea that a singer can affect contralto sounds as well as coloratura shouldn't be extraordinary or lead to the conclusion that they are of a special voice type. All singers should have a developed chest voice with flexibility. That's what technique IS!
> 
> N.


Respectfully, to me Callas has an unique range for a soprano. There are relatively few who can affect a good chest voice along with a coloratura sound as well. But if you denounce sfogato as an actual voice category and simply consider it as nothing more than a euphemism for a singer with an accomplished technique, I should think there would be many more sopranos with such "accomplished techniques." Can you name any of today's sopranos that fit the sfogato category?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

In her prime Callas could go from booming out powerful chest tones to flights of coloratura up to high Eb. However we want to categorize her, that's very unusual.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Respectfully, to me Callas has an unique range for a soprano. There are relatively few who can affect a good chest voice along with a coloratura sound as well. But if you denounce sfogato as an actual voice category and simply consider it as nothing more than a euphemism for a singer with an accomplished technique, I should think there would be many more sopranos with such "accomplished techniques." Can you name any of today's sopranos that fit the sfogato category?


I think you can also mention the fact that out of hoards of prima donnas, Sutherland is the only other soprano I know of that could sing D6 to E6 with the amplitude of a dramatic soprano. I think this counts for A LOT. Of course this was when she was large, but there is a good recorded record of this extraordinary feat. Judging by the poor recordings of the era, I think there is a good case that Callas had an even bigger top than Sutherland's, and THAT is saying a lot. I must say Eva Marton did have a truly spectacular Db6 or D, I'm not sure, in Die Frau, but she wasn't known for her forays into the 6th octave.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I think it's beyond "we". I believe many authors of her biographies have already done that.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Opera is an inherently stylized art form. Stylization is not realism, true, but it often finds more truth than mere realism. Every great theatrical tradition in the history of humanity, from Athenian tragedy to kabuki, noh, and bunraku, to Elizabethan drama is stylized. Yet the style is meant to evoke deep truths about real life. Just like the conventions of shamisen playing in bunraku are meant to evoke different kinds of weeping without actually sounding anything like actual weeping whatsoever, there are conventions of opera singing that evoke different effects. I like it when singers evoke those effects. I like the conventions. They are not hiding from truth. They are finding truth. If you want to have a realistic sound of a young girl as Butterfly, find a fifteen year old and have them read the lines. Not much truth there. That whole issue is separate from Callas, though. My problem with Callas isn't that she actually sounds like a young girl (although she sometimes does shadings and crooning that people take that way, which I don't like) it's that her technique, for all her agility and chest register and other excellent qualities, didn't allow for beauty or consistency, necessary elements of expression for me, in the upper register.

And don't mistake this for not liking intensity in singing. I don't want dry and dull readings any more than anyone else. I want this:




It's a quality of the operatic voice that the chest register evokes deep, powerful feeling. Mascagni wrote that in, and she pursues the effect perfectly and beautifull. Io piAAAAANNNNNNGOOOOOOOOOOOO. Her caprino ruined it when she was young, just as Callas' wobble ruins what are often otherwise excellent interpretations and takes away from their expressiveness.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> Respectfully, to me Callas has an unique range for a soprano. There are relatively few who can affect a good chest voice along with a *coloratura sound* as well. But if you denounce sfogato as an actual voice category and simply consider it as nothing more than a euphemism for a singer with an accomplished technique, I should think there would be many more sopranos with such "accomplished techniques." Can you name any of today's sopranos that fit the sfogato category?


What's a _coloratura sound_? Coloratura means florid singing and is a skill that can be learned (although some singers find it comes more naturally than others), any singer who has mastered technique should have a flexible voice. The fact that technical standards have decreased in recent times is neither here nor there.

