Callas–Tebaldi controversy[edit]
From my very first day in Italy, I was controversial,I was Greek- American, very fat and my voice was Outre-Tombe , a voice that came from nowhere but from hell.My rival was Renata Tebaldi , an Italian lyrico spinto soprano, who had the voice of an angel., the say. The contrast between my voice ,with unconventional vocal qualities and Tebaldi's classically beautiful sound resurrected an argument as old as opera itself, namely, beauty of sound versus the expressive use of sound.IT'S LIKE COMPARING A SEXY GIRL WITH ANOTHER ONE THAT IS ONLY PRETTYY WITH AN EMPTY HEAD.
In 1951, Tebaldi and Maria Callas were jointly booked for a vocal recital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although the singers agreed that neither would perform encores, Tebaldi took two, and Callas was reportedly incensed.[50] This incident began the rivalry, which reached a fever pitch in the mid-1950s, at times even engulfing the two women themselves, who were said by their more fanatical followers to have engaged in verbal barbs in each other's direction. Tebaldi was quoted as saying, "I have one thing that Callas doesn't have: a heart"[7] while Callas was quoted inTime magazine as saying that comparing her with Tebaldi was like "comparingChampagne with Cognac. No, with Coca Cola."[51] However, witnesses to the interview stated that Callas only said "champagne with cognac", and it was a bystander who quipped, "No, with Coca-Cola", but the Time reporter attributed the latter comment to Callas.[7]
According to John Ardoin, however, these two singers should never have been compared.[16] Tebaldi was trained byCarmen Melis, a noted verismo specialist, and she was rooted in the early 20th century Italian school of singing just as firmly as Callas was rooted in 19th century bel canto.[16] Callas was a dramatic soprano, whereas Tebaldi considered herself essentially a lyric soprano. Callas and Tebaldi generally sang a different repertoire: in the early years of her career, Callas concentrated on the heavy dramatic soprano roles and later in her career on the bel canto repertoire, whereas Tebaldi concentrated on late Verdi and verismo roles, where her limited upper extension[31] and her lack of a florid technique were not issues.[16] They shared a few roles, including Tosca in Puccini's opera and La Gioconda, which Tebaldi performed only late in her career.
The alleged rivalry aside, Callas made remarks appreciative of Tebaldi, and vice versa. During an interview with Norman Ross in Chicago, Callas said, "I admire Tebaldi's tone; it's beautiful—also some beautiful phrasing. Sometimes, I actually wish I had her voice." Francis Robinson of the Met wrote of an incident in which Tebaldi asked him to recommend a recording of La Gioconda in order to help her learn the role. Being fully aware of the alleged rivalry, he recommended Zinka Milanov's version. A few days later, he went to visit Tebaldi, only to find her sitting by the speakers, listening intently to Callas's recording. She then looked up at him and asked, "Why didn't you tell me Maria's was the best?"[52]
Callas visited Tebaldi after a performance of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Met in 1968, and the two were reunited. In 1978, Tebaldi spoke warmly of her late colleague and summarized this rivalry:
Vocal decline[edit]
Several singers have opined that the heavy roles undertaken in her early years damaged Callas's voice.[46] The mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato, Callas's close friend and frequent colleague, stated that she told Callas that she felt that the early heavy roles led to a weakness in the diaphragm and subsequent difficulty in controlling the upper register.[53]
Louise Caselotti, who worked with Callas in 1946 and 1947, prior to her Italian debut, felt that it was not the heavy roles that hurt Callas's voice, but the lighter ones.[4] Several singers have suggested that Callas's heavy use of the chest voice led to stridency and unsteadiness with the high notes.[46] In his book, Callas's husband Meneghini wrote that Callas suffered an unusually early onset of menopause, which could have affected her voice. Soprano Carol Neblettonce said, "A woman sings with her ovaries—you're only as good as your hormones."[41]
Critic Henry Pleasants has stated that it was a loss of physical strength and breath-support that led to Callas's vocal problems, saying,
In the same vein, Joan Sutherland, who heard Callas throughout the 1950s, said in a BBC interview,
Michael Scott has proposed that Callas's loss of strength and breath support was directly caused by her rapid and progressive weight loss,[10] something that was noted even in her prime. Of her 1958 recital in Chicago, Robert Detmer wrote, "There were sounds fearfully uncontrolled, forced beyond the too-slim singer's present capacity to support or sustain."[18]
