How I wish we had videos of her at this point, when she was singing with complete confidence and control. By the time they begin she is vocally compromised, and is careful and/or uncomfortable looking, as in that concert where she wraps her arms around herself for support.
Hearing this concert, I've always asked myself if, at 3'45", the conductor decided suddenly to take a nap !? Callas is obliged to wake him up, shaking up the tempo to give to this fabulous music all its potential. De Fabriitis really was not at the same level as De Sabata or Serafin.
You are right, many people click like just at the sight of the name Callas without listening. They have heard Norma or Lucia and do not recognize any other singer, not because they have listened to others, but because they have been told that Callas is the greatest singer of all times and nations. It's a cult. Something similar happens with Netrebko in more recent times, but it's really laughable.
Never a soprano or singer in "recorded" history of the gramophone has this ability to sing virtually anything for the female voice or any other-and with this excitement and genius
Each musical phrase Callas sings is like a nuclear bomb of emotions never delivered before or after her reigning days. She is the Imortal Queen of Opera.
This the strongest evidence that the Greek Gods really existed. No mere mortal can produce these sounds. Let’s forget the concrete solid technique, the musicality, the genius interpretations and just focus on the voice… The range, the titanic volume that does not diminish from the top of the range to the bottom, the contralto chest, the massive top. If you described what she does here to anyone, they would not believe it. My God, it is almost impossible to believe when you hear it. She is truly Divine!!
miraculous........................i have never heard such amazing voice production and i have been teaching voice for 50 years................its close to supernatural
Listen around 4.00 and then skip to around 31.00. Two different voices - amazing! And both on the same day, in the same program no less! The normal human singing voice simply can't do this. But then whoever said that Callas had a 'normal' voice? Sorry Founding Fathers, all people are clearly not created equal. So unfair.
She’s so smart, to warm up and focus the voice she starts off the concert with something nice and light like Macbeth & Nabucco then follows it up with a nice and easy little lullaby like Lucia’s mad scene and ends it all with the calm and vocally less complex Lakme. Piece of cake. 😂😂😂😂
Wow! switching from Lady MacBeth & Abigaile to Lakme & Lucia, all arias performed superbly. If these are from the 18 February 1952 event then Callas was 28 years old. Such a programme isn't for the faint of heart and probably not good advice for any young singer. Callas was a fearless woman who at age 23 sang Gioconda at the Verona Arena, and went on to sing at La Fenice Isolde at age 24 , Die Walküre's Brünnhilde and Turandot at 25. She first sang Abigaile (Nabucco) at age 26 at Teatro di San Carlo
Imagine what a pathetic deplorable person one have to be in order to reply negatively to people in RU-vid comments admiring brilliant musical performances. Think about it.
I used to have all of Callas’ operas and concerts on CD including this one. Now it amazes me (I’m 42 a little old) that ALL of her music is completely available on Spotify and online. When I think of how much money I spent back in the day on operas and recital cds, my goodness! I paid $52 for her Norma complete opera alone and that was over 20 years ago! I love Maria Callas and I’m so happy so many new young people love her as well! Love your channel. ❤️🎵👍🏻
@@unclelouie3828 🤣 I only had a few records of my own when i was a kid in the early 80s. But my dad had record albums of course. I love the technology we have today but i miss the old days too!
@@angelfish1470 I know exactly what you mean! And to me, you are part of "the new young people" who now love her! Lol! (I'm 66, and have loved La Divina since I was 14!) Never got to see her in a live performance, sadly. But she has remained my all time favorite singer all these years, and I too am so glad for all these new young people (including yourself) who are also learning to love her! It does my heart well!
These were the romantic days, visiting classical record stores and listened the whole week to the record you bought. I had all Wagner opera's on vinyl, these were the most expensive ones.......