I'm somewhat perplexed by the assertion that you think there would be 'sfogatos' around today if it were just a matter of technique. If sfogato were some sort of natural category then you would think there would be sopranos today in that category. To be clear, I see vocal categories as analogous to instruments of the orchestra. A violin is a violin no matter who holds it in their hands, however there is a huge difference between a beginner playing the instrument and someone with years of study and technical mastery. If 'sfogato' were a category they would be as plentiful as violins, whereas if it is basically a soprano who has mastered technique then you _would_ expect them to be as rare as a violin virtuoso.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I think you can also mention the fact that out of hoards of prima donnas, Sutherland is the only other soprano I know of that could sing D6 to E6 with the amplitude of a dramatic soprano. I think this counts for A LOT. Of course this was when she was large, but there is a good recorded record of this extraordinary feat. Judging by the poor recordings of the era, I think there is a good case that Callas had an even bigger top than Sutherland's, and THAT is saying a lot. I must say Eva Marton did have a truly spectacular Db6 or D, I'm not sure, in Die Frau, but she wasn't known for her forays into the 6th octave.


What about Caballe (or would you not class her as having a voice _with the amplitude of a dramatic soprano_?)

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> What about Caballe (or would you not class her as having a voice _with the amplitude of a dramatic soprano_?)
> 
> N.


But Caballé didn't have an upward extension. I can't recall her ever singing anythng higher than a top C, or am I misunderstanding the point?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte:
I certainly agree with you that the sfogato sound is indeed a rare one and maybe should not be placed into a category of fachs but I'm only the messenger and by no means an expert. However, I have read about it on more than one occasion.
Have you never read any articles where the curious ask what category Callas' voice belongs to?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Opera is an inherently stylized art form. Stylization is not realism, true, but it often finds more truth than mere realism. Every great theatrical tradition in the history of humanity, from Athenian tragedy to kabuki, noh, and bunraku, to Elizabethan drama is stylized. Yet the style is meant to evoke deep truths about real life. Just like the conventions of shamisen playing in bunraku are meant to evoke different kinds of weeping without actually sounding anything like actual weeping whatsoever, there are conventions of opera singing that evoke different effects. I like it when singers evoke those effects. I like the conventions. They are not hiding from truth. They are finding truth. If you want to have a realistic sound of a young girl as Butterfly, find a fifteen year old and have them read the lines. Not much truth there.


I don't see how this figures into a discussion of Callas. In fact I know of no singer more resourceful, more intelligent, precise and purposeful, in expressing drama through the conventions of music: rhythm, timing, accent, legato, portamento, dynamic shading, tone color, etc.



> That whole issue is separate from Callas, though.


OK, then it doesn't apply to her.



> My problem with Callas isn't that she actually sounds like a young girl (although she sometimes does shadings and crooning that people take that way, which I don't like)


But then maybe it applies to her after all? (BTW, I love the shadings, and wouldn't call them crooning. The human voice is capable of a wide range of expressive effects, and Callas knew how to exploit her own capabilities.)



> it's that her technique, for all her agility and chest register and other excellent qualities, didn't allow for beauty or consistency, necessary elements of expression for me, in the upper register.