Photos and videos of Callas during her heavy era show a very upright posture with the shoulders relaxed and held back. On all videos of Callas from the period after her weight loss, "we watch... the constantly sinking, depressed chest and hear the resulting deterioration".[56] This continual change in posture has been cited as visual proof of a progressive loss of breath support.[10][40]
Commercial and bootleg recordings of Callas from the late 1940s to 1953—the period during which she sang the heaviest dramatic soprano roles—show no decline in the fabric of the voice, no loss in volume and no unsteadiness or shrinkage in the upper register.[19] Of her December 1952 Lady Macbeth—coming after five years of singing the most strenuous dramatic soprano repertoire—Peter Dragadze wrote for Opera, "Callas's voice since last season has improved a great deal, the second passagio on the high B-natural and C has now completely cleared, giving her an equally colored scale from top to bottom."[16] And of her performance of Medea a year later, John Ardoin writes, "The performance displays Callas in as secure and free a voice as she will be found at any point in her career. The many top B's have a brilliant ring, and she handles the treacherous tessitura like an eager thoroughbred."[19]
In recordings from 1954 (immediately after her 80-pound weight loss) and thereafter, "not only would the instrument lose its warmth and become thin and acidulous, but the altitudinous passages would to her no longer come easily."[10] It is also at this time that unsteady top notes first begin to appear.[19] Walter Legge, who produced nearly all of Callas's EMI/Angel recordings, states that Callas "ran into a patch of vocal difficulties as early as 1954": during the recording of La forza del destino, done immediately after the weight loss, the "wobble had become so pronounced" that he told Callas they "would have to give away seasickness pills with every side".[30] There were others, however, who felt that the voice had benefitted from the weight loss. Of her performance of Norma in Chicago in 1954, Claudia Cassidy wrote that "there is a slight unsteadiness in some of the sustained upper notes, but to me her voice is more beautiful in color, more even through the range, than it used to be".[18] And at her performance of the same opera in London in 1957 (her first performance at Covent Garden after the weight loss), critics again felt her voice had changed for the better, that it had now supposedly become a more precise instrument, with a new focus.[18] Many of her most critically acclaimed appearances are from the period 1954–1958 (Norma, La traviata, Sonnambulaand Lucia of 1955, Anna Bolena of 1957, Medea of 1958, to name a few).
Callas's close friend and colleague Tito Gobbi thought that her vocal problems all stemmed from her state of mind:
In support of Gobbi's assertion, a bootleg recording of Callas rehearsing Beethoven's aria "Ah! Perfido" and parts ofVerdi's La forza del destino shortly before her death shows her voice to be in much better shape than much of her 1960s recordings and far healthier than the 1970s concerts with Giuseppe Di Stefano.[19]
Soprano Renée Fleming has stated that videos of Callas in the late 1950s and early 1960s reveal a posture that betrays breath-support problems:
However, writing about Dramatic soprano Deborah Voigt shortly after her 135 weight loss after gastric bypass surgery, music critic Peter G. Davis brings up comparisons with Callas and notes an increasing acidity and thinning in Voigt's voice that recall the changes in Callas's voice after her weight loss:
Voigt herself explained how her dramatic weight loss affected her breathing and breath support:
Callas herself attributed her problems to a loss of confidence brought about by a loss of breath support, even though she does not make the connection between her weight and her breath support. In an April 1977 interview with journalist Philippe Caloni, she stated,
And shortly before her death, Callas confided her own thoughts on her vocal problems to Peter Dragadze:
Whether Callas's vocal decline was due to ill health, early menopause, over-use and abuse of her voice, loss of breath-support, loss of confidence, or weight loss will continue to be debated. Whatever the cause may have been, her singing career was effectively over by age 40, and even at the time of her death at age 53, according to Walter Legge, "she ought still to have been singing magnificently".[30]
Fussi and Paolillo report[edit]
A 2010 study by Italian vocal researchers Franco Fussi and Nico Paolillo revealed Callas was very ill at the time of her death and her illness was related to her vocal deterioration.
