# The Callas Debate (Processo alla Callas)



## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I have been, once again, inspired by my fellow Listers at Opera-L by a post on that list. This was a debate on the _Radiocorriere TV_ newspaper in 1970. As the title implies, it is a discussion on Maria Callas's influence and importance to the world of opera. I thought it interesting enough for inclusion on this forum considering many people younger than I may not have read it, or even known about it.

*The Callas Debate*

Under the title of *Processo alla Callas *(Callas on Trial), the following debate appeared in the Italian weekly radio newspaper Radiocorriere TV, last Autumn (issue dated November 30th, 1970).

Those taking part in the discussion are:

Fedele D'Amico (chairman): musicologist, composer and critic of L'Espresso.

Rodolfo Celletti: author, musicologist, editor of Le Grandi Voci and contributor to the Bulletin of the Instituto di Studi Verdiani.

Eugenio Gara: journalist and critic. Has contributed many articles to Musica d'Oggi, Le grande voci.

Giorgio Gualerzi: critic and musicologist, regular contributor to OPERA, the Verdi Bulletin etc.

Luchino Visconti: producer of opera at La Scala, Covent Garden, etc.

Gianandrea Gavazzeni: conductor and musicologist.

Guerzoni:
I wish first of all to thank the participants to our discussion. We have asked them to discuss a subject which has been debated among the readers of Radiocorriere in our column 'Open letters to the Editor'. The first of these letters referred to the radio series 'The World of Opera'. Our correspondent wondered whether the series might not have been better entitled 'The World of Callas' since, in his opinion, each programme seemed to find a reason for praising this singer at the expense of all others.

The correspondence grew in volume - the letters published are only a small sample - until we were obliged to call a halt. But since the argument had become somewhat heated, we felt the need to provide the opportunity not so much for a further debate as for a statement of views on the part of persons professionally involved in the subject, persons who would therefore be able to give our readers a helpful commentary on the points at issue.

They are: Rodolfo Celletti, Eugenio Gara, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Giorgio Gualerzi and Luchino Visconti. In the chair, Fedele D'Amico.

D'Amico: 
I have read some of these letters to the Radiocorriere TV - those published and a few more. Perhaps to some people they may have given the impression of presumption and prejudice, but I am not of that opinion. Certainly some of the views expressed were extreme, but even these point to a real interest in a subject which deserves it. The feelings generated are evidently authentic
Obviously, some of the letters degenerate into little more than a sporting contest-the usual Callas versus Tebaldi match! What should really matter after all is what an artist is, and not any one artist's victory or defeat in a championship. It would not be a bad thing to realize once and for all that Maria Callas's existence does not prejudice Tebaldi's, or vice-versa.

However, such arguments have always arisen, and simply indicate that the persons in dispute have caused feelings to run deep and passionate. I myself cannot find anything wrong in this, just as I find nothing wrong in the tendency to transform the object of one's admiration into something mythical. Legend is always quick to flower around any artist of great personality; it is one of the ways in which the public acknowledges certain qualities. Any damage this veneration may entail is never lethal.

There is only one point upon which we should be absolutely categorical. Certain people have attributed Callas's ascendancy to organized publicity, implying by this that she is little better than certain film stars whose physical rather than professional qualities have enabled businessmen to transform them into lucrative properties! This is absolutely false. Callas's success, both public and critical, preceded by many years the time when she and her private life became of interest to the tabloids.

Her first major success dates back to 1947: La Gioconda in Verona. In 1947 Callas was totally unknown and enjoyed no unwarranted assistance. There were people in the musical world who had taken her seriously and had pointed her out to those concerned. I believe that Tullio Serafin played a leading part in this process. But Maestro Serafin was neither a businessman nor a press agent. He was simply doing his job as a conductor and, if he came across a singer he thought worth bringing on to the stage, he would recommend her. That was all.

The myth was born several years later, after Callas had been around a long time and had already triumphed in Rome, Naples, at the Scala and so on. For one thing, in the early years, Callas's appearance was far from attractive- hardly that of a 'cover-girl'. The beautiful Callas was born later, and only then did the tabloids sit up and take notice.

I repeat, this is the only point which does not admit of discussion. Callas's success was not engineered. For the rest, we shall try to take into account all the arguments raised in the letters to Radiocorriere TV. Of course we shall consider them from our own points of view. These will not necessarily be better than those of our readers, but they will be different. As Dr Guerzoni has already pointed out, our various points of departure are those of professional contact with the world of opera. We are musical historians, critics, producers, conductors. We are therefore obliged to go further than the immediate impression, legitimate though it may be. We must attempt to analyse, understand and make sense of the phenomenon we have been asked to discuss. And this we shall try to do.

Before we enter upon a technical or artistic discussion, there is one fact which should be noted. Not since the time of Alfred de Musset, Theophile Gautier and Heine has a singer aroused such interest, not only in the musical world but in the whole world of art. Only exceptionally since then has anything comparable been known.

We have observed that certain of Callas's interpretations, such as her Medea, have caused reactions outside the world of music. When she sang this part in Rome, the music critic, Guido Pannain, wrote an unfavourable review. There sprang to her defence two of the most important names in Italian culture: Mario Praz, a literary man and art expert, interested and wellinformed in many subjects but not particularly in music, and Ettore Paratore, the classical philologist. The ensuing debate was heated and protracted. Another instance is the highly elaborate essay by Rene Leibowitz in Les Temps Modernes, the magazine edited by Sartre. Leibowitz is indeed a musician and musicologist, but one who always deals with major subjects; he was the first to write a book on Schoenberg. The mere fact that a review edited by Sartre could have considered printing an entirely serious article on a prima donna is astonishing. Such events seem to prove that Callas is a new phenomenon, and that the myth of her personality whatever degradation it may have suffered is not an empty one: it is founded on something very real.

What is this reality? Our contributors will try to explain it. Not by arguing amongst themselves, but rather by each tackling a different aspect, trying to answer a different question, even if to some extent they discuss these questions among themselves. We shall consider the case of Maria Callas as an historical event, as though it were something that had happened a hundred years ago. We can do this for two reasons: first, because for some years now Callas has not appeared on the stage (although no one can be quite certain that she will not return), and secondly, because her work has had such repercussions on the world of opera that it is already possible to hazard a first judgement.
We shall start, therefore, with the subject that seems, by its nature, to underlie all other subjects: her voice, her vocal technique. I would like Rodolfo Celletti to speak on this since, as everyone knows, he is a great expert in such matters.

