Reflections on Callas: Celebrating 100 Years

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On Dec. 2, opera lovers around the world will celebrate the centennial of Maria Callas’s birth. Over the course of a remarkable career marred by scandal and curtailed by health problems, the Greek soprano stunned audiences with her seemingly limitless vocal ability and revolutionized the standards for modern singing. To mark her centenary, we asked some of Canada’s great sopranos and mezzo-sopranos, along with our La Scena team and readers, to share their reflections on La Divina.

What is your favourite Callas recording?

Sondra Radvanovksy, soprano: Tosca from London. It is truly amazing! She was in top form vocally and her acting was iconic in that run of performances.

Simone McIntosh, mezzo-soprano: “Una voce poco fa.” When I was in secondary school, my mom gave me two CDs that helped change the direction of my studies: a Bartoli solo album and Opera’s 100 Greatest Hits. On the hits album, I found Callas’s version of “Una voce poco fa” which I listened to on repeat! I loved her singing and she was one of the inspirations that led me to go into opera. This season, I’m debuting the role from this recording.

Jennifer Maines, soprano: Tosca from Covent Garden in 1964 because she was nearing the end of her career on stage. Her voice, body language, and demeanour has all of the anguish, tenderness, love given and love lost, hope, and despair that a lifetime on the stage and a turbulent private life could produce. Her voice is perhaps not as “clean” or “pure” as it had been in 1953 but it’s such an emotional, raw, and authentic performance that it still gives me goose bumps every time I watch or listen to it. Her artistry was never—and can never—be cloned.

Othalie Graham, soprano: The “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde recorded for CETRA on Nov. 8, 1949. The beauty of her voice, the legato and phrasing is incredible. Even though she sings this Wagner aria in Italian, it’s absolutely sublime.

Justin Bernard, La Scena team member: The suicide aria from La Gioconda de Ponchielli (1952). This aria resonates with Callas’s life, which was marked by suffering and numerous tragedies. Her death was even tainted by a suspicion of suicide. Moreover, it is an aria that she chose to perform at her farewell concert in London in 1973.

Bridget Esler, La Scena team member: My mind goes to the 1953 recording of Tosca made at La Scala. It is iconic for good reason: made in record-breaking Milanese summer heat, under the perfectionist demands of producer Walter Legge, with Callas at the peak of her commanding vocal powers.

Pierre Couture, La Scena reader: It was only when I listened to the full recording of Carmen—recorded long past her vocal prime—that I fully comprehended her value as a singing actress where every syllable of every word counts. In her prime, with all her vocal powers, the sheer intensity of the instrument, her legendary acting abilities, her mesmerizing figure on stage—she must have delivered unforgettable operatic experiences. Very often with her, it was not so much what the voice sounded like but what she could achieve with her voice, even in those historically valuable performances past her vocal prime.

Jean Clermont-Drolet, La Scena reader:
La Traviata at La Scala in 1955. It was Callas at her best, surrounded by excellent singers who matched her level, with an orchestra conducted by Giulini.

Gerd Helssen, La Scena reader: Tosca from 1953 with Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, and Victor de Sabata. The secret of her singing lies in the fact that it is suffered and sufferable.

Gianmarco Segato: La gioconda, 1952 Cetra recording. This is the first of Callas’s two complete La gioconda sets, recorded only a few years after she made her Italian debut in the role at Arena di Verona. At this stage of her career, she was still in full command of her instrument whose amplitude and refinement are ideally suited to the considerable vocal and dramatic demands of this iconic role.

What is your favourite story about Callas?

Othalie Graham: My favourite anecdote is Callas’s curtain call at La Scala. Her eyesight was very bad but she could hear that heavy things were being thrown on the stage. She bent down and gathered them up. Turns out, they were radishes and celery thrown by the “anti-Callas” claque. She bent down, picked them up, showed them to the audience, and swept off the stage triumphant with her vegetables.

Jennifer Maines: I love her authenticity in interviews. She never pandered to the interviewer. She expressed her gratitude to her fans and supporters but never lost her genuine authenticity and always seemed to speak her mind.

Justin Bernard: The fact that she was nearsighted and sang onstage without contact lenses, which sometimes led to misunderstandings or colleagues playing tricks on her.

Bridget Esler: In 1955, a famous photo of Callas was snapped backstage at the Lyric Opera of Chicago following a performance of Madama Butterfly. She had just been served papers about a lawsuit being filed against her, and the camera captures her teeth bared in an angry snarl. The photo was published in newspapers the following day, and the press began to refer to her as “the tigress.” While the media interpreted the photograph as a nasty representation of the soprano’s temperamental behaviour, to me it showcases her fiery fierceness in a magnificent way.