According to their findings, presented at the University of Bologna in 2010, Callas had dermatomyositis, a disease that causes a failure of the muscles and tissues, including the larynx. They believe she was showing signs of this disease as early as the 1960s. Fussi and Paolillo cite an initial report by physician Mario Giacovazzo, who in 2002 revealed he had diagnosed Callas with dermatomyositis in 1975. Treatment includes corticosteroids and immunosuppressive agents, which affect heart function. Callas's death from heart failure may have been related to the disease or to the medicine she took for it.
At an event hosted by the journal Il Saggiatore Musicale, Fussi and Paolillo presented documentation showing when and how her voice changed over time. Using modern audio technology, they analyzed live Callas studio recordings from the 1950s through the 1970s, looking for signs of deterioration. Spectrographic analysis showed that she was losing the top half of her range. Fussi observed video recordings in which Callas's posture seemed strained and weakened. He felt that her drastic weight loss in 1954 further contributed to reduced physical support of her voice.
Fussi and Paolillo also examined restored footage of the infamous 1958 Norma "walkout" in Rome, which led to harsh criticism of Callas as a temperamental superstar. By applying spectrographic analysis to film from that night's performance, the researchers observed her voice was tired and she lacked control. She really did have the bronchitis and tracheitis she claimed, and the dermatomyositis was already causing her muscles to deteriorate.[60]
Scandals and later career[edit]
The latter half of Callas's career was marked by a number of scandals. Following a performance of Madama Butterfly in Chicago, Callas was confronted by a process server who handed her papers about a lawsuit brought by Eddy Bagarozy, who claimed he was her agent. Callas was photographed with her mouth turned in a furious snarl. The photo was sent around the world and gave rise to the myth of Callas as a temperamental prima donna and a "Tigress". In 1956, just before her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, Time ran a damaging cover story about Callas, with special attention paid to her difficult relationship with her mother and some unpleasant exchanges between the two.
In 1957, Callas was starring as Amina in La sonnambula at the Edinburgh International Festival with the forces of La Scala. Her contract was for four performances, but due to the great success of the series, La Scala decided to put on a fifth performance. Callas told the La Scala officials that she was physically exhausted and that she had already committed to a previous engagement, a party thrown for her by her friend Elsa Maxwell in Venice. Despite this, La Scala announced a fifth performance, with Callas billed as Amina. Callas refused to stay and went on to Venice. Despite the fact that she had fulfilled her contract, she was accused of walking out on La Scala and the festival. La Scala officials did not defend Callas or inform the press that the additional performance was not approved by Callas. Renata Scotto took over the part, which was the start of her international career.
In January 1958, Callas was to open the Rome Opera House season with Norma, with Italy's president in attendance. The day before the opening night, Callas alerted the management that she was not well and that they should have a standby ready. She was told "No one can double Callas".[13] After being treated by doctors, she felt better on the day of performance and decided to go ahead with the opera.[10] A surviving bootleg recording of the first act reveals Callas sounding ill.[19] Feeling that her voice was slipping away, she felt that she could not complete the performance, and consequently, she cancelled after the first act. She was accused of walking out on the president of Italy in a fit of temperament, and pandemonium broke out. Doctors confirmed that Maria had bronchitis and tracheitis, and the President's wife called to tell her they knew she was sick. However, they made no statements to the media, and the endless stream of press coverage aggravated the situation.[16] A newsreel included file footage of Callas from 1955 sounding well, intimating the footage was of rehearsals for the Rome Norma, with the voiceover narration, "Here she is in rehearsal, sounding perfectly healthy", followed by "If you want to hear Callas, don't get all dressed up. Just go to a rehearsal; she usually stays to the end of those."[61] The scandal became notorious as the "Rome Walkout". Callas brought a lawsuit against the Rome Opera House, but by the time the case was settled thirteen years later and the Rome Opera was found to be at fault for having refused to provide an understudy,[41] Callas's career was already over.