Beauty comes in many forms. We all have our preferences for various vocal qualities and our tolerances for the faults of individual singers. Callas's high notes can be an impediment to full enjoyment for many of us, and for some of us her timbre itself is an impediment to any enjoyment at all. My sister seems to be one of the latter, but I had her watch the Covent Garden Tosca, and she said afterward that she understood what the fuss was about. I'm with Beverly Sills, who saw Callas in her final _Tosca_ at the Met and said, "I heard her when her voice was gone, but after ten minutes you weren't aware of it." I find this sort of transformation happening to me when I put on some of Callas's recordings, and I recall Carlo Maria Giulini alluding to the same phenomenon when he said that when you first begin listening to her the sound may be strange and not very pleasing. It isn't a voice I can luxuriate in the very sound of, but it doesn't take me long to get past an initial uncertainty, as her expressive musicality, her ability to draw out each phrase with precise musical shape and fully realized affect, sinks in. I begin to feel that whether or not her sound is beautiful in some platonic sense, it is above all a real, human sound that channels intensely the emotional understanding of a real human being. Unlike many singers with "beautiful" voices, Callas doesn't seem to be affecting an obviously cultivated "opera voice." Her sound seems a product of nature, and an honest revelation of who she is. Startled out of my platonic opera dreams, I soon find in her voice the beauty of life, which even at its best is not without the shadow of pain.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Beauty comes in many forms. We all have our preferences for various vocal qualities and our tolerances for the faults of individual singers. Callas's high notes can be an impediment to full enjoyment for many of us, and for some of us her timbre itself is an impediment to any enjoyment at all. My sister seems to be one of the latter, but I had her watch the Covent Garden Tosca, and she said afterward that she understood what the fuss was about. I'm with Beverly Sills, who saw Callas in her final _Tosca_ at the Met and said, "I heard her when her voice was gone, but after ten minutes you weren't aware of it." I find this sort of transformation happening to me when I put on some of Callas's recordings, and I recall Carlo Maria Giulini alluding to the same phenomenon when he said that when you first begin listening to her the sound may be strange and not very pleasing. It isn't a voice I can luxuriate in the very sound of, but it doesn't take me long to get past an initial uncertainty, as her expressive musicality, her ability to draw out each phrase with precise musical shape and fully realized affect, sinks in. I begin to feel that whether or not her sound is beautiful in some platonic sense, it is above all a real, human sound that channels intensely the emotional understanding of a real human being. Unlike many singers with "beautiful" voices, Callas doesn't seem to be affecting an obviously cultivated "opera voice." Her sound seems a product of nature, and an honest revelation of who she is. Startled out of my platonic opera dreams, I soon find in her voice the beauty of life, which even at its best is not without the shadow of pain.


That was pure poetry duck, how does one describe describe such abstract subjective terms like "beauty" to be so analytical of technical singing imperfections can obscure the most important feature, what matters to each individual listener is does the vocal performance deeply touch your emotional core like no other......


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> But Caballé didn't have an upward extension. I can't recall her ever singing anythng higher than a top C, or am I misunderstanding the point?


Caballe actually occasionally would sing a D, but she wasn't very comfortable up there. She did not threaten Sutherland's upward extension by any means. There are examples on Youtube.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Beauty comes in many forms. We all have our preferences for various vocal qualities and our tolerances for the faults of individual singers. Callas's high notes can be an impediment to full enjoyment for many of us, and for some of us her timbre itself is an impediment to any enjoyment at all. My sister seems to be one of the latter, but I had her watch the Covent Garden Tosca, and she said afterward that she understood what the fuss was about. I'm with Beverly Sills, who saw Callas in her final _Tosca_ at the Met and said, "I heard her when her voice was gone, but after ten minutes you weren't aware of it." I find this sort of transformation happening to me when I put on some of Callas's recordings, and I recall Carlo Maria Giulini alluding to the same phenomenon when he said that when you first begin listening to her the sound may be strange and not very pleasing. It isn't a voice I can luxuriate in the very sound of, but it doesn't take me long to get past an initial uncertainty, as her expressive musicality, her ability to draw out each phrase with precise musical shape and fully realized affect, sinks in. I begin to feel that whether or not her sound is beautiful in some platonic sense, it is above all a real, human sound that channels intensely the emotional understanding of a real human being. Unlike many singers with "beautiful" voices, Callas doesn't seem to be affecting an obviously cultivated "opera voice." Her sound seems a product of nature, and an honest revelation of who she is. Startled out of my platonic opera dreams, I soon find in her voice the beauty of life, which even at its best is not without the shadow of pain.


Many critics have made the same points. I remember John Steane made a similar comment when reviewing the Puccini recital when it was first issued on CD,



> Manon's "In quelle trine moribide" opens the recital, and she has no sooner sung the first word than, prepared (momentarily) to join the Callas detractors, you say to yourself "What a frail, thin wobbly sound". By the time she has come to the end of the phrase, with a tenderly regretful portamento on "morbide", you are won and for the remainder of the Puccini recital sit back with scarcely the will-power to wipe away a furtive tear or prevent another from taking place.


Here's another review, this time for the reissue of her Lyric & Coloratura recital which was recorded at the same time. After first remarking on the range of her repertoire and of the programme which juxtaposes _verismo_ arias with coloratura showpieces by Rossini, Meyerbeer, Délibes and Verdi, he says.



