# Callas 56 Lucia Met to be Broadcast



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I don't have all the info but you can find if if this appeals to you. The Met is Broadcasting some archival Broadcasts and this Lucia is from when she was still in good form and was one of the very few broadcasts featuring her.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

*Lucia di Lammermoor*

Maria Callas - Lucia
Giuseppe Campora - Edgardo
Enzo Sordello - Enrico
Nicola Moscona - Raimondo
James McCracken - Normanno
Thelma Votipka - Alisa
Paul Franke - Arturo

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Fausto Cleva, conductor
Broadcast December 8th, 1956









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The consensus is that this recording caught Callas - in her only Metropolitan Opera broadcast - in poor voice. One notices the uncertain top, the tremulous tone, the shortness of breath that is miles away from the elasticity heard in the 1955 Berlin performance. She doesn't attempt any interpolated E-flats; she sings the lower variants. Ardoin opines that "there is rarely that buoyancy of phrase that is a Callas hallmark."

I found myself listening closely anyway, as Callas is never perfunctory. She gives all she can, even on an off day.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

MAS said:


> *Lucia di Lammermoor*
> 
> Maria Callas - Lucia
> Giuseppe Campora - Edgardo
> ...


Not a Callas essential, but mostly known for Sordello getting sacked by the MET supposedly at Maria's request for singing loudly over her highlighting her off voice that night, the tenor must protect his lady not throw her to the wolves

A reverse of the famous Mexico Aida where Maria unleashed one of the greatest high notes ever recorded and Kurt Baum (Kurt who?) said he would see to it she would never have a career in major opera houses......


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

DarkAngel said:


> Not a Callas essential, but mostly known for Sordello getting sacked by the MET supposedly at Maria's request for singing loudly over her highlighting her off voice that night, the tenor must protect his lady not throw her to the wolves
> 
> A reverse of the famous Mexico Aida where Maria unleashed one of the greatest high notes ever recorded and Kurt Baum (Kurt who?) said he would see to it she would never have a career in major opera houses......


Can't get this to post properly...........


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Well, I get the point. He is, in fact, now famous only because of that incident. :lol:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Maria was, by this time, thoroughly fed up with Bing's refusal to grant adequate stage rehearsal time and his habit of changing the casts from night to night, so she never knew until she got on stage whom she would be singing with. This was 1956 and she had been used to singing in meticulously prepared new productions directed by the likes of Visconti, Zeffirelli and Margaret Wallmann. No doubt Sordello was at the receiving end of her exasperation with the working conditions. It's no wonder she worked so rarely at the Met. At that time singers turned up. donned their costumes, stood on stage and sang their usual performance. It was completely at odds with her way of working.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Maria was, by this time, thoroughly fed up with Bing's refusal to grant adequate stage rehearsal time and his habit of changing the casts from night to night, so she never knew until she got on stage whom she would be singing with. This was 1956 and she had been used to singing in meticulously prepared new productions directed by the likes of Visconti, Zeffirelli and Margaret Wallmann. No doubt Sordello was at the receiving end of her exasperation with the working conditions. It's no wonder she worked so rarely at the Met. At that time singers turned up. donned their costumes, stood on stage and sang their usual performance. It was completely at odds with her way of working.


And furthermore, _her_ way of working is pretty much standard in the opera world now (including at the Met).

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The BBC also broadcast this performance on February 13 and it's still available on BBC Sounds. I don't own the Met performance, though I have heard it. Not being such a Callas completist as some, I decided I had enough Callas Lucias with the two studio performances and the Berlin performance. My biggest regret is that the 1954 La Scala/Karajan performance is incomplete and in wretched sound. It was evidently one of her greatest nights at La Scala.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

The Metripolitan Opera's broadcast of *Lucia di Lammermoor* (December 8th, 1956) was not one of Maria Callas's best nights - had they broadcast the _prima_ on December 3rd, the story might have been different. I'm posting some reviews of the first night, since there are no contemporary reviews of the broadcast. (Click twice to augment)


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

*This was a great Lucia - 1954 Lyric Chicago (Maria in her brief "blondie" hair period)*



> Callas continued to triumph in Lyric's short inaugural season. That November, she took on the roles of Violetta in Verdi's _La traviata_, and the title role in Donizetti's _Lucia di Lammermoor_. _Chicago Tribune_ critic Claudia Cassidy wrote this about her Lucia: "There was an avalanche of applause, a roar of cheers growing steadily hoarse, a standing ovation, and the main aisles were full of men pushing as close to the stage as possible...calling her before the curtain 22 times in an ovation than lasted 17 minutes."She sang two performances of each of the three killer operas in just over 2 weeks, a marvelous vocal feat.










1954 Lucia - Lyric Chicago

















1954 Norma Chicago


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