Callas's relationship with La Scala had also started to become strained after the Edinburgh incident, and this effectively severed her major ties with her artistic home. Later in 1958, Callas and Rudolf Bing were in discussion about her season at the Met. She was scheduled to perform in Verdi's La traviata and in Macbeth, two very different operas which almost require totally different singers. Callas and the Met could not reach an agreement, and before the opening of Medea in Dallas, Bing sent a telegram to Callas terminating her contract. Headlines of "Bing Fires Callas" appeared in newspapers around the world.[7] Maestro Nicola Rescigno later recalled, "That night, she came to the theater, looking like an empress: she wore an ermine thing that draped to the floor, and she had every piece of jewellery she ever owned. And she said, 'You all know what's happened. Tonight, for me, is a very difficult night, and I will need the help of every one of you.' Well, she proceeded to give a performance [of Medea] that was historical."[62]
Bing later said that Callas was the most difficult artist he ever worked with, "because she was so much more intelligent. Other artists, you could get around. But Callas you could not get around. She knew exactly what she wanted, and why she wanted it."[13] Despite this, Bing's admiration for Callas never wavered, and in September 1959, he sneaked into La Scalain order to listen to Callas record La Gioconda for EMI.[7] Callas and Bing reconciled in the mid 1960s, and Callas returned to the Met for two performances of Tosca with her friend Tito Gobbi.
In her final years as a singer, she sang in Medea, Norma, and Tosca, most notably her Paris, New York, and London Toscas of January–February 1964, and her last performance on stage, on July 5, 1965, at Covent Garden. A live television transmission of Act 2 of the Covent Garden Tosca of 1964 was broadcast in Britain on February 9, 1964, giving a rare view of Callas in performance and, specifically, of her on-stage collaboration with Tito Gobbi. This has now been preserved on DVD.
In 1969, the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini cast Callas in her only non-operatic acting role, as the Greek mythological character of Medea, in his film by that name. The production was grueling, and according to the account in Ardoin's Callas, the Art and the Life, Callas is said to have fainted after a day of strenuous running back and forth on a mudflat in the sun. The film was not a commercial success, but as Callas's only film appearance, it documents her stage presence.
From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes at the Juilliard School in New York. These classes later formed the basis ofTerrence McNally's 1995 play Master Class. Callas staged a series of joint recitals in Europe in 1973 and in the U.S., South Korea, and Japan in 1974 with the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano. Critically, this was a musical disaster owing to both performers' worn-out voices.[7]However, the tour was an enormous popular success. Audiences thronged to hear the two performers, who had so often appeared together in their prime. Her final public performance was on November 11, 1974, in Sapporo, Japan.
Onassis and the final years[edit]
In 1957, while still married to husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini, Callas was introduced to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis at a party given in her honor by Elsa Maxwell after a performance in Donizetti's Anna Bolena.[10] The affair that followed received much publicity in the popular press, and in November 1959, Callas left her husband. Michael Scott asserts that Onassis was not why Callas largely abandoned her career, but that he offered her a way out of a career that was made increasingly difficult by scandals and by vocal resources that were diminishing at an alarming rate.[10] Franco Zeffirelli, on the other hand, recalls asking Callas in 1963 why she had not practiced her singing, and Callas responding that "I have been trying to fulfill my life as a woman."[13] According to one of her biographers, Nicholas Gage, Callas and Onassis had a child, a boy, who died hours after he was born on March 30, 1960.[63] In his book about his wife, Meneghini states categorically that Maria Callas was unable to bear children.[64] As well, various sources dismiss Gage's claim, as they note that the birth certificates Gage used to prove this "secret child" were issued in 1998, twenty-one years after Callas's death.[65] Still other sources claim that Callas had at least one abortion while involved with Onassis.[66] In 1966, Callas renounced her U.S. citizenship at theAmerican Embassy in Paris, to facilitate the end of her marriage to Meneghini.[4][67] This was because after her renunciation, she was only a Greek citizen, and under Greek law a Greek could only legally marry in a Greek Orthodox church. As she had married in a Roman Catholic church, this divorced her in every country except Italy. The renunciation also helped her finances, as she no longer had to pay US taxes on her income. The relationship ended two years later in 1968, when Onassis left Callas in favor of Jacqueline Kennedy. However, the Onassis family's private secretary, Kiki, writes in her memoir that even while Aristotle was with Jackie, he frequently met up with Maria in Paris, where they resumed what had now become a clandestine affair.[63]
Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris and died at age 53 on September 16, 1977, of a heart attack. A funerary liturgy was held at Agios Stephanos (St. Stephen's) Greek Orthodox Cathedral on rue Georges-Bizet, Paris, on September 20, 1977. She later was cremated at the Père Lachaise Cemetery and her ashes were placed in the columbarium there. After being stolen and later recovered, in the spring of 1979 they were scattered over the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece, according to her wish.