Celletti: 
In judging a singer's vocal qualities there are certain fixed parameters. One begins with timbre, proceeding thence to volume. These two qualities are mainly a matter of natural gift. One then passes on to examine technique, or technique allied to the inherent natural gifts: range, control, flexibility, agility. But the natural parameters are timbre and volume.
Now, the timbre of Callas's voice, considered purely as sound, was essentially ugly: it was a thin sound, which gave the impression of dryness, of aridity. It lacked those elements which, in singer's jargon, are described as velvet and varnish. In compensation, her timbre was incisive; I would say this metallic edge in her voice took the place of the varnish. Furthermore, her voice was penetrating.

The volume as such was average: neither small nor powerful. But the penetration, allied to this incisive quality (which could border on the ugly because it frequently contained an element of harshness) ensured that her voice could be clearly heard anywhere in the auditorium.

In certain areas of her range her voice also possessed a guttural quality. This would occur in the most delicate and troublesome areas of a soprano's voice - for instance where the lower and middle registers merge, between G and A. I would go so far as to say that here her voice had such guttural resonances as to make one think at times of a ventriloquist. At least that is the impression it would give me; or else the voice could sound as though it were resonating in a rubber tube. This would especially occur when she was forcing a little. There was another troublesome spot - as with so many sopranos - and that was between the middle and upper registers. Here too, around treble F and G, there was often something in the sound itself which was not quite right, as if the voice were not functioning properly.

I myself tried questioning her teacher, Elvira De Hidalgo, on this point, though to no avail (she was indeed extremely reticent on the subject), but it struck me that right from the start Callas's voice must have been already a bit forced. I mean it had not been subjected from the outset to technically correct training, so that certain negative consequences appeared - among them the troublesome areas of which we have already spoken. And further, right from the beginning of her career, whenever Callas had to sustain a note for any length of time, the voice would begin to develop a slight wobble. This was particularly noticeable in the very high notes. D, E and especially E flat.

At this point I must repeat that Callas's voice was certainly ugly in natural quality; and yet I really believe that part of her appeal was precisely due to this fact. Why? Because, for all its natural lack of varnish, velvet and richness, this voice could acquire such distinctive colours and timbre as to be unforgettable. Once heard it was immediately recognizable anywhere. This is an enormous advantage in terms of a theatrical career. Perhaps the general public does not realise how great is the attraction of a highly characteristic and individual timbre; but it is a fact that the most successful singers are precisely those of whom, as soon as they open their mouths, even a nonspecialist can say: that is Schipa, that is Caruso, that is Titta Ruffo.

As for technique: what does technique imply? Range, flexibility, lightness, agility, and - most important - the singer's capacity to emit, at will, sounds of different colours: now strong, now slender, now dark, now light. This control is the equivalent of a painter's palette. In any form of interpretation this ability is fundamental because it enables the singer to colour both music and words.

In the matter of range, Callas had no fears. Judging by the operas in her repertory, she could go from A natural below the stave to E flat above it.

D'Amico: 
In fact, two and a half octaves.

Gara: 
She could even reach the high F - as in Rossini's Armida, for example.

Celletti:
Exactly, even F. In the middle and lower range one could detect the timbre of a mezzo, that is to say, rather dark tones. Higher up, in the very high notes, she had none of the usual characteristics of the so-called soprano leggero, and this was one of her outstanding innovations. Because for a long time - I don't know for how long, perhaps Gara can say better than I can - we have been used to hearing these top notes, from C up to F . . . In Callas's own time there was a French singer who could reach G, wasn't there, Gualerzi ?

Gualerzi: 
Indeed! Mado Robin could reach G, and perhaps even higher.

Celletti: 
These very high notes hold a great fascination for the public. The general public doesn't know whether it's an E, an F, or a G; but it does realize the note is extremely difficult to reach, that it has broken a sound barrier. Now we were used to hearing these notes produced with a soft attack, and with a very pure, flute-like timbre. Well, of course, when she wanted to, Callas too could produce this quality, but always with far greater power than the traditional soprano leggero - and furthermore with a penetration and timbre that these sopranos never possessed.

With the traditional light soprano these notes were always plaintive and essentially instrumental: they could be taken to be produced by a flute, for example. Callas's very high notes, on the other hand, even though less sweet and inclined to oscillate, had a more human quality. One heard more voice and less instrument. Then she would attack these notes with more vehemence and power - quite differently therefore, from the very delicate, cautious, 'white' approach of the light soprano. In other words Callas attacked these notes with the vigour of a dramatic soprano. The only difference was that when a dramatic soprano reached C, it was just about the most she could do, and even then she would light a candle to her patron saint for having made it! With Tebaldi, for instance, well, she'd start lighting candles for a B natural - and even sometimes for a B flat!

But let's get back to technique. Whenever Callas had to prepare an opera that either was no longer being performed, or was performed in a style very different from that of its time of composition (for twenty years I've heard Norma sung as if it were La Gioconda or Cavalleria Rusticana), she would virtually start to learn to sing all over again, in order to produce a voice that was consonant with that opera.

Thus we have heard her produce the so called 'singing in the mask' : that is when the sound is projected, as far as possible, from the area between the forehead, the cheekbones and the nasal cavities (without however producing a nasal tone); whereas sopranos of the verismo school, used to singing Puccini, Mascagni, Giordano, Leoncavallo, where the music requires more sensual singing, tended to project their voices rather from the lower cavities. This production in the mask, applied to both the middle and upper ranges, has been somewhat like the discovery of America in the world of the soprano. Certainly it is used by good singers even in our times, but not with the rigorous technical perseverance shown by Callas.

What was the outcome of this method? It was that Callas made good those sounds that did not lie easily in her voice; furthermore she achieved a lightness of production that was to be invaluable in passages requiring agility, in mezzo-forte passages and in mezza-voce. But Callas introduced other innovations too. The light sopranos we have been talking about not only limited themselves in the highest register to a very small volume but had another characteristic which was formed more or less at the time of Bellini and Donizetti.

Their roulades and trills were soft and melancholy, always somewhere between mezzo-forte and piano. Callas, once she had mastered the technique - the true technique of singers around the beginning of the 19th century - what did she do ? She restored to the trill the penetrating power of Rossini's time. Rossini did not like his coloratura parts to be sung with tiny, soft voices ; he wanted voices that were full, vigorous, incisive. Maria Callas has shown us what he meant, and Armida was probably the finest example of her ability in this field.

