Maria Callas , Commendatore OMRI ( ; Greece: ????? ?????? ; December 2, 1923 - 16 September 1977) is a New York-born Greek soprano, one of the most famous and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praise his bel canto techniques, wide voice and dramatic interpretations. The repertoire ranges from classical opera seria to opera bel canto from Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini and subsequently, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in his early career, into Wagner's musical drama. His musical and dramatic talents made him hailed as La Divina .
Born in New York City and raised by an arrogant mother who wanted a son, she received her music education in Greece and started her career in Italy. Forced to face the urgency of wartime poverty and with the narrowness that made him almost blind on stage, he experienced struggles and scandals during his career. She transformed herself from a heavy woman into a slim and glamorous woman after a mid-career weight loss, which may have contributed to her vocal drop and premature end of her career.
The press rejoiced to publicize Callas's temperamental behavior, his rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and his love affair with Greek delivery tycoon Aristotle Onassis. Although his dramatic life and personal tragedies often overshadow Callas artists in the popular press, his artistic achievements are such that Leonard Bernstein calls him the "opera Bible" and his influence is so persisting that, in 2006, Opera News
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Kehidupan awal
Kehidupan keluarga, masa kanak-kanak dan pindah ke Yunani
The name on the New York Callas birth certificate is Sophie Cecilia Kalos . She was born at the Flower Hospital (now the Terence Cardinal Health Care Center), 1249 5th Avenue, Manhattan, on December 2, 1923, to Greek parents, George Kalogeropoulos (c.1881 - 1972) and Elmina Evangelia "Litsa" (na © e Demes, originally Dimitriadou, c) 1894 - 1982), although he was baptized Mary Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos (Greek: ????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????? Callas's father has shortened the surname Kalogeropoulos first became "Kalos" and later became "Callas" to make it more manageable.
George and Litsa are unsuitable couples from the start; he is relaxed and unambitious, with no interest in art, while his wife is passionate and socially ambitious, and has dreamed of life in art for himself, where his middle-class parents live in childhood and adolescence.. Litsa's father, Petros Dimitriadis (1852-1916), failed in health when Litsa introduced George to his family. Petros, distrustful of George, had warned his daughter, "You will never be happy with him, if you marry this man, I will never be able to help you". Litsa had ignored her warning, but soon realized that his father was right. This situation was exacerbated by George's infidelity and was not corrected either by the birth of a daughter, named Yakinthi (later called "Jackie"), in 1917 or the birth of a son, named Vassilis, in 1920. Vassilis's death from meningitis in the summer of 1922 gave another blow to the marriage. In 1923, after realizing that Litsa was pregnant again, George made a unilateral decision to move his family to America, a decision that Yakinthi remembered being greeted with Litsa "shouting hysterically" followed by George "slamming the door". The family left for New York in July 1923, moving first into an apartment in the very ethnic Greek neighborhood of Astoria, Queens.
Litsa is convinced that her third child is a boy; Her disappointment at the birth of another daughter was so great that she refused to see her new baby for four days. Mary was baptized three years later at the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Trinity in 1926. When Maria was 4, George Callas opened her own pharmacy, settling in Manhattan on 192 Street in Washington Heights where Callas grew up. Around the age of three, Maria's musical talent begins to manifest itself, and after Litsa discovers that her youngest daughter also has a voice, she starts pressing "Mary" to sing. Callas then recalled, "I was made to sing when I was five, and I hated it." George was not happy with his wife who liked their eldest daughter, and the pressure given to young Mary to sing and perform. Marriage continued to deteriorate and in 1937 Evangelia decided to return to Athens with her two daughters.
Relationships get worse with his mother
Callas's relationship with her mother has been steadily eroded for many years in Greece, and at the peak of her career, it is a matter of great public interest, especially after the 1956 cover story in Time-Based magazine focused on this relationship and then, by Litsa My Princess - Maria Callas . In public, Callas blames a tense relationship with Litsa in her unpleasant childhood spending singing and working at her mother's insistence, saying,
My sister is slim and pretty and friendly, and my mom always likes her. I am an ugly duckling, fat and awkward and unpopular. It is a cruel thing to make a child feel ugly and undesirable... I will never forgive him for taking my childhood. For years I was supposed to play and grow up, I sing or make money. Everything I do for them is mostly good and everything they do to me is mostly bad.
In 1957, he told Norman Ross, "Kids must have a beautiful childhood, I do not have it - I hope I have." On the other hand, the biographer Petsalis-Diomidis affirms that in fact it is the treatment of Litsa's hatred against George in front of their little children that causes hatred and dislike on the part of Callas. According to Callas's husband and close friend Giulietta Simionato, Callas told them that his mother, who was not working, urged him to "go out with various men", especially Italian and German troops, to bring home money and food during the Greek occupation Axis during World War II. Simionato believes that Callas "managed to stay untouched", but Callas never forgave her mother for what she perceived as the prostitution imposed on her by her mother. In an attempt to improve things with his mother, Callas invited Litsa on his first visit to Mexico in 1950, but this only revived old frictions and hatred, and after leaving Mexico, the two never met again. After a series of angry and accusatory letters from Litsa who railed Callas's father and husband, Callas stopped communicating with her mother altogether.