During a 1978 interview, upon being asked "Was it worth it to Maria Callas? She was a lonely, unhappy, often difficult woman," music critic and Callas's friend John Ardoinreplied,
Legacy[edit]
In 1998, a photo of Maria Callas was part of the poster series commissioned by Apple Computer for their "Think different" advertising campaign. Previously she was shown in the commercial.
In late 2004, opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli made what many consider a bizarre claim that Callas may have been murdered by her confidant, Greek pianistVasso Devetzi, in order to gain control of Callas's United States $9,000,000 estate. A more likely explanation is that Callas's death was due to heart failure brought on by (possibly unintentional) overuse of Mandrax (methaqualone), a sleeping aid.
According to biographer Stelios Galatopoulos, Devetzi insinuated herself into Callas's trust and acted virtually as her agent. This claim is corroborated by Iakintha (Jackie) Callas in her book Sisters,[69] wherein she asserts that Devetzi conned Maria out of control of half of her estate, while promising to establish the Maria Callas Foundation to provide scholarships for young singers. After hundreds of thousands of dollars had allegedly vanished, Devetzi finally did establish the foundation.
In 2002, filmmaker Zeffirelli produced and directed a film in Callas's memory. Callas Forever was a highly fictionalized motion picture in which Callas was played by Fanny Ardant. It depicted the last months of Callas's life, when she was seduced into the making of a movie of Carmen, lip-synching to her 1964 recording of that opera.
Terrence McNally's play Master Class, which premiered in 1995, presents Callas as a glamorous, commanding, larger-than-life, caustic, and surprisingly drop-dead funny pedagogue holding a voice master class. Alternately dismayed and impressed by the students who parade before her, she retreats into recollections about the glories of her own life and career, culminating in a monologue about sacrifice taken for art. Several selections of Callas actually singing are played during the recollections.
In 2007, Callas was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In the same year, she was voted the greatest soprano of all time by BBC Music Magazine.
The 30th anniversary of the death of Maria Callas was selected as the main motif for a high value euro collectors' coin: the €10 Greek Maria Callas commemorative coin, minted in 2007. Her image is shown in the obverse of the coin, while on the reverse the National Emblem of Greece with her signature is depicted.
On December 2, 2008, on the 85th anniversary of Callas's birth, a group of Greek and Italian officials unveiled a plaque in her honor at Flower Hospital (now the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center) where she was born. Made of Carrara marble and engraved in Italy, the plaque reads, "Maria Callas was born in this hospital on December 2, 1923. These halls heard for the first time the musical notes of her voice, a voice which has conquered the world. To this great interpreter of universal language of music, with gratitude."[70]
Gus Van Sant's 2008 film Milk features selected recordings of Callas's rendition of Tosca, which, it is suggested, was an opera of which Harvey Milk was particularly fond. Similarly, Jonathan Demme's 1993 movie Philadelphia features a recording by Callas. The 2011 film The Iron Lady, about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, includes a recording of Callas singing Norma's famous aria, "Casta Diva".
In 2012, Callas was voted into Gramophone Magazine's Hall of Fame.[71]
A number of musical artists including Anna Calvi, Linda Ronstadt, Patti Smith and Emmylou Harris have mentioned Callas as a great musical influence,[72][73][74] and some have paid tribute to Callas in their music:
- R.E.M. mention Callas in their song "E-Bow the Letter" from the album New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
- Enigma released the instrumental "Callas Went Away" using samples of Callas's voice, on their 1990 albumMCMXC a.D..