Then she did much the same thing in Norma. Here, there are certain powerful coloratura passages to which Callas was able to bring great expressive significance, although treating them simply as brilliant roulades, precisely because of the vehemence of her attack and the incisiveness of her tone. At the same time, whenever she needed to, she could produce exactly the soft, languid, elegiac agility required in florid mezza-voce passages.

And we must not forget that she could tackle the whole gamut of ornamentation: staccato, trills, half-trills, gruppetti, scales, etc. Where did she yield to the usual type of light soprano ? Well, her florid passages were a little slower. However, since it is thought that in the 19th century tempos were generally slower than nowadays, I do not know whether this slightly slower florid style was an advantage or a disadvantage. Another thing: in these soft passages, Callas seemed to use another voice altogether, because it acquired a great sweetness. Whether in her florid singing or in her canto spianato, that is, in long held notes without ornamentation, her mezza-voce could achieve such moving sweetness that the sound seemed to come from on high . . . I don't know, it seemed to come as if from the skylight of La Scala.

D'Amico: 
I think we can already draw certain conclusions from what Celletti has said. First of all, the essential virtue of Callas's technique consists of supreme mastery of an extraordinarily rich range of-tone colour (that is, the fusion of dynamic range and timbre). And such mastery means total freedom of choice in its use : not being a slave of one's abilities, but rather being able to use them at will as a means to an end.

I think also that in certain aspects Celletti has endorsed the reference that early critics of Callas - Gara and Teodoro Celli, for instance - have made to the technique of the 1830s and 1840s, especially that of singers like Pasta or Malibran. And I'd like to ask a question here. Celletti explained that certain of Callas's qualities were brought about through playing on a voice which by nature was far from perfect. What were Pasta's or Malibran's voices like? Were they imperfect too?

Celletti: 
I would turn this question over to Gara. That's his forte!

D'Amico: 
Let's do that. In any case I want Gara now to take up the second point of our discussion, into which this question should easily fit. The point is this: having established the characteristics and technique of Callas's voice, what use did she make of them? In a word, wherein lay her interpretative qualities?

(continued)


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

*The Callas Debate - Page 2*

Gara: 
Today everyone talks of revolution. But between 1950 and 1960, such was her interpretative genius that Callas brought something that looked very much like revolution to the somewhat academic world of melodrama. We are still feeling the effects of it today. Probably only Chaliapin, at the beginning of the century, caused a similar seismic shock. This kind of vocal and artistic earthquake is not difficult to describe: it consists simply of the total illumination of the character portrayed. To use typographical terms, it has always been the habit of the great majority of singers to alternate between roman and italics - that is, to rely on a certain number of key effects in particular scenes: the big scene, this irresistible aria, that brilliant high note. The reminiscences of past impresarios, such as Monaldi, tell us of tenors singing 'in their slippers' for almost the entire opera, only to pull out all the stops at the supreme moment.

Callas certainly reversed this conception in favour of a totally conceived dramatic interpretation - with all the risks inherent in this approach. In her own words, at the expense of producing a sound less than pure, less than beautiful in the superficial sense of the word: 'I have no intention of adjusting the score for the convenience of my voice'.

As Celletti has noted, much has been said about her voice, and no doubt the discussion will continue. Certainly no one could in honesty deny the harsh or 'squashed' sounds (especially, as has been said, in the G-A region, just above the change of register), nor the wobble on very high notes. These and others were precisely the accusations made at the time against Pasta and Malibran, two geniuses of song (as they were then called), sublime yet vocally imperfect. Both were brought to trial in their day, as authoritative witnesses tell us; Verdi's own crude and at the same time enthusiastic pronouncements on Malibran testify to this. Yet few singers have made history in the annals of opera as these two did.

Let us be quite clear about it, a voice - I mean the quality, the physical beauty of the sound - is certainly important. Yet it is difficult to forget what Wagner wrote to Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient, the great Leonore of Fidelio, who enchanted Goethe in his old age. Wagner wrote: 'Because we have celebrated you as a singer, I have often been asked whether your voice was really exceptional - the question implying that this was the essential point. I have always been irritated by having to answer. If I were to be asked the question today I would give roughly this reply: no, she had no voice; but she knew so well how to handle her breathing and thereby to create, with so marvellous a musicianship, the true soul of a woman, that one thought no longer of singing nor of voice'. So Wagner wrote of Schroeder-Devrient, and so with a little updating to fit the times, we could write of Callas, who clearly belongs to the same family and has trod the same ideal paths.

In certain of her interpretations, as in Medea and Macbeth, the sinister and immeasurably human power of her declamation remains an unrivalled and perhaps unattainable model of acting in music. At her best, Callas was never simply great here and there, at one or other point in an opera, in act one, or three, or five. Her greatness lay always in the musical and dramatic manner in which she made her roles come to life.

A Callas interpretation has to be accepted or rejected; it can please or displease, but never in parts; it is a whole. And this explains the arguments, the love and the hatred that she has aroused. A whole turmoil which has at any rate, if nothing else, stirred the stagnant waters of the lyric theatre. It is only in the total picture of the role, in the grand tragic breadth of the character, that the vocal blemishes disappear which her enemies never tire of enumerating.

Her secret is in her ability to transfer to the musical plane the suffering of the character she plays, the nostalgic longing for lost happiness, the anxious fluctation between hope and despair, between pride and supplication, between irony and generosity, which in the end dissolves into a superhuman inner pain. The most diverse and opposite of sentiments, cruel deceptions, ambitious desires, burning tenderness, grievous sacrifices, all the torments of the heart, acquire, in her singing, that mysterious truth, I would like to say, that psychological sonority, which is the primary attraction of opera. It is the the point at which research ends and poetry takes wing.

D'Amico: 
To be specific, therefore, Callas's 'faults' were in the voice and not in the singer; they are so to speak, faults of departure but not of arrival. This, if I am not mistaken, is precisely Celletti's distinction between the natural quality of the voice and the technique. And we may also apply the same conclusions to Gara's mention of Schroeder-Devrient. In that letter referred to by Gara, Wagner did not certainly mean to imply that SchroederDevrient was voiceless, nor that she was capable only of singing his music. The triumphal period of her career was in fact pre-Wagnerian, and comprised mainly the operas of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. It is clear that Schroeder-Devrient truly 'sang' these operas; she acted them with her voice.

Celletti: 
She was always criticized, specially for the higher register. But even so, she had a great success.

D'Amico: 
Exactly. And talking of 'faults', let us not forget that these - that is, the limitations of the vocal mechanism - have always constituted throughout musical history a powerful stimulus toward invention. We have only to think of instrumental music - music which has not only created for itself a specific style that cannot be reduced to that of vocal music, but has also at a certain point in its development founded in theory the idea of music as an autonomous art: that is, without reference to words or dramatic action.