> What a phenomenon she was. The price? that was another matter. The cost fell mostly on the high notes and there are many of them in this record. They are there all there, including a high E at the end of the Bolero from *I Vespri Siciliani*; but few of them are beautiful and most are afflicted with hardness or unsteadiness. Even in the lyric-dramatic recital this is noticeable: thus the ending of "Io son l'umile ancella" is uncomfortable, and the high notes in "L'altra notte" make a contrast with the beauty and delicacy of the rest. And yet ... and yet. When genius is involved, and it assuredly is, do these (and other) faults matter, now, at this date, when after all this is all that is left to us to enjoy the genius by? What matters now is the marvellous sound of that sad voice starting "Poveri fiori" with such restrained passion, so full of feeling in the achingly beautiful aria from *La Wally*, so imaginative, and inner in the *Mefistofele*.
> All of these are sung in an unforgettable way and it is intensely moving to hear them again in this reissue. The coloratura arias too have their attractions: "Una voce" well characterised and with some light, neat and rather magical runs, and Lakmé's "Bell Song" reflectively done ... But whatever the criticisms, nobody who missed the original should miss the reissue.


John Steane was an eminent and reliable critic, his book _The Grand Tradition_ being an absolute must for anybody interested in the recorded legacy of the voice and singers from a past age. Callas is not surprisingly one of his _Singers of the Century_ (three volumes, I think) and one of the ten singers he singles out for special attention in _Voices, Singers and Critics_ alongside such luminaries as Battistini, Ponselle and Schwarzkopf.

He is my favourite writer on singing and the voice. In fact, before I had read _The Grand Tradition_ I had had no interest in 78s and pre-war singers. He opened my heart and ears and ignited my curiosity, and for that I shall ever be grateful. His standard of musical criticism is indeed rare today.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> But Caballé didn't have an upward extension. I can't recall her ever singing anythng higher than a top C, or am I misunderstanding the point?


No, you're totally on point as usual! Does she not sing the high E flat in her Puritani recording? (It's a long time since I have listened to it.)

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> The Conte:
> I certainly agree with you that the sfogato sound is indeed a rare one and maybe should not be placed into a category of fachs but I'm only the messenger and by no means an expert. However, I have read about it on more than one occasion.
> Have you never read any articles where the curious ask what category Callas' voice belongs to?


I've read a number of articles on Callas' voice and she has been assigned a number of different categories, however she herself clearly stated that she was a soprano and basta! Therefore I refer to her as a soprano because that was how she referred to herself and also she mostly sang soprano repertoire. Depending on people's conception of fach she has been described in a number of ways, sfogato, assoluto, soprano dramatico, soprano dramatico d'agilita and so on. I don't find those terms helpful (and neither did Callas).

In your comment 169 in this thread you mentioned the comparison with Pasta and that she too may have been a sfogato. Interestingly Stendhal in his famous description of Pasta states that he thinks she was best in the middle of her range when singing as a mezzo. I would say the same applies to Callas and that she was a mezzo with an extension (which is how Ardoin describes her in one of his documentaries he made about her). In any case I still refer to her as a soprano for the reasons I state above.

Putting aside labels and categories Callas had an extraordinary vocal range, but was that just how her instrument was naturally or was it down to all the hard work when she was training in Greece? Did she extend too far upwards and wear her voice out by too much singing outside of her natural central range?

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> No, you're totally on point as usual! Does she not sing the high E flat in her Puritani recording? (It's a long time since I have listened to it.)
> 
> N.


No she doesn't and of course the *Lucia* she recorded with Jesus Lopez-Corbos was in the original keys (generally higher) with all the interpolated high notes omitted.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> Putting aside labels and categories Callas had an extraordinary vocal range, but was that just how her instrument was naturally or was it down to all the hard work when she was training in Greece? Did she extend too far upwards and wear her voice out by too much singing outside of her natural central range?
> 
> N.