Maps Maria Callas
Education
Callas received her music education in Athens. Initially, his mother tried to register him at the prestigious Athens Conservatoire, with no results. At the audition, his voice, still untrained, failed to impress, while the conservatoire director of Filoktitis Oikonomidis refused to accept him without satisfying the theoretical prerequisites (solfege). In the summer of 1937, his mother visited Maria Trivella in the younger Greek Conservatory of Greece, asking him to bring Mary, as he was called, as a modest student. In 1957, Trivella recalled his impression of "Mary, a very fat young woman, wearing great glasses for her myopia":
The tone of voice is warm, lyrical, powerful; it spins and flares like a flame and fills the air with melodic echoes like an essay. By any standard, an amazing phenomenon, or rather, it is a great talent that requires control, technical training, and strict discipline to shine with all its greatness.
Trivella agreed to guide Callas completely, set aside his tuition fees, but not long after Callas started his formal lessons and vocal training instead of Trivella beginning to feel that Callas was not a contralto, as he said, but a dramatic soprano. Furthermore, they began to work on improving the tessitura of his voice and to ease his timbre. Trivella remembers Callas as:
An exemplary student. Fanatic, uncompromising, dedicated to his study of heart and soul. Its progress is phenomenal. He studied five or six hours a day.... Within six months, he sang the most difficult aria in the international opera repertoire with the highest musicality.
On April 11, 1938, in his public debut, Callas ended the Trivella class performance in the Parnassos music room with a duet from Tosca . Callas remembers that Trivella:
has a French method, which puts the sound in the nose, not the nose... and I have a problem of not having a low chest tone, which is important in bel canto ... Ã, And that's where I learned chest tone I.
However, when interviewed by Pierre Desgraupes on the French program of invitation, Callas attributed the development of his chest not to Trivella, but to the next teacher, the Spanish soprano coloratura Elvira de Hidalgo.
Callas studied with Trivella for two years before her mother got another audition at the Athens Conservatory with de Hidalgo. Callas auditioned with "Ocean, Thou Mighty Monster" from Weber's Oberon . De Hidalgo remembered hearing "the thunderous and unbelievable cascades, uncontrolled but full of drama and emotion". He agreed to immediately take him as a student, but Callas's mother asked de Hidalgo to wait for a year, as Callas would graduate from the National Conservatory and be able to begin work. On April 2, 1939, Callas performed a section of Santuzza in the production of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana students at the Greek National Opera at Olympia Theater, and in the fall of the same year he enrolled at the Athens Conservatoire in Elvira de Hidalgo class.
In 1968, Callas told Lord Harewood,
De Hildalgo has excellent training, maybe even the latest real training from real i canton . As a young girl - thirteen - I was immediately thrown into her arms, which meant I learned the secrets, these ways of bel canto, which of course as you know, not a beautiful song. This is a very difficult exercise; it is a kind of straitjacket that you should wear, whether you like it or not. You have to learn to read, write, shape your sentences, how far you can go, fall, hurt yourself, put yourself back on your feet constantly. De Hidalgo has one method, that is the real way of bel canto, where no matter how heavy the sound is, it must always be kept constant, it should always be done in a flexible way, never weigh it down. It is a method of maintaining a light and flexible sound and pushing the instrument into a particular zone where it may not be too big in sound, but penetrating. And teach the scales, trill, all ornaments bel canto , which is a broad language of its own.
De Hidalgo then remembers Callas as "a phenomenon... He will listen to all my pupils, sopranos, mezzos, tenors... He can do everything." Callas himself says that he will go to "conservatoire" at 10 am and go with the last student... devour the music "for 10 hours a day. When asked by his teacher why he did this, the answer is that even "with the most talented students, he can teach you something that you, most talented, may not be able to do."
Early operatic careers in Greece
After several appearances as a student, Callas began appearing in a secondary role in the Greek National Opera. De Hidalgo was instrumental in securing a role for him, allowing Callas to earn a small salary, which helped him and his family through difficult war years.
Callas made his professional debut in February 1941, in the small role of Beatrice in Franz von SuppÃÆ' © Boccaccio. Soprano Galatea Amaxopoulou, who sings in the choir, then remembers, "Even in practice, Mary's extraordinary performance ability is clear, and since then, others have begun trying to prevent it from appearing." Fellow singer Maria Alkeou also remembers that soprano singer Nafsika Galanou and Anna (ZozÃÆ'³) Remmoundou "used to stand on the wings while [Callas] was singing and making statements about her, mumbling, laughing, and pointing their fingers at her".
Despite this hostility, Callas successfully went on and made his debut in the lead role in August 1942 as Tosca, continuing to sing Marta's role at Eugen d'Albert's Tiefland at the Olympia Theater. Callas's appearance as Marta received glowing reviews. Critic Spanoudi declared Callas "a very dynamic artist who possessed the most dramatic and rare musical talent", and Vangelis Mangliveras evaluated Callas's weekly performance for Radiophonon:
The singer who took part of Marta, the new star on the Greek horizon, with an unparalleled depth of feeling, provided a theatrical interpretation according to the standards of a tragic actress. About his wonderful voice with his amazing natural eloquence, I do not want to add anything to Alexandra Lalaouni's words: 'Kalogeropoulou is one of God's only wonderful talents.'
After these shows, even Callas critics began to call themselves "Gods Given". Sometime later, watching Callas practicing Beethoven Fidelio , former soprano rival Anna Remoundou asked a colleague, "Could there be something divine and we have not yet noticed?" Following Tiefland , Callas sang Santuzza's role in Cavalleria rusticana again and follow it with O Protomastoras (Manolis Kalomiris) at the ancient Odeon of Herod Theater Atticus at the foot of the Acropolis.