Now instrumental music would never have been born at all if the instruments had been capable of perfectly imitating the human voice, as was their original aspiration. Precisely because of their imperfection, causing them to imitate 'singing' by inappropriate means, the notion of stylization became necessary, thus bringing about an altogether new style. Think of the harpsichord, and even the piano, instruments incapable of sustaining a note at the same dynamic level as that of its attack: this alone forced composers to invent a whole series of expedients, a different kind of phrasing, in short a number of styles which have literally nothing in common with vocal styles.

Mutatis mutandis, Maria Callas has done precisely the same thing. If she had been born with an immaculate, velvety, perfect voice, Callas would have simply wallowed in it, as Antonio Baldini (author of The Italians) would have said, as if in a bathtub. No doubt she would have succeeded as a singer, perhaps even been quite spectacular, but only as many (or perhaps few) others have been. She was in fact forced to become what she is precisely because of those natural imperfections of her 'instrument'. Her achievement has thus a considerable critical and cultural significance. This does not mean that in achieving these results she was aware of all the implications, or that she had digested historical or aesthetic tracts to guide her. Artists are capable of reaching certain goals simply by instinct.

Celletti: 
What you have just said about voices that are born beautiful or that sink back into their own bathtubs is so true that there was a theory about them as far back as the 17th century. One of the first French theoreticians of singing, Benigne de Bacilly, divided voices into two categories: the beautiful ones and the good ones.

The good voices are those which, without any special natural gifts, are nevertheless capable, thanks to technique, of expressing all that a performance requires. On the other hand the naturally beautiful voices, content to wallow in their own beauty, rarely produce anything of significance and are often boring.

There is something else I wanted to say - also to clarify better my own point of view in relation to something D'Amico has just said - and it is this. Even if, when passing from one register to another, Callas produced an unpleasant sound, the technique she used for these transitions was perfect.

Finally, as Gara has said, Callas would totally involve herself in the character of the part she was playing, both dramatically and vocally. From the point of view of voice, she could allow herself to do this by virtue of her technique. Her ability to manoeuvre her mezza voce was such that she could achieve dramatic effects even within a limited volume. In this way dramatic continuity was maintained while her vocal energy was spared. If she had tried to sing Norma forte from beginning to end, Callas would probably never have reached the end of the opera.

Gara:
I would also just like to say that I agree totally with D'Amico when he says that Callas never read all that stuff that we would like to imagine she did. This did not prevent me, for example, from writing, on the occasion of her Medea (that very frightening Medea) that perhaps without Freud and without Kafka that particular Medea would not have materialized . . .

D'Amico: 
Some things are just in the air.

Gara: 
Certainly, they're in the air, they are of the time. Indeed Callas is entirely of her time. This to me is most important. I believe that the hankering after departed singers - past, or just old, as the case may be - is utterly stupid. All we ever seem to do is to look back all the time. Now when we do this - we ourselves, personally, in our own life span - we are looking back to our youth and that is all. But interpretation in art must always be in tune with its own time. There are elements in the air which determine these revelatory interpretations: interpretations that reveal something true for that particular time.

D'Amico:
Without a doubt. And I would like to note here that Callas achieved this result, not only, as is generally allowed, in the operas of the early 19th century, but also in much more modern works. For example, in Tosca. I heard her sing Tosca in Paris, in one of her last appearances, produced by Zeffirelli, and I don't know whether she always performed it in that way.

At all events, the generally accepted truculent interpretation was nowhere to be found. Callas made Tosca an essentially fragile woman: nervous, restless, perhaps a trifle hysterical. And this led perfectly to the murder of Scarpia: it was the typical violent gesture of a weak personality, in escaping forwards. She established the character from her very first bars in the opera, from the off-stage 'Mario, Mario !'. The stage direction says: `Tosca enters with a certain violence'; but the music of the orchestra is sensually calm and lyrical, so that the 'violence' must be resolved apart from movement-in brief declamatory passages which Callas produced with a quality of controlled, disguised anxiety, as if with a pallor in the voice. It was one of the most unforgettable experiences I have ever had in a theatre. `Vissi d'arte', a noted platform for so many trumpetings, was significantly muted and interwoven with a thousand subtleties of shading. Perhaps, because her voice was no longer at its freshest, Callas was making a virtue out of necessity. But what virtue!

Puccini wanted to cut this famous aria because, he said, it held up the action, He couldn't do it because any soprano leaving it out would have been lynched. Well, I believe that if only he had heard it, in Paris, sung with that modest voice which, while maintaining a pure melodic line, formulated a true dramatic argument, Puccini himself would have become reconciled to his aria. Similarly we have heard many other operas become reconciled with themselves when sung by Callas.

Let's go back to the point that Gara made: Callas creates real people. And here I would like to expand on what Celletti only briefly mentioned. She creates them not only through her singing, but through the complete fusion of singing and acting. The comparison that Gara made with Chaliapin is most apposite, because here too the singer was identified with the actor and vice versa. Above all I would say that Callas belongs to that rare species of actors - rare even in the straight theatre - who manage to appear physically different according to the character they are playing.

Mostly, with others, it is only the expression that changes. But there are some who contrive to make you believe that they are tall or short, as the case may be. The actor Petrolini was one; Callas is another. I remember when this thought first occured to me; it was when I had the occasion to see her, within a short space of time, in three different operas. In the 1954-55 season at the Scala, when Visconti did his first opera productions, Callas appeared in all three of them. Her Giulia in La Vestale, her Amina in La Sonnambula, and her Violetta were three completely different people, in every sense of the word, right from their first entry. I am sure that on this point of the fusion of vocal and dramatic interpretation both Visconti and Gavazzeni, who have worked many times with her, will be able to tell us much. How was the aim achieved ? It is our point number three: how did Callas work, and how did one work with Callas ?

*The Callas Debate-Part 2*

Part I of the Callas Debate ended with the chairman, Corrado Guerzoni, asking 'How did Callas work, and how did one work with Callas?'

Visconti: 
I could choose several examples of how Callas worked; but the first one that springs to mind is Anna Bolena, which Gavazzeni and I mounted together. Callas was working on the musical side of the part, under the assistant musical director Antonio Tonini, who was in charge of the singers, and of Gavazzeni himself. It was an intensive, and daily, occupation. I was always there; I didn't miss a single second of it. Not only because the work in itself was fascinating, but also because I was able at the same time to clarify my ideas about the visual characterization of the part. In opera, you see, the stage characterization is the natural outcome of the musical one. First they worked in a rehearsal room, and then, gradually, on the stage for 20 days, if I'm not mistaken.