@@franzleiermann4955 And, maybe it's just me, but there just seemed to be something about listening to this great music on vinyl that made it even that much more special and memorable. Even though I rarely have the opportunity to listen to vinyl records now, I would still rather listen to that than with the newer digital technology. Even though the sound of the new technology is amazing, there's just something about vinyl.... Ah, the good ol' days! 🙂
Che bello.Maria leggere tanto entusiasmo e amore per il tuo canto anche dopo tanti anni che non sei piu qui e da tanta gente che non ti ha mai sentito quando eri ancora con noi.....ti fanno rivivere!
sensational electrifying vocal pyrotechnics................the one and only maria callas.........who never stinted and gave 100 percent of herself every time..................rest in peace with the angels
This is the famous Torino concert in early 1952; she was 28 years old. Absolutely stunning, no singer in living memory can do what she does here, even if the high E in the Bell Song is slightly screamed. For all those who say she was lacking in voice: listen to this people, THEN compare her incomparable musicianship, range, stamina and technique to all "the others". Later during that year of marvels would come the stunning Florence Armida, the third and final Mexican season (her first stage Lucias, her only Gildas), the Covent Garden Norma, the Scala opening with Lady Macbeth. The young Callas (1949-53) was without peer vocally. She is fearless here, burning her as yet untarnished Assoluta instrument so we poor mortals may gasp in wonder more than 70 years later. Brava La Divina!
There's a lot of singers who can be called force of nature. The list can start from Birgit Nilsson, Ghena Dimitrova and goes on with the male singers as Mario del Monaco, Giulio Neri, Boris Christoff and so on. But non of them did what she did. Such a spectacular instrument she had.
This is the voice of a soul laid bare to the music and enriching it with passion and drama. No one has ever done this like Callas. It's stupid to compare her to other sopranos because she created something uniquely her own.
Thank you a million times for sharing this ....... There are those who loved and still love Maria Callas without question ...... there are those who detested her for various reasons including those who pettily noted her vocal imperfections. Personally I have listened to both in person and on records/cds etc dozens of opera singers in my life. There are those who Thrill my ears and spirit, there are those who delight with joy and surprise my heart and ears. BUT there is no one, NO ONE who does to my entire being what Callas does from her first notes. When I was quite young and knew only her Prima Donna Diva reputation but not her voice I was given something to watch and listen to of Maria Callas in concert 1959. She overpowered my eyes and ears with something that still grips me until today. She sings with her entire being and I feel it. Her voice, interpretations and Art almost always takes my breath away, no matter what she sings. Her voice takes me on a journey which runs through my entire body. It feels other worldly. I lament that she threw her life and career away over deceptive emotions and led astray by illusions and false people. Her psychological vulnerability attracted destructive people into her life and she could not discern between positive and negative influences. She wanted to be immortal and also mortal at the same time. It was not possible. To be Maria Callas meant to not have the life of an average woman. La Callas was a Comet that streaked across our heavens for a brief time and then passed beyond. Fortunately we have her recordings where she will live as long as music and humanity continue to exist.
POUR MOI C EST CETTE PÀTE HUMAINE CETTE FRAGILITÉ QUI FAISAIT D ELLE LA FEMME LA VIE QUI NOURRISSAIT SA TECHNIQUE ET QUI LA RENDAIT À NULLE AUTRE PAREILLE EXCEPTIONNELLE VIVANTE ENCORE AUJOURD HUI !!!! LES PLUS BELLES HISTOIRES SONT TRAGIQUES HELAS !!!... MERCI MARIA ❤🤩🤗🤗🤗 GRAND MERCI DE TRANSMETTRE CES VIDEO MAGISTRALES EXCEPTIONNELLES 🤩🤗
Love your post. Opera changed my life, but Callas transformed it. When one is confronted with her later limitations it is performances like these that needs to orient us. The horizons of her Greatness are unfathomably vast when we stand on this unreachable peak in performance. The Awestruck remains dumbstruck at such endless eloquence. That Grandiloquence found its ever constricting abode in the Throat that did that and so much more and yet even as it was choked ever more cruelly, the profundity of its transcendence actually GREW! This is a Greatness that requires a new language.
Not heard anyone match Callas as Lady MacBeth. Shakespeare himself could not have imagined anyone more suitable. You can hear the steely determination in her voice, the ruthlessness. It’s amazing.
Mein Gott, Sie brennt, brennt , mehr noch - sie verbrennt sich, nie wieder wird es eine solche Callas geben, Chapeau, Chapeau !!!! She , Greatest for ever !!!!!