During August and September 1944, Callas performed the role of Leonore in the production of Fidelio , again at Odeon Herod Atticus. German critic Friedrich Herzog, who watched the show, declared Leonore Callas the "greatest triumph":
When Leonore, Maria Kaloyeropoulou, letting his soprano go out in the unmistakable excitement of the duet, he rose to the highest altitude.... Here he gives buds, blooms, and fruit to sound harmony that also honors the art of excellent donne.
After the liberation of Greece, de Hidalgo advised Callas to establish himself in Italy. Callas went on to give a series of concerts around Greece, and then, on the advice of his teacher, he returned to America to see his father and to continue his career. When he left Greece on September 14, 1945, two months before his 22nd birthday, Callas had given 56 shows in seven operas and appeared in about 20 recitals. Callas considers a Greek career as the basis of his dramatic and musical education, saying, "When I reach a great career, there's no surprise to me."
Main opera career
After returning to the United States and reuniting with his father in September 1945, Callas performed an audition round. In December of that year, he auditioned for Edward Johnson, general manager of Metropolitan Opera, and was well received: "Incredible sound - must be heard on stage".
Callas maintains that Met offers him Madame Butterfly and Fidelio, which will be performed in Philadelphia and sung in English, both of which refuse, feeling he is too fat for Butterfly and did not like the idea of ​​opera in English. Although there is no written proof of this offer in Met notes, in a 1958 interview with New York Post, Johnson reinforced Callas's story: "We offered him a contract, but he did not like it-because his contract, because of his role.He's right in rejecting it - it's really a budding contract. " Italy, Meneghini, and Serafin
In 1946, Callas was engaged to reopen the opera house in Chicago as Turandot, but the company folded before it opened. Basso Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, who also starred in the opera, realizes that Tullio Serafin is looking for a dramatic soprano to play the La Gioconda at the Arena in Verona. He then recalled the young Callas as "extraordinary - so strong physically and spiritually, so definite of his future.I know in a big outdoor theater like Verona, this girl, with her courage and great voice, will make a tremendous impact." He further recommends Callas to retire tenor and impresario Giovanni Zenatello. During his audition, Zenatello became so excited that he jumped up and joined Callas in a 4th acting duet. In this role Callas made his debut in Italy. Arriving in Verona, Callas met Giovanni Battista Meneghini, an older, wealthy industrialist who began to worship him. They married in 1949, and he took control of his career until 1959, when the marriage was dissolved. It was Meneghini's love and support that gave Callas the time it took to establish himself in Italy, and throughout the peak of his career he went by the name of Maria Meneghini Callas.
After La Gioconda , Callas has no further offers, and when Serafin, looking for someone to sing Isolde, calls him, he tells her that he already knows his score, though he only sees the first act out of curiosity when in the conservatory. He looked at the second act of the opera for Serafin, who praised him for knowing the role very well, in which he claimed to have bullied and read music. Even more impressed, Serafin immediately gave him a role. Serafin then served as mentor and supporter of Callas.
According to Lord Harewood, "Very few Italian conductors have more honorable careers than Tullio Serafin, and perhaps none, apart from Toscanini, more influence". In 1968, Callas remembered that working with Serafin was a "really lucky" opportunity from her career, because "she taught me that there must be an expression, that there must be justification, she taught me the depth of music, the justification of music, really drink all that I can from this man ".
puritani and the path to bel canto
The great turning point in Callas's career took place in Venice in 1949. He was engaged to sing the BrÃÆ'¼nnhilde role at Die WalkÃÆ'¼re at Teatro la Fenice, when Margherita Carosio, engaged to sing Elvira in puritani in the same theater, got sick. Unable to find a replacement for Carosio, Serafin told Callas that he would sing Elvira in six days; when Callas protested that he not only did not know his role, but also had three BrÃÆ'¼nnhilders again to be sung, he told him, "I guarantee you can.". Michael Scott's words, "The idea of ​​a singer who embraced music as different in his vocal demands as Wagner's BrÃÆ'¼nhilde and Bellini's Elvira in the same career would be quite surprising, but to try to fabricate both of them in the same season it looks like folie de grandeur ". Before the show really happened, an unbelieving critic snorted, "We heard that Serafin has agreed to do puritani with a dramatic soprano... When can we expect a new edition of La traviata with [baritone] Violetta Gino Bechi? "After the show, a critic writes," Even the most skeptical must admit the magic that Maria Callas has done... the versatility of clear, beautiful sounds and beautiful high notes. has a sense of humanity, warmth and expressiveness that people will seek in vain in the cold, coldness of other Elviras. "Franco Zeffirelli recalled," What he did in Venice was incredible, you must be familiar with the opera to realize the size of his achievements. It's as if someone asked Birgit Nilsson, famous for his great Wagner voice, to replace him overnight for Beverly Sills, which is one the colorful soprano singer of our time. "
Scott asserted that "Of all the roles Callas undertakes, it is doubtful if anyone has a much wider effect." This initial robbery into the repertoire of bel canto changed the course of Callas's career and placed him on the road to Lucia in Lammermoor,
In the soprano words Montserrat Caballà ©  ©:
She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, the closed door. Behind him sleep is not only good music but also an incredible interpretation idea. He has given us the opportunity, those who follow him, to do things that almost impossible to do before him. That I compared to Callas was something I never dreamed of. That's not true. I'm much smaller than Callas.
As well as I puritani , Callas studied and performed Cherubini Medea , Giordano Andrea ChÃÆ' Â © nier and Rossini Armida at day notifications. Throughout his career, Callas featured his vocal vocalities in a recital deploying a dramatic soprano aria with coloratura pieces, including in the 1952 RAI recital where he opened with Lady Macbeth's "letter scene", followed by "Mad Scene" from Lucia in Lammermoor , then Abigaille's recital and aria betrayal of Nabucco , ending with a "Bell Song" of LakmÃÆ'Â © bounded by high notes E in alt (E6).