When my scenic rehearsals began, Gavazzeni in his turn attended the whole time, and each time we would discuss details afterwards. In this way we reached our goal. And I don't think Callas has ever taken on a role without a similar amount of work and care. It may seem obvious with an opera like Anna Bolena: it was entirely new to her (as well as to the public). But take La Traviata, for instance. When she did it as La Scala, it was just the same. I don't know how many times she had sung the part before, but when she came to do it at La Scala, under Giulini, the whole of the musical preparation started all over again, as if it was something new. She would work every morning, for at least a couple of hours, and then continue in the rehearsal room in the afternoon, and so on.

Gavazzeni: 
Visconti has mentioned Anna Bolena. Whenever I hear talk of the relation between production and musical direction, I always think of this particular instance. It was without a doubt the high spot of the whole of my career in the theatre: a complete realization of what I have always felt should be the ideal collaboration between stage and music, between producer and conductor. And into this ideal the personality of Callas fits exactly. What Visconti has said is true: he came to all our rehearsals, to familiarize himself with the musical interpretation; I went to all his stage rehearsals, which were of enormous importance to me at every point. They brought confirmation, or alteration as the case might be, to my musical design; indeed, to the whole development through which any design must go when preparing an opera.

I'm glad Visconti also mentioned Tonini. The work of an assistant conductor at the birth of an opera production is almost unknown to the public and generally ignored by the critics, but it can be of cardinal importance, both in a positive and in a negative sense. In our case it was most decidedly positive, and should not be overlooked. The technical preparation which went on between Tonini and Callas was intense, and I only entered into it at a later stage.

D'Amico:
Collaboration between musical director and producer is something no one nowadays would argue with, or at least it would be very difficult to do so. But this collaboration can be viewed in a different light and measure. The extreme view is that the actor or singer is no more than a puppet to be mechanically manipulated by the conductor and the producer. But actors and singers are human beings, and he who directs them must not only take their individual qualities and characteristics into consideration, but may even have to find ways - within well defined lines - of unleashing those qualities. But to what extent? Obviously this is not the place to pose this question in general: we are here to discuss a specific case. I should like to ask Visconti: what degree of freedom did Callas have in your productions?

(continued)


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

*The Callas Debate - Page 3*

Visconti: 
A circumscribed freedom. A freedom to operate within a general framework, but nevertheless a considerable freedom. I don't believe anyone can 'manoeuvre' someone like Callas without allowing her particular engine a greater number of revolutions than could be foreseen at rehearsals. I've always given her certain guide-lines within which to work, certain objectives; but within those lines I've always allowed her to do what she wanted. A simple example is La Traviata, Act 1, the moment when Violetta hears Alfredo's voice. I would tell her: run downstage to the window - but how you run is up to you. And she would find her own way of doing it. Not only that, but once found, she would always execute the action in exactly the same way. Callas, you see, is one of those artists who, having once worked out and perfected a detail, don't keep changing it; they have no need to search for something different every time.

Another example is the opening of Gluck's lphigenie en Tauride. Callas would enter, walk up a very high staircase, suspended almost in mid-air; then she'd come tearing down again, during the famous storm, get to the footlights and begin to sing. All I had told her was to go up to the top of the steps, stand there in the wind, and come down again to the downstage position in time for the first note. That's all. I gave her no timings. But Maria has timing in her blood; it is absolutely instinctive. And you know how short-sighted she is! In the dark, those steps were marked only with white lines, but that was enough for her: she didn't need anything else! Standing there in the wings I'd die a thousand deaths seeing her run like that, trailing 25 yards of cloak, with a wind-machine on her, back, up the staircase and down again, with split second timing, and with enough breath left to start fortissimo dead on cue. You can only allow such things when you've got someone you know you can absolutely trust, because you know her sense of timing, her musical instinct and her ability as a dramatic and tragic actress. I'm certainly not saying you should use this method with every artist; but we are talking of Callas, and I would defy anyone to direct her differently. There are some directors, especially German ones - and great ones too - who I believe would have some difficulty in keeping control over a Callas.

Gavazzeni: 
Visconti has said that once Callas perfected a detail she would always reproduce it exactly, and he also mentioned her instinct. I should like to recall one of those many occasions on which she would use this instinct, when need be, to improvise. It was actually at the first night of Anna Bolena that a potentially disastrous incident occurred, which only her theatrical talent was able to overcome.

Having reached the end of the final aria, Anna Bolena was to have been encircled - according to Visconti's instructions - by a silent chorus of hooded extras who were to engulf her, so to speak, in their circle and conduct her to her death. It was a most beautiful effect, which at rehearsal had made a great impression. And it wasn't an effect for its own sake: it was a true conclusion to the inner drama of the character. Well, because of an oversight on the part of one of the assistant stage managers, the chorus of extras did not appear, and Callas found herself unexpectedly alone. Yet she didn't panic. On the spot she improvised a series of movements, perfectly in harmony with the personality of the character she had evolved up till then; she then turned and disappeared upstage. No one in the audience had the least suspicion that there was anything amiss - and remember, this was the finale of the opera!

D'Amico: 
So: Callas obeys, but also invents; she performs exactly as rehearsed, but also improvises. All this at the level, let us say, of great art. But before concluding this particular chapter, I would like to ask Visconti and Gavazzeni a more ordinary question - a backstage type of question. The public generally imagines a prima donna, especially a great one, to be arrogant, selfish, uninterested in anything not directly concerned with her own personal success, while at the same time intent on sparing herself to the utmost, never giving anything; and would more than ever expect such an attitude from Callas, the most prima donna of prima donnas for decades.

Visconti: 
It's difficult to imagine anything further from the truth. I have worked for years with actors, in the theatre and the cinema; with dancers and with singers. I can only say that Maria is possibly the most disciplined and professional material I have ever had occasion to handle. Not only does she never ask for rehearsals to be cut down; she actually asks for more and works at them with the same intensity from beginning to end, giving everything she's got, singing always at full voice - even when the producer himself suggests she shouldn't tire herself out and need only indicate the vocal line. She's so involved in the total outcome of a production that she gets irritated when a colleague is late. If being a prima donna means anything different from that, then Callas is no prima donna.