Man kann wohl kaum einen größeren Unterschied zweier Stars ihrer Zeit nehmen als den zwischen Callas und Netrebko. Die eine, da haben Sie recht, brennt für die Kunst, die andere lediglich für ihr Ego. Dass Menschen freiwillig für diesen mittelmäßigen Kram so viel Geld bezahlen zeigt aber auch, dass ein Verständnis für gute Stimmen scheinbar verloren gegangen ist, weil ja inzwischen jeder, der ein C länger als 2 Sekunden halten kann, zum Star erklärt wird. Und wenn man sich dann mal traut zu sagen, dass eine Lise Davidsen weder ein dramatischer Sopran ist, noch überhaupt technisch versiert genug für das, was sie singt, dann wird man gesteinigt. Nee, ich habe keine Lust mehr auf das alles und gehe nicht mehr ins Opernhaus. Ich habs lange genug getan und genossen.
Here we have a tour de force from one of the truly greatest opera singers of all times with a display of sheer vocal magic and perfect vocal phrasing, rubato and pathos! What a perfectly splendrous artistic smorgasbord in every sense of the word!
Thank you immensely for this gem of gems! Words fail me. The grandeur in everything, technique, interpretation. Opera HAS tremendous legacy and here is one of its instances
Nessuno al mondo potrà veramente capire quello che questa donna a Donato alla lirica non ci sono abbastanza aggettivi per sublimarla quanto manca al mondo che ama l opera
The timbre, the resonance, the overtones, the voice is so full, it's like a contralto, a mezo and a soprano combined, massive chest production that just doesn't diminish when going up. Wow, Maria. I am not even talking about volume, projection and clarity. Impossible
This is what the old THIS IS OPERA channel kept talking about. The GROUNDING of ALL voices in Chest, and the coordination of low larynx, lifted soft palate, a free tongue, and singing bright vowels in a dark space. It's all there, in equal measure in early Callas. And it's not damaging. It's utilizing the voice as God created it, and the old masters taught. Our age is completely bereft of ANY good singing, precisely because Opera is NOT TV or the Movies. It MUST resonate in a big, non-amplified hall with voices of this size and an orchestra handled by a real Conductor, not some weak, effeminate 'coach.'
@@moirbasso7051 so true!!!!!!! Also about the conductors. For me, the free tonque is the greatest challenge. If not free, it totally blocks everything. But you made a summary I shall keep it mind further on. Thank you!
@@moirbasso7051 Effeminate coach? What does that have to do with anything??! Anyone who likes Queen Jeremy and squeals "all the good singers are deal bla bla bla" has no credibility.
@@baritonebynight You standing up for the disgusting "Jack Metz" types that would rather run around the pianos chasing men, than teach good vocal technique? Who's Jeremy? sorry, drew a blank, bub. And yes, the sodomite quotient HAS destroyed opera and bel canto, with their 'Konzept' productions and disconnected genderless sounds.
I am Ingram Anderson from South Africa. At 87 I look back to a kid of 12 with his first grammophone and Caruso's Vesti la Giubba. I still have a wind up player with its flared tin horn and use thorn needles to play my complete collection of Caruso 78s. Met the inimitable Rosa Ponselle in Baltimore when I was at Hopkins on a fellowship. We heard Callas in one Of her last performances of Tosca at the old Met. What wondrous days those were. I am enamoured of the Callas sound especially those LPs of her early period. Prefer that LP sound to the brutal scientific and emotionless digital sound of today in spite of all its other attributes. Sentimentality perhaps. But also for the true warmth of the human presence those vinyls captured.Only science is perfect. True art like that of Callas is not and that is what makes it transcendent
Magnifica veramente, la sua voce fa vibrare lo stomaco perché ti coinvolge interamente.Nessuna ha mai cantato come lei con questa potenza e duttilità al tempo stesso. Che dire , una meraviglia!
@@manuelemasini5888 continui a fare l’hater in tutti i commenti ma nomi non ne fai. Dicci pure perché siamo curiosi di sapere chi ritieni superiore alla Callas. Così giusto per farci due risate.
I wish more could hear the technique , security, & unusual beauty of Callas‘ voice during this time. She could sing virtually any role she chose to perform then. Her phenomenal expressiveness was growing more each day it seemed & virtually no wobble in her instrument then at all. I only heard her LIVE once & although it was during her ill fated tour of 1974 she was still able to deliver her special magic in the Voi lo sapete, O Mama.