Important debut
Although in 1951, Callas once sang in all major theaters in Italy, he has yet to make his official debut at the most prestigious opera house in Italy, Teatro alla Scala in Milan. According to composer Gian Carlo Menotti, Callas had replaced Renata Tebaldi in the role of Aida in 1950, and La Scala general manager Antonio Ghiringhelli immediately disliked Callas.
Menotti remembered that Ghiringhelli had promised him the singer he wanted for the premiere of The Consul, but when he suggested Callas, Ghiringhelli said that he would never have Callas in La Scala except as a guest artist. However, Callas's fame grew, and especially after his great success at Florence's vespri siciliani, Ghiringhelli had to concede: Callas made his official debut at La Scala in Verdi I vespri siciliani at night opening in December 1951, and the theater became his artistic home throughout the 1950s. La Scala put a lot of new productions specifically for Callas by directors like Herbert von Karajan, Margherita Wallmann, Franco Zeffirelli and, most importantly, Luchino Visconti. Visconti stated later that he started directing the opera just because of Callas, and he directed it in the fancy new production of La Vestale, La traviata , La sonnambula , Anna Bolena and IphigÃÆ' Â © nie en Tauride . Callas was instrumental in arranging Franco Corelli's debut at La Scala in 1954, where he sang Licinio in Spontini La vestale opposite Callas's Julia. The two have been singing together for the first time the previous year in Rome in the production of Norma . Anthony Tommasini writes that Corelli has "gained great respect from the dreaded Callas, who, in Mr. Corelli, finally has someone with whom he can act." The two collaborated several times at La Scala, singing opposite in the production of Fedora (1956), Il pirata (1958) and Poliuto > (1960). Their partnership continues for the rest of Callas's career.
At night when he married Meneghini in Verona, he sailed to Argentina to sing at the Teatro ColÃÆ'³n in Buenos Aires. Callas made his South American debut in Buenos Aires on May 20, 1949, during the European summer opera recession. Aida , Turandot and Norma role directed by Tullio Serafin, supported by Mario Del Monaco, Fedora Barbieri and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni. It was his only performance on the world-famous stage. His debut in the United States was five years later in Chicago in 1954, and "with Callas Norma , Lyric Opera of Chicago was born."
His debut at the Metropolitan Opera, opening the seventy second Met season on October 29, 1956, returned with Norma , but preceded by an unflattering cover story in Time magazine , which Rehashed all of Callas clichà ©, including his emotions, the supposed rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and especially the difficult relationship with his mother. As he had done with Lyric Opera of Chicago, on November 21, 1957, Callas gave a concert to inaugurate what was later billed as the Dallas Civic Opera, and helped set up the company with his friends from Chicago, Lawrence Kelly and Nicola Rescigno. He further consolidated the position of this company when, in 1958, he gave "a looming performance as Violetta at La Traviata, and in the same year, in the only American show Medea , gives an interpretation of the proper title role of Euripides. "
In 1958, a feud with Rudolf Bing caused the Metropolitan Opera Callas contract to be canceled. Impresario Allen Oxenburg realizes that this situation gives him a chance for his own company, the American Opera Society, and he then approaches him with a contract to do Imogene at
In 1952, he made his debut in London at the Royal Opera House in Norma with veteran mezzo-soprano Ebe Stignani as Adalgisa, a show that survived the record and also featured young Joan Sutherland in the small role of Clotilde. Callas and the London community had what he called a "love affair", and he returned to the Royal Opera House in 1953, 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1964 to 1965. It was at the Royal Opera House where, on July 5, 1965, Callas ends her stage career in the role of Tosca, in a production designed and installed for her by Franco Zeffirelli and featuring her friend and colleague Tito Gobbi.
Weight
In the early years of his career, Callas was a heavy woman; with his own words, "Weight - people can say - yes me, but I am also a tall woman, 5 '8½" [173 cm], and I weigh not more than 200 pounds (91 kilograms). "Tito Gobbi recounts that during a lunch break while recording Lucia in Florence, Serafin commented to Callas that he had eaten too much and let his weight be a problem.When he protested that he was not t so heavy Gobbi suggested he had to "put the matter to the test" by stepping on a weighing machine outside the restaurant.The result was "a bit anxious, and he became rather silent." In 1968, Callas told Edward Downes that during his first show at Cherubini Medea in May 1953, he realized that he needed a face and a slimmer figure to do dramatic justice for this and other roles he did.
I became so heavy that even my voice became heavier. I exhaust myself, I sweat too much, and I really work too hard. And I am not healthy, as in health; I can not move freely. And then I'm tired of playing games, like playing this beautiful young lady, and I am heavy and uncomfortable to move. In any case, it's uncomfortable and I do not like it. So I feel now if I'm going to do the right thing - I've learned all my life to do things right musically, so why do not I go on a diet and put myself in a certain condition where I'm worth performing.
During 1953 and early 1954, he lost nearly 80 pounds (36 kg), transforming himself into what Rescigno called "probably the most beautiful woman on stage". Sir Rudolf Bing, who remembered Callas as "overweight" in 1951, stated that after weight loss, Callas was a "stunning, slim, gaudy woman" who "showed no signs usually found in a fat woman who has lost weight: she looks like she's born of a slim and elegant figure, and always moves with that grace. "Rumors spread about her weight-loss method; one of whom has swallowed a tapeworm, while pasta company Panatella Mills in Rome claims he lost weight by eating their "physiological paste", which prompted Callas to file a lawsuit. Callas stated that she lost weight by eating a reasonable, low-calorie meal especially from salads and chicken.