Maybe a bit of both. Didn't Hidalgo say somewhere that she always worked hard to sing the highest notes so she could sing the repertoire she most liked, _bel canto_.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

All the stuff about stylization is more a defense of a singer like Tebaldi from the charge that she doesn't actually sound like a young girl or whatever. I read that kind of stuff constantly about all kinds of singers: always lighter, lighter, lighter is better, more realistic, etc.. It is one of opera's conventions that young girls are often played by coloraturas, but even one of the lightest voices on record Galli-Curci has scuro and full chest voice. I have nothing against using lighter and darker timbres for expression: that's one of the principal means of expression. Tebaldi does it very well. But I do have a problem with artificial lightening of the voice, which is what many critics want and one reason we have no great singers. I don't want Rinuccio or Tamino to be a wimpy little shrimp like Florian-Vogt. Always chiaroscuro. Always developed. Tebaldi didn't artificially lighten her voice in her prime. She did in the 60s and it nearly ruined her.

Callas, especially in mid-later recordings does sometimes artificially lighten her voice in a way that I don't like, especially for playing a young girl. That's moving away from opera singing and towards faux-realism. What I mean to say is that this isn't a consistent feature of Callas, and it's not my main problem with her singing. It is something she seems to have experimented with in studio recordings, and it's something many critics like about her recordings. This part of my objection to Callas is less, "Callas is awful," and more, "Stop praising the bad parts and praise the good parts!" like fioritura ability, intensity of singing etc..

Beautifully put, Woodduck and if she brings you powerful artistic experiences then all I can say is I'm glad. I want there to be more meaning in the world, always. But she doesn't do it for me, at least not consistently. There are some of her recordings I really do appreciate, as I've said.



> Her sound seems a product of nature, and an honest revelation of who she is.


I wouldn't say I disagree with this, but it might be the reason I say I mostly hear Callas being Callas.



> Startled out of my platonic opera dreams, I soon find in her voice the beauty of life, which even at its best is not without the shadow of pain.


It's precisely the beauty of the way that Tebaldi sings, "Ah, piccina mogliettina olezza di verbena" that hurts me. The beauty of her legato, her tone is exactly what makes me feel the depth of rapture of Butterfly's fantasy of Pinkerton. It's what convinces me that for her he is not only her love, but her idol, her savior. And that's painful because at the same moment as I feel her rapture, I know what's coming for her. The beauty of the sound, as well as the perfect musicality (Callas wasn't the only one able to spin a perfect phrase) is what makes me believe in the dramatic moment, and what makes the end of the opera truly moving and tragic. It's profound because we all feel this way. We all feel denied by the nature of the world we find around us, and that things could be better, we could be better if only....

I agree completely that we don't want escapism, that truth includes a measure of pain. But I don't think singing being beautiful conflicts with that at all. In fact, for me it heightens the pain. To me opera is exactly what Butterfly is going through: the conflict between the overwhelming force of the ideal, usually embodied in love, which is undermined by the nature of the world. Opera is about love threatened and usually destroyed by the dark, destructive forces in humanity and nature itself. And yet that tragic existence is itself beautiful and meaningful. It's the color created in the interplay between darkness and light. When the singer produces a tone of pure beauty, it puts me into a state where I can actually feel the reality of the ideal towards which they are striving. Minnie's "Su, su, su come le stelle" must be rapturous soaring, or I don't feel the truth of her idealism. If I don't, then I don't feel the urgency of the threat to it and the opera falls apart.

Of course, singers shouldn't make _only_ beautiful sounds, as I've said all the way through. But they must be able to make them. For me, anyway. As a matter of dramatic truth and artistic experience, not as a matter of academic analysis or because of standards.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

When I first discovered the glories of opera way back when, I was drawn to the most beautiful voices first. My favorite sopranos and tenors at that time were Peters, Freni, Tebaldi, Sutherland, Sills, Tucker, Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras, Bergonzi, Di Stefano. 

But as time moved on and I became morbidly rabid about the art, I started discovering voices that were not so perfect in their sound but were strangely attracting me and my innards (my barometer) much more. Voices like Callas, Olivero, Rysanek, Vickers, Shicoff, Palmer, Zeani, Corelli, Soviero, Steber, seemed to touch me more because I felt an expressiveness in their sounds that were somehow, to me, lacking in my previous list of favorites (save for diStefano).