Gavazzeni: 
Even with the preliminary rehearsals, which don't have so rigorous a timetable as the general ones, she was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. I remember this particularly when we did II Turco in Italia, in Rome in 1950. We were all new to the opera. How often, when rehearsals were over and everyone else was going home, she would ask me to stay on and work a bit longer. I wouldn't like to say that Callas is alone in this. Over the last 30 years we've seen many operatic singers who have shown great professional discipline, and who have ignored the 'big star' attitude so favoured in the past. Callas certainly is one such artist. The society figure, the side of her that interests the magazines, has nothing to do with the person we have known at work, but unfortunately too many people believe the two to be one and the same.

D'Amico: 
I have never myself been a producer, a conductor, or even an assistant, but I too can testify to this. In May or June of 1962 they were going to resume performances at the Scala of Medea, which had been interrupted the previous December when Callas had to have an operation. I happened to be in Milan when they were rehearsing: the only rehearsal, I think it was, just to refresh their memory. I slipped into the theatre to have a look. It was one o'clock in the afternoon, and a sirocco was blowing in the streets as though it were Rome. Inside the theatre no one - singers, chorus, orchestra - felt like working. Even Schippers, usually so excited and worked up, was half asleep.

But Maria was there. She was wearing a cardigan and the simplest skirt in the world, but it was enough for her to open her mouth for me to see the legendary crimson mane and the diabolical witch's train take shape before my eyes. And that's not all. She would give her colleagues their cues, urge the chorus on, stop the orchestra with a: Please, maestro, once again!' Not for nothing have we already drawn a parallel with Chaliapin. I'm told he used to do just the same whenever necessary. And so we come to point number four. What have been the consequences of Callas's advent on the world of opera? Gualerzi.

Gualerzi:
I take my cue from the point that Gara made when he said that Callas created real characters; Visconti and Gavazzeni have explained how she did this; Celletti has made the distinction between beautiful and good voices. All this is very important because those of the public and critics who have identified the creation of a character with the vocal quality suited to that character have found the key to the entire Callas myth.

Especially if we draw a comparison with Tebaldi; and if I refer to this contrived dualism it is because it can serve to bring a very important factor into focus when assessing the reactions of operatic audiences. This factor has to do with the interest in, the attraction to, the irresistible fascination of the sensuous element in the voice, as emphasised by the persistent Tebaldi-Callas comparison. But the most valid proof of the Callas myth, projected into the future, lies in my opinion in the hypothetical, if paradoxical, reference to the past (and this is apart from any historical considerations of repertory). We are led to conclude that while Callas, with her personality, would at all times have been Callas, Tebaldi could easily have been some other singer blessed with an equally beautiful voice.

I must add, however - and I underline this as a positive fact - that I have the impression that we are moving towards a definite improvement in this respect. There would appear to be a growing awareness - and this has clearly emerged from the majority of the letters published in Radiocorriere TV - that Callas really is an historical figure. In other words, just as 40 years ago between Gigli and Pertile the great majority of the public was for the sensuous element as represented by the wonderful voice of Gigli, while today Pertile is more in favour, so equally I believe that a similar situation is arising with Callas, who stands to Tebaldi as Pertile does to Gigli.

Celletti: 
Sorry to interrupt, Gualerzi, but you said that 30 or 40 years ago Callas would always have been Callas, while any other beautiful voice could have taken the place of Tebaldi. I would say exactly the opposite: that 30 years ago Tebaldi would always have been Tebaldi, a sort of Muzio . . .

Gualerzi: T
here, I didn't mention Muzio . . .

Celletti: 
. . . not so musical. But Callas would not have been Callas at all. She would probably have been a singer of secondary roles, because in my view, there was not then the necessary climate for reviving those operas which revealed her greatness.

Gualerzi: 
Yes, yes, I understand, but I . . .

Celletti: 
Just a moment. Let's remember that after all Lady Macbeth, Armida, Medea, Norma, the pillars that sustain the temple of Callas, were nowhere to be seen 40 years ago, or were not understood by the public. You know very well that at the beginning of the century Medea was occasionally sung by Mazzoleni, who had a peach of a voice. Well, yes, they clapped her, but that was about it. There were not the cultural and historical demands which have enabled us today to say: at last I've heard Cherubini's Medea as I've always imagined it should be.

Gualerzi: 
Certainly; I'm afraid you misunderstood me. I only wanted to say that, had such a climate existed 40 years ago (had what Gara has described been 'in the air'), a personality such as that of Callas would have imposed itself regardless, while Tebaldi could easily have been replaced by an equally beautiful voice. So I agree with you. I agree with the importance of the second component of the myth: that is the revival by Callas of a certain kind of repertory, thanks to which there has arisen a whole nucleus of singers and interpreters clearly inspired by her example. In this respect, Callas is in the tradition of other great operatic personalities like Caruso, Titta Ruffo, Chaliapin, all of whom in their time created a race of followers.

But whereas Caruso and Titta Ruffo (Chaliapin is really a case apart) limited themselves to creating new vocal followers and not necessarily with positive results - in fact frequently with negative ones - Callas has gone further. She can be said to have created great singers and notable interpreters, though always within that particular repertory which has thus in due course become more appreciated. We know well who those singers are: from Gencer right up to Scotto (in certain phrases, certain moments of Lucia) and to Suliotis (certain utterances in the lower register). Finally there is Cabana, where the 'Callas factor' is to be found above all in the implications of a particular repertory, still further enlarged from that of Callas herself.

And when Giuseppe Pugliese states that it is to Callas that we owe 'the acceptance, thanks to intelligence, sensibility, an exceptional art and technique, of an ugly voice, of ugly sounds', even in this partially negative key we come to appreciate Callas.

I do not think it is in any sense derogatory to our singer to maintain that technically someone could be her superior. In the same way, if 80 years ago the advent of Bellincioni caused a revolution in the world of opera, and if then certain singers - undoubtedly superior vocally and technically - like Pandolflni, Canetti, Storchio and Farneti, followed in her footsteps, this does not alter the fact that it is Bellincioni who was the fountainhead in the history of vocal interpretation. Similarly with Callas today. But when it comes to determining her precise influence on the evolution of opera, there is a further important fact to be considered: the progressive disappearance, caused by her arrival on the scene, of the soprano leggero. It is no coincidence that operas like Rigoletto, Sonnambula, Puritani, are sung nowadays by light lyric sopranos, to such an extent that today, in Italy, the real soprano leggero has virtually disappeared.

Gara: T
his last point, a very true one, is further proof of the current return to the past, to the time when the soprano leggero had
not yet emerged beside and in competition with the dramatic soprano. Yet another indication of the historical importance of Callas.