Some believe that the loss of body mass makes it harder for him to support his voice, triggering vocal tension that becomes apparent later in the decade (see vowel decline), while others believe that weight loss affects new tenderness and femininity within him. voice, and greater confidence as a person and player. Tito Gobbi said, "Now he's not just talented both in music and in dramatic terms - he's also beautiful, and his consciousness about this is invested with the fresh magic of every role he does, what he ends up doing on vocal stamina and nervously I'm not ready to say. I just assert that he developed into a unique artist in his generation and amazing across the vocal history range. "
Voice
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Callas's voice is and remains controversial; it's annoyed and distracted as much as it's excited and inspired. Walter Legge states that Callas has the most important content for a great singer: a voice that is instantly recognizable.
During "The Callas Debate", Italian critic Rodolfo Celletti stated, "The timbre of Callas's voice, considered pure as a sound, is basically ugly: it is a thick voice, which gives the impression of drought, misguidance.That lacks elements that, the singing jargon, described as velvet and varnish... but I really believe that part of its appeal is precisely because of this fact.Why? For all the natural deficiencies of varnish, velvet and wealth, this sound can acquire different colors and colors like it becomes unforgettable. "However, in his review of a live recording of Callas's 1951 on vespri siciliani, Ira Siff wrote," The accepted wisdom tells us that Callas has, even from an early age, a defective voice , unattractive by conventional standards - an instrument that hints at the start of an upcoming vocal problem, but listen to him in the show and someone meets with a rich voice, spinning, exciting by any standard, capable of dynamic subtle nuances. High notes free from wobble, non-compulsive breast tones, and the middle list does not show the quality of the "bottle" that becomes more and more noticeable when Callas matures. "
Nicola Rossi-Lemeni relates that Callas's mentor, Tullio Serafin, used to call her the Una grande vociaccia; he continued, " Vociaccia is a bit degrading - it means bad sounds - but grande means great sound, great voice, very bad voice, in a way." Callas himself disliked his own voice; in one of his last interviews, answered whether he could listen to his own voice, he replied,
Yes, but I do not like it. I have to do it, but I do not like it at all because I do not like the kind of sound I have. I really hate to listen to myself! The first time I listened to the recording of my singing was while we were recording the San Giovanni Battista by Stradella at a church in Perugia in 1949. They made me listen to the tape and I cried. I want to stop everything, to give up singing... Also now even though I do not like my voice, I can already accept it and be separate and objective about it so I can say, "Oh, it's sung very well," or "Almost perfect. "
Carlo Maria Giulini described the appeal of Callas's voice:
It is very difficult to talk about Callas's voice. His voice is a very special instrument. Something happens sometimes with string instruments - violin, violin, cello - where the first time you listen to the sound of this instrument, the first feeling is a bit strange sometimes. But after a few minutes, when you get used to it, when you become friends with this type of sound, then the sound becomes magical quality. This is Callas.
Vocal category
Callas's voice is hard to place in the classification of modern vocals or the Fach system, especially because in its heyday, its repertoire contains the heaviest soprano's dramatic roles and roles usually performed by the tallest, lightest and most vivacious singers of colors. Regarding this versatility, Tullio Serafin said, "This woman can sing whatever is written for a woman's voice". Michael Scott argues that Callas's voice is a high natural soprano, and with evidence of Callas's early recording, Rosa Ponselle also feels that "At this stage of development, the sounds are dramatic but substantial colors - that is, coloratura sounds large enough with dramatic ability , not the other way around. "On the other hand, music critic John Ardoin argues that Callas is a 19th century reincarnation of soprano sfogato or an infinite soprano, a setback for Maria Malibran and Giuditta Pasta, which for many famous opera bel canto people written. He acknowledges that like Pasta and Malibran, Callas is a natural mezzo-soprano whose range is extended through training and volition, resulting in a "no homogeneous color and uniformity of scale so valuable in singing." There is an irregular part of those noises was once completely under control Many who heard Pasta, for example, said that his most prominent notes seem to be produced by ventriloquism, a charge that would later be made against Callas.Donoin refers to Henry Chorley's writings about Pasta having a remarkable resemblance to the description of Callas :
There are parts of the scale that are different from others in quality and remain to the last one 'under the veil.'... From these rough materials he has to organize his instruments and then give him flexibility. His studies for execution must be extraordinary; but innocence and intelligence, when acquired, acquire their own character... There is an extent, an expression in its roulades, a fairness and solidity in its sway, which is conveyed to any passage of significance beyond the reach of lightness. and a more spontaneous singer... The best of his listeners is held in a state of helplessness, without being able to analyze what makes up the spell, what produces the effect - once he opens his lips.
Callas himself seems to have agreed not only with Ardoin's assertion that he started as a natural mezzo-soprano, but also saw the similarities between himself and Pasta and Malibran. In 1957, he described his initial voice as: "The timbre is dark, almost black - when I think about it, I think of thicker molasses", and in 1968 he added, "They say I am not the correct soprano, I am rather toward mezzo". Regarding his ability to sing the toughest and lightest song, he told James Fleetwood,
This study; That's Nature. I do not do anything special, you know. Even Lucia , Anna Bolena , Puritani , all of these operas were created for one type of soprano, the type that sang Norma >, Fidelio , which is of course Malibran. And coincidentally coincidental last year, I sang Anna Bolena and Sonnambula , the same month and the same time intervals with Giuditta Pasta had been sung in the nineteenth century... So I really do not do anything extraordinary. You will not ask for a pianist not to be able to play everything; he owns for. It is Nature and also because I have a great teacher, a long teaching method... I am a very heavy voice, that is my character, the dark voice we will call it, and I am always on the bright side. He always trained me to keep my voice bending.