- Buffalo Tom's 2007 album Three Easy Pieces contains the song "C.C. and Callas", which appears to be about songwriter Chris Colbourn's reflections on Callas.
- The Fatima Mansions's 1994 release Lost in the Former West featured the single "The Loyaliser", where a passing reference is made to Callas.
- La Diva, on Celine Dion's 2007 French language album D'elles is about Maria Callas. The track samples the 1956 recording of La bohème.
- Singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright mentions Callas in his song "Beauty Mark", from his album Rufus Wainwright. Rufus is known to be an opera fan, particularly passionate about Callas's work. In an interview to the Spanish newspaper El País, he declared that one of the things anyone should do at least once in a lifetime was to listen to a Maria Callas album after a night out, if possible during sunrise. On Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 show he stated that Lord Harewood's interview of Callas is part of the inspiration for his opera Prima Donna.
- Jason Mraz lists her performance of "O mio babbino caro" as a romantic musical influence for him.[75]
- Her recording of "O mio babbino caro" is also heard in a 2010 UBS commercial featuring unique people from recent history.
- Ben Sollee mentions her in his song "Mute with a Bullhorn."
- The Mountain Goats mention Callas in their song "Horseradish Road" from the album The Coroner's Gambit.
- Tom Stoppard's 1982 play The Real Thing includes the line, 'I was taken once to Covent Garden to hear a woman called Callas in a sort of foreign musical with no dancing which people were donating kidneys to get tickets for... Not even close. That woman would have had a job getting into the top thirty if she was hyped.'
- She can be heard singing selections from Norma at several points in Lorenzo's Oil.
- Google honored Callas on her 90th birthday by showing her in a Doodle on December 2, 2013.[76]
Notable recordings[edit]
All recordings are in mono unless otherwise indicated. Live performances are typically available on multiple labels. In 2014, Callas' label EMI Classics (now Warner Classics) released the Maria Callas Remastered Edition: her complete studio recordings totaling 39 albums in a boxed set remastered at Abbey Road Studios in 24-bit/96 kHz from her original tapes.
- Verdi, Nabucco, conducted by Vittorio Gui, live performance, Napoli, December 20, 1949
- Verdi, Il trovatore, conducted by Guido Picco, live performance, Mexico City, June 20, 1950. In the aria 'D'amor sull'ali rosee', Callas sings Verdi's original high D flat, likewise in her 1951 San Carlo performance.
- Wagner, Parsifal, live performance conducted by Vittorio Gui, RAI Rome, 1950
- Verdi, Il trovatore, live performance conducted by Tullio Serafin, Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1951
- Verdi, Aida, conducted by Oliviero De Fabritiis, live performance, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, July 3, 1951
- Verdi, I vespri siciliani, live performance conducted by Erich Kleiber, Teatro Comunale, Florence, 1951
- Cherubini, Medea, live performance conducted by Vittorio Gui, Teatro Comunale, Florence, 1952
- Ponchielli, La Gioconda, conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for Fonit Cetra, September 1952
- Bellini, Norma, conducted by Vittorio Gui, live performance, Covent Garden, London, November 18, 1952
- Verdi, Macbeth, conducted by Victor de Sabata, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7, 1952
- Verdi Il trovatore, live performance conducted by Votto, La Scala 1953
- Bellini, I puritani, conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, March–April 1953
- Rossini, Armida, live performance, Teatro Comunale, Florence, Serafin, 1952
- Mascagni, Cavalleria rusticana, conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, August 1953
- Puccini, Tosca (Sabata recording), conducted by Victor de Sabata, studio recording for EMI, August 1953.[77]
- Verdi, La traviata, conducted by Gabriele Santini, studio recording for Fonit Cetra, September 1953
- Cherubini, Medea, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 10, 1953
- Leoncavallo, Pagliacci, conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, June 1954
- Rossini, Il turco in Italia, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, studio recording for EMI
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