D'Amico:
I would add that the return to the past, to this particular period, has brought about a very important discovery: the true significance of the coloratura. For the pure soprano leggero vocal embellishments are simply a matter of technical virtuosity; and the public, steeped in Wagnerian, romantic and even pre-romantic ideas, consider them to be just that. But in the 18th century, as later in Rossini, coloratura passages could well mean ecstasy, lyrical rapture, fury; in other words, they were vehicles for dramatic expression.

Even an operatic reformer like Algarotti defended them as such; as Gara put it, the soprano leggero was born later. So one of Callas's 'historical' merits has been in knowing how to use her incisive voice (as Celletti has described it), a voice capable of an agility quite different from that of the soprano leggero, so that she was able to bring to these passages an expressive meaning, drawing a real phrasing from their inner essence. I had indeed read the music and the musical literature of the period, and I had certainly studied Rossini's serious operas; but it was not until I heard Callas in Rossini's Armida in Florence in 1952 that I really understood the true coloratura style of the golden age.

Gavazzeni: 
That is a very true observation, and I can confirm it with a personal experience of my own. Fifteen years ago in Rome, when I conducted Lucia with Callas, I noticed during rehearsals certain unexpectedly expressive qualities in her coloratura passages. I even tried to capture these in the orchestral echoes of the same phrases. Callas's intuition in this was an invaluable stimulus to me also for the future: certainly from then on, my interpretation of Lucia was not the same as before. And if it was so for me, it was so for others also. Sometimes the understanding between conductor and singer can bring about results of this kind, as long as the conductor is not one of those who have the truth in their pocket and have already made up their minds about everything before they begin.

(Continued)


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

*The Callas Debate - Page 4*

Gualerzi: 
To sum up: there is today recognition of the 'Callas event': not as a matter of unanimous approval, because there is still considerable opposition, but as material for discussion on the part of all those engaged in opera and also those only marginally involved in the subject as a social phenomenon. There is then the matter of followers, which is so important in the creation of an operatic myth. There is also the highly personal, unmistakably individual voice, as Celletti has so rightly described it. Add to this the outward projection of those artistic elements and you have, together with those sociological elements which transcend the immediate circle of the lyric theatre, all the necessary components for the making of the Callas myth.

Gara: 
Just so. But allow me a postscript on the subject of Pertile. Andrea Della Corte, the eminent critic who died about a year ago, once asked Serafin for his opinion of Pertile's 'ugly voice', that ugly voice which even Toscanini preferred to all others and which was later to conquer half the world. Serafin replied: 'I haven't really had occasion to notice. I never actually noticed that Pertile even had a voice. I don't know why, but evening after evening I have only heard the voices of Faust and Lohengrin, of Des Grieux and Edgardo, and so on. I've heard as many voices as there are parts in his repertory'. We could well say the same of Callas. What she did with Sonnambula was not the same as what she did with Anna Bolena. It was something quite different, another voice. The heavenly, tender tones of her Sonnambula, or her Lucia, for instance, were not to be found in her Anna Bolena.

Celletti: 
A postscript from me too. Gualerzi said the soprano leggero is disappearing. I quite agree. It is the direct result of Callas performing certain coloratura parts with a robust voice. But I should like the dramatic soprano to go too. By dramatic soprano I mean the type (and perhaps with any luck she is really on the way out!) that has so afflicted our ears in the operas of Verdi and in some of Puccini's too: the blown-out middle registers, the coarse lower ones, the top notes always at full blast, the vulgar declamation. And notice the misunderstandings that arise. Montserrat Caballe is for me the singer closest to the type that should replace the traditional dramatic soprano. When I hear it said that Caballe lacks dramatic bite, I can agree, but only up to a point.

I feel we are too used to a type of dramatic soprano that is a mixture of Gioconda, Santuzza and Aida; and I just don't believe that this is the true Verdian style. And to come back to Callas. I have heard her also in operas for which she won't particularly go down in history - operas like Fedora and Andrea Chenier. But even in these, and in Il Trovatore (which she used to sing very well, even if it wasn't one of her landmarks), Callas brought great refinement of style, waging a constant battle against bad taste at all levels - the vulgar middle notes, the top notes blasted off indiscriminately just as they come - like village hurrahs. In short, I would say that, just as Callas has initiated the disappearance of the soprano leggero, so has she rung the first death knell of the traditional dramatic soprano.

D'Amico: 
I should like to add a postscript on the matter of sensuousness. I have a lot of sympathy for what is known as sensuality and should often be called simply lyricism. Wagner, the 19th century and many illustrious spirits of that century considered 18th century opera seria, and also bel canto, purely sensuous. In truth, they were not: they were, the opera seria, the music, bel canto, an exaltation of lyrical values. The dramatic concepts were entrusted to the text, the lyrical elements to the music. Hence my veneration for Beniamino Gigli: and one of the few points on which I disagree with my friend Celletti. I greatly admired Gigli, always - or nearly always; and in purely lyrical passages I found him incomparable, unique, irreplaceable. So, the equation Pertile-Gigli, Callas-Tebaldi leaves me perplexed, indeed hostile.

But perhaps this observation is only of marginal importance. What follows, however, despite appearances, definitely is not. A few days ago, at a conference organized in Rome by the German Historical Institute on Verdi and Wagner, reference was inevitably made to the recent Karajan Ring cycle in Salzburg. As we all know, this was based on the elimination of all vocal violence and strain, on a much more intimate vocal style than long tradition has hitherto dictated, and therefore one richer in detail and shading. It was Celletti himself who spoke of this, and of course he made a point of drawing the analogy with tendencies increasingly evident in the practice of singers of the front rank.

Could we say that Karajan went to Callas's school? Personally, I don't think it's necessary to take such a drastic view. As we have already said, certain things are in the air. As for Wagner, it will be observed that, while Karajan was opening in Salzburg with Die Walkiire, Leibowitz was writing an essay, to be published later in the Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana, in which he advocated much the same ideas. A not too dissimilar style (imposed by the production rather than the musical direction), admittedly with singers not of Salzburg or Bayreuth standards, was to inspire the 1968 Tristan at Spoleto, mounted by Giancarlo Menotti.