Vocal sizes and ranges
Regarding the large size of the Callas instrument, Celletti says, "The sound penetrates, the volume is average: not small or strong, but penetration, allied with this sharp quality (which borders on the ugly because it often contains elements of hardness) ensures that his voice can be heard clearly anywhere in the auditorium. "Rodolfo Celletti wrote that Callas has" thick, translucent, and dark voices "( una voce voluminosa, squillante e in timbro scuro ). After his first appearance at Medea in 1953, critics for the Musical Courier wrote that "he showed a virtually unbelievable vowel of generosity due to his amplitude and endurance." In a 1982 Opera News interview with Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, Bonynge stated, "But before she became slim, I mean this was a very colossal sound, it was just poured out of her, as Flagstad.... Callas has a very big voice.When he and Stignani sing Norma's song, at the bottom of the range, you can hardly guess who's... Oh that's very colossal, and he's taking a big voice right up. " In his book, Michael Scott made the difference that when Callas's pre-1954 vote was a "soprano dramatic with amazing tops", after weight loss, it became, as the Chicago critic's voice put on Lucia, great leggiero ".
In performance, Callas's vocal range is only a short three octaves, from F-sharp (F 3) below middle C (C4) is heard in "Arrigo! Ah parli a un core "from Ei natural to E-natural (E6) above the high C (C6), heard in aria" MercÃÆ'¨, dilette amiche "in the last act of the same opera, as well as in Rossini Armida and LakmÃÆ' Â © ' s Song Bell. Whether or not Callas ever sang F-natural in performance has been open to debate. After a June 11, 1951 concert in Florence, Rock Ferris of Musical Courier said, "The E is high and F is taken in full voice." Though there is no exact recording of Callas singing high Fs has appeared, the alleged E-natural at the end of Rossini Armida - poor quality recording of the uncertain pitch - has been termed as high. F by music experts and Italian critics Eugenio Gara and Rodolfo Celletti. Dr. Callas Specialist Robert Seletsky, however, states that because the end of Armida is in the key E, the last record is not possible F, because it will be dissonant. The author Eve Ruggieri has referred to the second note in the "MercÃÆ'¨, dilette amiche" of Florence's 1951 appearance of I vespri siciliani as high F; however, this claim was disputed by John Ardoin's review of the live recording of the show as well as by the recording review at Opera News , both of which refer to the notes as high E-natural..
In a 1969 French television interview with Pierre Desgraupes on L'invitÃÆ' Â © e du dimanche program, Francesco Siciliani talked about Callas's high F vote (he also talked about his lower register extending to C3), but in the same program, Callas's teacher, Elvira de Hidalgo, speaks of a high-altitude sound to E-natural but does not mention high F; Meanwhile, Callas himself remains silent on the subject, disagreeing or disagreeing with any of the claims.
List of vocals
Callas's voice is recorded for three different registers: The low register or his chest is very dark and almost baritonal in power, and he uses part of his voice for dramatic effect, often going into these registers much higher on a scale than most sopranos. The middle register has a distinctive and very personal voice - the "oboe part, the part clarinet", as Claudia Cassidy describes - and recorded for a veiled voice or "bottle", as if she were singing in a pitcher. Walter Legge, husband of the diva Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, attributes this voice to "the extraordinary formation of the upper ceiling, shaped like a Gothic arch, not a romantic arch from the normal mouth."
The top register is quite and bright, with an impressive extension above the high C, which - in contrast to the flute sounds like the light of a typical coloratura, "he will attack this record with more power and strength - quite different therefore, from the 'white' approach 'very delicate, careful of a light soprano. "Legge added," Even in the most difficult fioriture there is no musical or technical difficulty in this part of the sound that he can not do with incredible ease and absurdity. colored, especially down, very smooth and staccatos almost never accurate, even in the toughest intervals.Almost no bar in the entire nineteenth century music scene for the high soprano seriously testing its power. "And as he pointed out in the final < i> La sonnambula on a commercial EMI set and live recording of Cologne, he was able to execute a reduction on a high E-flat strato sfer, which Scott described as "an unmatched feat in the history of gramophone. "
In regards to Callas's soft song, Celletti said, "In this soft part, Callas seems to be using another voice altogether, because he's got great sweetness, either in his flowering song or in himself, spianato, is, ornaments, she can reach a sweetness that moves like a voice that seems to come from above... I do not know, it seems it came from the sky from La Scala. "
This combination of size, weight, reach and agility is a source of admiration for contemporary Callas people. One of the choristers present at La Scala debuted at I vespri siciliani remembering, "Oh my God! He came onstage sounding like our deepest contralto, Cloe Elmo And before the night was over, he took the E-flat And it's twice as strong as Toti Dal Monte! "In the same vein, mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato said:" The first time we sang together was in Mexico in 1950, where he sang the top E-flat in the second half second half Aida , can still remember the effects of the note in the opera house - it's like a star! "For the Italian soprano Renata Tebaldi," the most fantastic thing is the possibility for him to sing soprano coloratura with sound big this! This is something very special. Fantastic really! "
Callas's vocal registers, however, do not seamlessly join; Walter Legge wrote, "Unfortunately, it's only in fast music, especially the scale down, that he really mastered the art of combining three almost incompatible voices into one unified whole, but until around 1960, he disguised the audible teeth changes with sly skills. "Rodolfo Celletti stated,
In certain areas of his reach, his voice also has a heartbreaking quality. This will happen in the most delicate and troublesome area of ​​the soprano sound - for example when the lower and middle register joins, between G and A. I would say further that here his voice has a resonance like making one think when a ventriloquist... or it can sound as if resonating in a rubber tube. There is a troublesome place... between the middle and top registers. Here, too, around the F and G treble, there is often something in the sound itself that is not true, as if the sound is not working properly.