This is not to say for one minute that I don't still appreciate my first list of faves because everyone loves to hear beautiful voices even if a certain profundity for me might be missing. 

I also discovered that these singers didn't actually have to be seen to appreciate their depth of feeling, it came through on lp's and cd's, even though, obviously, getting the entire package is always a more complete and satisfying experience.


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## Andante Cantabile (Feb 26, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> If Zeani had had a deeper, richer vocal timbre she would probably have made more recordings and we would talk about her more than we do.


(Based on the recollections of someone who had met Terry McEwen, Decca/London's Artists & Repertoire Director from the 1950s - 1970s, as well as Zeani herself) Terry McEwen was crazy about Zeani (so much so that during one dinner gathering he would go on and on telling people how superb she was) and had very much wanted to sign her up as a major, exclusive Decca/London artist for the Italian operatic repertoire after she recorded two recital discs with the company. Around that time, Zeani had just married bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni (Callas' old friend and regular partner on stage and recordings in the earlier 1950s) and started a family with him. Not wanting to make Rossi-Lemeni feel left out, Zeani made the simultaneous engagement of her husband a necessary condition for signing her up. Decca/London, however, already had Cesare Siepi as their house bass for the Italian repertoire. Moreover, Rossi-Lemeni had been experiencing significant vocal problems (one critic had described his voice, as heard on a number of Callas' studio recordings and the live recording of the prima of _Anna Bolena_ at La Scala in Apr 1957, as 'leaking gas pipe'). In the end, Decca/London did not agree to Zeani's condition and Zeani opted to give up on Decca/London. The reason for Zeani not enjoying a prominent recording career was therefore actually the choice she made herself under particular circumstances.

Zeani is my favourite Violetta (together with De Los Angeles and Cotrubas) after Callas. Having heard live, studio and broadcast recordings of her in the role, to me she is vocally, musically and dramatically very satisfying. Still, Callas' Violetta, especially the 1958 Covent Garden performance, comes down most often from my shelves, for the many moments of unforgettable musical and interpretive illuminations it offers.


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

nina foresti said:


> When I first discovered the glories of opera way back when, I was drawn to the most beautiful voices first. My favorite sopranos and tenors at that time were Peters, Freni, Tebaldi, Sutherland, Sills, Tucker, Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras, Bergonzi, Di Stefano.
> 
> But as time moved on and I became morbidly rabid about the art, I started discovering voices that were not so perfect in their sound but were strangely attracting me and my innards (my barometer) much more. Voices like Callas, Olivero, Rysanek, Vickers, Shicoff, Palmer, Zeani, Corelli, Soviero, Steber, seemed to touch me more because I felt an expressiveness in their sounds that were somehow, to me, lacking in my previous list of favorites (save for diStefano).
> 
> ...


In my case, I had never listened to Callas -- I started listening to Opera on my own around the age of 11. I went through recordings by Tebaldi (who I still adore), Stella, etc. One day, a friend of mine introduced me to Callas - the 1952 Gioconda - and as soon I heard her voice I felt it was more meaningful and vibrant than anything I have ever heard. I still get chills when I hear that first line _Vien, per securo tramite..._.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I went nuts for Callas a few years back and bought a ton of CDs, then burned out and frankly, her voice irritates me now. I did a similar thing for Cecilia Bartoili, and to a lesser degree Joan Sutherland. When will I learn to appreciate an opera with good singers and not try to chase a soprano or mezzo into other operas and aria sets, which seems to dead end for me in most cases. 

I actually dumped most of my Callas at Dearborn Music for a bout 10 cents on the dollar for what I had paid. I kept a few (all the Sonnambula performances, Anna Bolena, and the early recordings on the orange cover, forgot the title). I dumped my Sutherland arias set but do have several operas with her. I have a shoebox full of Bartoli that I have to contemplate what to do with, maybe I should give them another listen during Covid work-at-home, then decide. 

I have not done this for male voices, thankfully, but the Sutherland sets usually have Pavarotti, and I have never been able to get excited about Pavarotti, for whatever reason, though do appreciate his high Cs in La fille du Regiment!