True, Callas came long before all this; she embodied certain needs of the age, perhaps before anyone else. Without question she was neither the first nor the only singer in the history of opera to demand, as her first aim, the creation of a character rather than a sequence of big moments. But she was certainly unique in her way of creating characters, and this because of a technique and an interpretative attitude that have truly revolutionized the operatic scene. She resolutely avoided the only existing alternatives - abstract virtuosity or the vulgar histrionics offered by the Gioconda-Santuzza-Aida cocktail by means of which, as Celletti says, a Verdi style was supposedly arrived at; she re-discovered a Bellini and Donizetti far more worthy of attention than anything then in circulation - not to mention Medea. All this and more have caused immeasurable repercussions.

The enumeration of her followers is of little importance; so are comparisons between the level of some of her interpretations and those of other singers who have followed her; some of these may well be better than her, but without her would never have become what they are. What really matters above all else and can, I think, conclude our dialogue, are two things that her advent has brought about. First and foremost, the repertory. A whole range of operas, considered up till now to be dead or unperformable, has been rehabilitated by her example; and I mean a whole range of operas, not just those particular ones that she herself has sung. In the second place, she has renewed our way of listening to opera: that is to say, our demands and the means of satisfying those demands, i.e. the performers. This is, in our opinion, the historical Callas; others may, if they so wish, prefer their own mythical image.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Totally fascinating. (I read it next door) and very educational.
Every opera lover should read this. Thanks for bringing it over here MAS.:tiphat:


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

You’re very welcome, Nina Foresti; it’s one of my favorite articles.


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## Andante Cantabile (Feb 26, 2020)

The entire debate (English translation) had been published in the Sep and Oct 1970 issues of OPERA magazine. The Sep 1970 issue carries a photo of Callas' 1958 Covent Garden Violetta on the cover:


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I think it was also in The New Yorker magazine, if I remember correctly (The Talk Of The Town). 
It's interesting that Opera makes it sound like The Callas Debate covers the Walküre Discography!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Augastine said:


> The entire debate (English translation) had been published in the Sep and Oct 1970 issues of OPERA magazine. The Sep 1970 issue carries a photo of Callas' 1958 Covent Garden Violetta on the cover:


I have this edition of Opera Magazine, and have read the article quite a few times.

Here we are fifty years later and we are still having the same discussions and debate about Callas's art. Of which other opera singer can you say that?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I think this debate is also in the book, "Callas as they saw her". I read it many years ago and have just bought a secondhand copy of the book.

N.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

The Conte said:


> I think this debate is also in the book, "Callas as they saw her". I read it many years ago and have just bought a secondhand copy of the book.
> 
> N.


YES! I'd forgotten about that!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wonderful dialogue. Really evocative of the singer's voice and art. Thanks, MAS.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Wonderful dialogue. Really evocative of the singer's voice and art. Thanks, MAS.


My pleasure, Woodduck!


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I keep reading this as PROSECCO alla Callas! (Perhaps the universe is telling me I should become a mixologist!)

N.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

The Conte said:


> I keep reading this as PROSECCO alla Callas! (Perhaps the universe is telling me I should become a mixologist!)
> 
> N.


Perhaps you need a drink! :lol:


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

There's a lot of good stuff in here, and it's interesting to hear from people who heard Callas live.

I have a few issues with their presentation, however. First, I don't think they've justified the neat distinction they've made between "beautiful tone" and "expression". A lot of people seem to assume this distinction, but as I've said many times, I think it's highly debatable and more complex than just saying, There's beauty of tone on the one hand, and expression on the other. Beauty and ugliness are (or should be) expressive features just as much as chiaro and scuro are. For example, in the legendary Flagstad/Melchior/Reiner _Tristan_ the way that Flagstad sings "er sah mir in die Augen" is of unearthly beauty, such that it causes an involuntary physiological response. It's so beautiful, it gives me chills. Now, I imagine that's somewhat like what Isolde felt at that moment, and the expression of that meaning is transmitted by the sheer beauty of the sound. I've heard other versions of that moment that are perfectly respectable as musical utterances, but much less moving because the sound itself was lacking. Throw a wobble in there on the high note, and the effect is totally ruined.

There is an unfortunate trait that some (certainly not all) partisans of Callas have, which is that they rightfully play up her good qualities to defend her, but also go further to essentially say that she is the _only_ one who made actual drama out of opera singing (or at least was the pioneer, though in this case they do cite Chaliapin as a forerunner). I find this highly distasteful. Bel Canto singing like Battistini and Kurz isn't just showing off with pretty, well-trained voices. They are creating stylized utterances like in classical theatrical traditions. Like anything else, it can be done well or badly, but it's not less expressive or unthinking, it's a different mode of expression, one we are less and less used to. Flagstad's "er sah mir in die Augen" is a profound expression of character, and you can hear in every line the way that she approaches the music so that you can hear _Wagner's_ expression coming through. That specific recording is one of the best representations of Wagner's art because his vocal lines are clearly rendered as expressive utterances, albeit highly stylized ones, whereas in more modern performances they mostly just sound like shrill nonsense.

Beauty is not just niceness or pleasure. Real beauty contains ugliness, darkness, and evil or else it turns into mere pleasurable stimulation and is no longer beauty. This is why overly bright voices with no core or dark roundness from falsetto coordination are "merely pretty". A voice like Ponselle's or Tebaldi's or Melba's is a totally different thing, however.

At least there are no absurd claims, such as that Callas is the only one on record who could do dynamics on trills, as Mr. Waldman preposterously stated.

Lastly, I found this paragraph pretty amusing:


> But whereas Caruso and Titta Ruffo (Chaliapin is really a case apart) limited themselves to creating new vocal followers and not necessarily with positive results - in fact frequently with negative ones - Callas has gone further. She can be said to have created great singers and notable interpreters, though always within that particular repertory which has thus in due course become more appreciated. We know well who those singers are: from Gencer right up to Scotto (in certain phrases, certain moments of Lucia) and to Suliotis (certain utterances in the lower register). Finally there is Cabana, where the 'Callas factor' is to be found above all in the implications of a particular repertory, still further enlarged from that of Callas herself.


Souliotis was indeed formidable -- for about five years. Scotto variable, often she's campy. Gencer is okay vocally. Meanwhile, the followers of Caruso and Ruffo? Well, GG Guelfi was maybe not the greatest artist (despite his prodigious voice), but the tenors who imitated Caruso are among the greatest we have on record, as well as being virtually every major tenor in the generations after Caruso.

Anyway, thanks for sharing this. I mostly only wrote out my criticisms, so this post is probably more negative than my actual response to this is. There were many interesting points made very eloquently and I enjoyed reading it.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I was glad to post this, it is a serious discussion on the importance of Callas. One can note that _no other singer_ has influenced musicologist, conductors, critics and producers to discuss them in depth like this.


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