As to whether these annoying spots are caused by the nature of the sound itself or the technical deficiencies, Celletti says: "Even if, when passing one register to another, Callas produces an unpleasant sound, the technique he uses for this transition is perfect. "Music expert and critic Fedele D'Amico adds," The Callas Errors "are in the voice and not in the singers, they are so talking, the fault of departure but not of arrival. This is precisely the Celletti difference between the natural quality of sound and its technique. "In 2005, Ewa Podle said Callas," Maybe he has three voices, maybe he has three ranges, I do not know - I'm a professional singer. No one bothers me, no! I bought everything he offered me. Why? Because of all her voices, her registers, she uses how they should be used - just to tell us something! "
Eugenio Gara stated, "Much has been said about his voice, and no doubt the discussion will continue.Of course no one can honestly reject the loud or" pinched "sound, or wobble at a very high pitch.This and the other precisely the charges made against the Pasta and Malibran, the two geniuses of the song (as they are later called), are sublime, yet imperfect.They are brought to court on their day.... But some singers have made history in historical record, opera like these two people do. "
Arts
Callas's own thoughts on music and singing can be found on Wikiquote.
Musician
Though adored by many opera fans, Callas is a controversial artist. While Callas is a great singer who is often dismissed only as an actress, she considers herself a musician, that is, the first instrument of the orchestra. Grace Bumbry has stated, "If I follow a musical score when he sings, I will see every marking of tempo, every dynamic tagging, everything being adhered to, and at the same time, it is not antiseptic; it is something very beautiful and moving. Victor de Sabata confessed to Walter Legge, "If the public can understand, as we do, how deep and truly Callas's music, they will be stunned," and Tullio Serafin considers Callas's musicality "extraordinary, almost frightening." Callas possesses an innate sense of architecture of the line proportions and extraordinary feelings for timing and for what one of his colleagues described as "the rhythmic sense in rhythm".
Regarding the technical prosperity of Callas, Celletti said, "We must not forget that he can handle the overall ornamentation: staccato, trills, half-trills, group rugs, scales, etc." D'Amico adds, "The virtue of the Callas technique is composed of the highest mastery of exceptionally rich variety of tones (ie, the combination of dynamic and timbre ranges), and such mastery means total freedom of choice in its use: not being a slave to one's ability, on the contrary, can use it at will as a tool to achieve goals. "While reviewing many versions of the recording" may be the main challenge of Verdi ", aria" D'amor sull'ali rosee "from Il trovatore , Richard Dyer writes,
Callas articulates all the clutches, and he ties them to a more expressive line than anyone else; they are not an ornament but a form of intensification. Part of the magic in this show is chiaroscuro through the tone of his voice - the other side of not full singing along the way. One of the vowel devices that created the chiaroscuro is the varying degree of vibration; the other is its portamento, the way he connects sounds from note to note, phrase to phrase, lift and glide. It has never become reckless, since his intentions are just as musically appropriate as in a big rope game. In this aria, Callas uses more portes, and in larger variations, than any other singer... Callas does not create "effects", as did his greatest rival. He sees the aria as a whole, "as if in the air," as Sviatoslav Richter's teacher observes his most famous student; simultaneously, he was on earth, standing in the courtyard of Aliaferia's palace, floating his voice to the tower where his lover was dormant.
In addition to his musical skills, Callas has a special gift for language and language use in music. In the recital, he always knows which words to emphasize and which syllables in the word to express. Michael Scott noted, "If we listen attentively, we notice how the perfect relief allows him to suggest by means of music even exclamation points and commas of texts." Technically, it not only has the capacity to perform the most difficult music easily, but it also has the ability to use every ornament as an expressive device rather than just for fireworks. Soprano Martina Arroyo stated, "What I am most interested in is how he gives way and cadenzas words." It always marginalizes me.I always feel I heard him say something - it never just singing, that's art. "Walter Legge stated that,
The most remarkable of all its qualities, however, is the taste, elegance and deep musical use of ornamentation in all its forms and complications, the weight and length of each appoggiatura, the smooth incorporation of curves in melodic lines, the accuracy and tempo of its grip, the seemingly spared from its portamentos, varying their curves with graceful elegance and meaning. There is innumerable innumerable flexibility - a very small portamentos from one tone to its nearest neighbor, or at widespread intervals - and pure color change. In these bel canto aspects he is the supreme knight of the art.
Actress
Regarding Callas's acting skills, vocal coach and music critic Ira Siff commented, "When I look at the last two
Matthew Gurewitsch menambahkan,
Even the essence of art is refinement. The term seems strange to a player whose imagination and means of expression are extraordinary. He is capable of great movements; still, judging strictly from the evidence of the tape, we know (and some existing video clips assert) that its power flows not from the excess but from the unbroken concentration, the unchanging truth of the moment. It flows also from unreachable musicians. People say that Callas will not hesitate to change the vocal lines for dramatic effect. In the throes of opera love many singers growl, growl, whine, and squeal. Callas is not one of them. He found everything he needed on the record.