Sondra Radvanovsky: Well, legend was that she swallowed a tapeworm to lose weight—which is just silly, now isn’t it?

Gianmarco Segato: “I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not a devil, either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like so to be judged.” Maria Callas

How has Callas influenced you and your work?

Sondra Radvanovsky: Callas, without ever meeting her or seeing her in person, became my idol because of her dedication to her art, her voice, and constantly pushing herself to sing her roles. She was not one to shy away from making an ugly sound if the text and character called for it.

Othalie Graham: Maria Callas spent a great deal of time as a student of Elvira de Hidalgo listening to other singers’ lessons. I love to listen to other singers’ voice lessons and coachings. I think that you learn so much by listening to others.

Simone McIntosh: When watching her videos, one can turn off the sound and yet every bit of expression comes through her eyes. Even more, her voice is a flow of the internal being. She possessed an uninhabited freedom of communication that I wish I could have witnessed live. The quality she mastered is, in my opinion, artistry of the highest form. This is what I strive to do in my own work.

Justin Bernard: Callas’s life affects me. Her interviews about being a musician inspire me. I often think to myself that her beauty remains timeless and that she would have been all the rage today on Instagram, more than any pop singer.

Jennifer Maines: I had never considered the importance of interpretation and acting in great detail until a professor at the University of Toronto played us a few videos of Callas while I was there pursuing my Bachelor of Music in Voice performance. One video was her “Vissi d’Arte” from Covent Garden in 1964. My whole perspective of opera changed in that moment. I decided then and there that I no longer wanted to just sing my songs or roles but I wanted to encompass them. She gave me the strength to step out of my comfort zone and become more than just a singer. I think that’s why I’m still singing professionally after 30 years. I offer the whole package and take risks with my voice as Maria Callas often spoke about for herself and for the opera singer.

Gianmarco Segato: She set the standard for all singers who came after her. When I listen to other singers, recorded or live, Callas is always the touchstone in terms of technique and dramatic delivery.

How did Callas change the opera world?

Simone McIntosh: Callas was—and always will be—the diva! I believe she set a standard for what great singing is. Intimacy with the text, highly focused and controlled singing, brilliance, expression, refinement. The more experienced I become in the field, the more I can appreciate how truly great she was.

Jennifer Maines: Maria Callas made opera mainstream. She taught the world, by her example, that opera is drama with music and that one does not exist without the other, but go hand in hand.

Callas Vissi d’Arte, 1964

Othalie Graham: Callas is the greatest opera singer of all time. She was a singing actress with an incredible voice but, more importantly, with an indomitable will. Every word, every phrase, and every gesture had meaning.

Sondra Radvanovsky: She truly was one of a kind, and I am sure no one will ever reach the status that she attained in our world. It was like the perfect situation: she was a true celebrity, in our world and also outside of it, because of her huge personality and larger-than-lifeness.

Pierre Couture: Very often, we refer to the modern world of opera as B.C. and A.C.—meaning Before Callas and After Callas. I honestly believe that she was born 50 years too early. Had she lived during our times with the emphasis on direction and acting, she would have thrived. She lived during the time of the cult of the prima donna, when she was expected to show off the voice and nothing else. I can imagine what she could have achieved nowadays with inspired directors. Already then, in the late 1950s, she was complaining about the Metropolitan Opera only offering her boring old productions. Fortunately, we have an extended legacy of her great roles captured in great sound for posterity.

Jean Clermont-Drolet: Her intense presence during the period when the 33 rpm record was becoming popular facilitated the spread of her talent and encouraged people to find a love for opera.

Justin Bernard: She breathed new life into a genre that was already old in her day. Her finely-tuned ability to embody believable characters, her identity as a prima donna, her charisma, her dramatic acting in which she put her whole soul onto the stage—all of these elements have become a model for young singers to follow and not to follow! (No more last-minute cancellations!)

Bridget Esler: As an early-career soprano myself, I have noticed a trend in which fellow young singers are taking a particularly strong interest in Callas and other legendary singers of the past. Callas set a standard for vocal theatricality and fearlessness that the next generation of opera artists are keen to emulate. She embodies the “golden age” of singing and, with any luck, a new golden age may be upon us soon!

Gianmarco Segato: Callas’s absolute dedication to interpreting what the composer provided in the score, and her creative delivery of text, set the standard for all future singer/actors.