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

SixFootScowl said:


> I went nuts for Callas a few years back and bought a ton of CDs, then burned out and frankly, her voice irritates me now. I did a similar thing for Cecilia Bartoili, and to a lesser degree Joan Sutherland. When will I learn to appreciate an opera with good singers and not try to chase a soprano or mezzo into other operas and aria sets, which seems to dead end for me in most cases.
> 
> I actually dumped most of my Callas at Dearborn Music for a bout 10 cents on the dollar for what I had paid. I kept a few (all the Sonnambula performances, Anna Bolena, and the early recordings on the orange cover, forgot the title). I dumped my Sutherland arias set but do have several operas with her. I have a shoebox full of Bartoli that I have to contemplate what to do with, maybe I should give them another listen during Covid work-at-home, then decide.
> 
> I have not done this for male voices, thankfully, but the Sutherland sets usually have Pavarotti, and I have never been able to get excited about Pavarotti, for whatever reason, though do appreciate his high Cs in La fille du Regiment!


Tant pis. I feel lucky to keep her in my reference list.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

SixFootScowl said:


> I went nuts for Callas a few years back and bought a ton of CDs, then burned out and frankly, her voice irritates me now. I did a similar thing for Cecilia Bartoili, and to a lesser degree Joan Sutherland. When will I learn to appreciate an opera with good singers and not try to chase a soprano or mezzo into other operas and aria sets, which seems to dead end for me in most cases.
> 
> I actually dumped most of my Callas at Dearborn Music for a bout 10 cents on the dollar for what I had paid. I kept a few (all the Sonnambula performances, Anna Bolena, and the early recordings on the orange cover, forgot the title). I dumped my Sutherland arias set but do have several operas with her. I have a shoebox full of Bartoli that I have to contemplate what to do with, maybe I should give them another listen during Covid work-at-home, then decide.
> 
> I have not done this for male voices, thankfully, but the Sutherland sets usually have Pavarotti, and I have never been able to get excited about Pavarotti, for whatever reason, though do appreciate his high Cs in La fille du Regiment!


Well I'll take your dumps and raise you: I dumped *everybody* but Callas and Corelli


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

MAS said:


> Well I'll take your dumps and raise you: I dumped *everybody* but Callas and Corelli




What no Gobbi? (Unless with Callas or Corelli, of course.)

Or are we talking about recital albums and not complete opera sets?

N.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

The Conte said:


> What no Gobbi? (Unless with Callas or Corelli, of course.)
> 
> Or are we talking about recital albums and not complete opera sets?
> 
> N.


There are a few opera sets, Mozart's Da Ponte operas, Rossini Semiramide, Handel's Giulio Cesare, Strauss's Elektra, Wagner's Lohengrin and a few Rings, a few Verdi's Requiem. 
Recitals by Kathleen Battle (2), Christine Brewer, Caballe's "Rarities," Karina Gauvin, Margaret Price's Mozart Arias, Bidu Sayao, Joan Sutherland (2), Kiri Te Kanawa's Mozart Arias, a few "Four Last Songs," recitals by Alagna (3), Cencic (3), Laurence Dale, Grigolo, Jaroussky (3), Kaufmann (4), Moreschi, Villazon (4), Wunderlich. Flagstad Act 1, Act 3 from Die Walküre.


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

MAS said:


> There are a few opera sets, Mozart's Da Ponte operas, Rossini Semiramide, Handel's Giulio Cesare, Strauss's Elektra, Wagner's Lohengrin and a few Rings, a few Verdi's Requiem.
> Recitals by Kathleen Battle (2), Christine Brewer, Caballe's "Rarities," Karina Gauvin, Margaret Price's Mozart Arias, Bidu Sayao, Joan Sutherland (2), Kiri Te Kanawa's Mozart Arias, a few "Four Last Songs," recitals by Alagna (3), Cencic (3), Laurence Dale, Grigolo, Jaroussky (3), Kaufmann (4), Moreschi, Villazon (4), Wunderlich. Flagstad Act 1, Act 3 from Die Walküre.


Where do you have the trash bin? I would not rummage through that refuse...


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