Ewa Podle? also stated that "Enough to hear it, I am positive! Because he can say everything just with his voice! I can imagine everything, I can see everything in front of my eyes." Opera director Sandro Sequi, who witnessed many Callas performances from close by, stated, "To me, he is very stylish and classic, yet at the same time, human - but humanity in a higher realm of existence, almost sublime.Realism is foreign to him, and that's why he is the greatest of the opera singers.However, the opera is the most realistic of the theater form... He's wasted in the verismo role, even Tosca, no matter how brilliant he can act like that. "Scott added," The early nineteenth-century Opera... not only the antithesis of reality, but also requires a very stylish acting.Callas has the perfect face for it. "The great feature fits with his eloquence and speaks a lot from afar."
With regard to Callas's physical acting style, Nicola Rescigno stated, "Mary has a way to change her body for role demands, which is a great victory." In t i la traviata, everything will tilt down. Everything shows sickness, fatigue, tenderness.The arms will move as if they have no bones, like a big ballerina.In Medea , it's all cornered.He never makes gentle movements, even walking he uses like walking tiger. "Sandro Sequi recalled," He's never rushed in. Everything is fast, proportional, classic, right... He's very strong but very stylish... his moves are not much... I do not think he's doing more than 20 moves in the show but he was able to stand 10 minutes without moving his hands or fingers, forcing everyone to see him. "Edward Downes remembers watching Callas and watching his colleagues with intensity and concentration i like to make it appear that the drama is all stretched in his head. Sir Rudolf Bing also remembers that at Chicago trovatore, "it was a quiet hearing Callas, rather than Björling's singing that made a dramatic impact... He did not know what he was singing, but he know. "
Callas himself stated that, in opera, acting should be based on music, citing Tullio Serafin's advice to him:
When someone wants to find movement, when you want to find a way to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to music. The composer has seen it. If you take the trouble to really listen with your Soul and with Your Ears - and I say 'Soul' and 'Ears' because Mind has to work, but not too too too - you will find every movement there.
Artist
The most distinguishing qualities of Callas are his ability to breathe life into the characters he describes, or in Matthew Gurewitsch's words, "The most mysterious of the many prizes, Callas has the genius to translate special minutes of life into tone of voice." Italian critic Eugenio Gara added:
The secret is his ability to move on to the musical plane of the suffering of the characters he plays, the nostalgic yearning for lost happiness, the anxious fluctuations between hope and despair, between pride and petition, between irony and generosity, which eventually vanishes. become the inner man's super pain. The most diverse and contradictory of sentiments, cruel deception, ambitious desires, burning tenderness, sad sacrifices, all the tortures of the heart, earned in her singing mysterious truth, I want to say, that psychological kemerduan, which is the main attraction of opera.
Ethan Mordden writes, "It's the wrong voice, but then Callas tries to catch in his singing not only beauty, but the whole human being, and in his system, lack of feeding feelings, sour anxiety, and shrill disagreement into aspects of the canto. "She believes," If melodrama is an ideal unity of the trilogy of words, music, and actions, it is impossible to imagine an artist in which these three elements are more than Callas. " He recalled that during the Callas show of La traviata, the reality was on stage, what was behind me, the audiences, the auditorium, La Scala himself, seemed to have appeared. on stage is the truth, life itself. "Sir Rudolf Bing reveals similar sentiments:
After someone hears and sees Maria Callas - one can not tell the difference - in part, it's very difficult to enjoy another artist, no matter how great, after that, because she gives every part she sings and does with such a great personality and life. One more hand movement than any other artist can do in one round.
For Antonino Votto, Callas is
The last great artist. When you think this woman is almost blind, and often sings a good standing 150 feet from the podium. But his sensitivity! Even if he can not see, he feels the music and always comes right with my disappointment. When we practice, he is very precise, is perfect... He is not only a singer, but a complete artist. Stupid to talk about it as a voice. He must be seen completely - as a complex of music, drama, movement. There's nothing like him today. He is an aesthetic phenomenon.
Callas-Tebaldi Controversy
During the early 1950s, there was controversy about the supposed competition between Callas and Renata Tebaldi, an Italian spinto soprano lyrics. The contrast between the often unconventional and often unconventional vocals of Callas's vocals and the thick Thickdi's modern sounds evokes an argument that is as old as the opera itself, that is, the beauty of sound versus expressive voice usage.
In 1951, Tebaldi and Maria Callas were jointly booked for a vocal event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although the singers agree that will not do the encore, Tebaldi takes two, and Callas is reportedly angry. This incident began the competition, which reached its peak in the mid-1950s, sometimes even struck the two women themselves, said by their more fanatical followers to engage in verbal chat in their own direction. Tebaldi was quoted as saying, "I have one thing Callas does not have: heart" while Callas is quoted in Time magazine which says that comparing it to Tebaldi is like "comparing Champagne with Cognac, No, with Coca Cola." , the witness at the interview stated that Callas only said "champagne with cognac", and it was a sarcastic audience, "No, with Coca-Cola", but the Time reporter linked the last comment with Callas.
But according to John Ardoin, these two singers should never be compared. Tebaldi was trained by Carmen Melis, a famous vergia specialist, and she is rooted at the start of a 20th century Italian school singing just as strongly as Callas which is rooted in a 19th century canto bell. Callas is a dramatic soprano, while Tebaldi considers himself a soprano of lyrics. Callas and Tebaldi are generally singing
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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