Indeed, if memory serves the wobble showed up around 1954 right after her weight loss then it almost disappeared in 1956 and reappeared worse in 1957 not leaving again unfortunetely, yet I recognize she managed to deliver beautiful performances throughout those late years IMHO
@@Paulofibonelli I think that the wobble was intermittent prior to 1959 (after Onassis had entered her life). Thereafter it got progressively worse until no note above around A-flat was wobble-free when sung in full voice. Artistically she remained supreme.
@@Paulofibonelli You're correct. The wobble was first heard at the end of Senza Mamma in the Puccini recital, and when she recorded Forza, it had already become hard to manage (that's where the famous story of Callas and Schwarzkopf trading high notes and poking each other in the sides at the La Scala restaurant comes in). In the book, "The Early Callas," they speak about a tendency to wobble even in the Greek years, but she was able to keep it under control with her technique and incredible breath support. My theory is that the rapid 80 pound weight loss affected her breath support. She herself said later on that "I lost strength in my diaphragm." The loss of the previous solid breath support is also something that Phyllis Curtin first noted some 40 years ago, and more recently Fleming also brought it up, both pointing to footage the available footage of Callas. Sutherland also noted that after the weight loss, her body seemed too frail to support the sound she was used to making. We can certainly hear a difference between '53 and '54, with the voice becoming thinner, losing its plushness and fullness, and becoming more strident on top. To my ears, it sounded like she began using vocal positions with were higher and lighter, and less contralto-ish, and perhaps this also had something to do with the perception of her self as a newly slim and glamorous woman (I don't say beautiful, because I thought she was beautiful even when she was heavier). Her voice certainly could no longer take the pressure it took to sing the heaviest roles, something you can hear well on the 1958 recording of the scene from Nabucco (First Verdi recital). Critics would even write things such as ""There were sounds fearfully uncontrolled, forced beyond the too-slim singer's present capacity to support or sustain." So people noticed it even as it was happening. Walter Legge wrote that near the end of her life, he would often find her listening to her early pirated recordings. On the one hand, she would dismiss herself as "singing like a wild cat," and on the other hand, she would tell him that she was trying to get back to the "vocal positions" she was using back then.
I agree with everyone here. There is a before and after weight loss. But I wonder if singing Lakmé and MACBETH at the same time is a good choice. You can be an assolutta , but not during the same concert
Era splendida, fantastica, sublime!!!! Irraggiungibile da qualsiasi altra cantante mai esistita!!!! Nell'ascoltare la Sua voce, ho i brividi lungo la schiena!!!!! MAGNIFICA MARIA CALLAS!!!!💖💖💖💘💘💘🌸🌸🌸🌺🌺🌺🌹🌹🌹⚘⚘⚘
COULDN'T YOU STOP (AND ALL OF THSOE DOING THIS ) PUTTING HEARTS, CATS, WHATEVER, LIKE YOU WERE A TEENAGER ON TIKTOK! TRY THE WRITE A PROPER TEXT TO EXPRESS YOUR ADMIRATION BUT PLEASE STOP THESE CHILDISH POSTS!
@@bodiloto e una Rosa ponselle non valeva un quarto di altre tre o Quattro cantanti della sua generazione. Il Che faceva 12 Callas Poi fate un pó quel Che volete ognuno ascolta quello Che vuole
Il "Tempo" di vieni t'affretta e' lentissimo, un tempo che ucciderebbe qualsiasi soprano, la Callas invece si trova a pienpo agio e realizza un'interpretazione da manuale.
Veramemente ne conosco almeno una 50ina che con un tempo simile non sono morte. Magari anche con dinâmiche piu interessanti e certamente con un timbro piu omogeneo e gradevole
Me too, I remember listening to her for the first time when I was around 15, she was singing Sempre Libera from la Traviata, I was imediatelly fascinated by her voice
The voice of the pre-weight-loss Callas was absolutely outstanding. She was both an extraordinary vocal athlete and consummate artist beyond all measure.
Grazie a Marx per il video, ma grazie sopratutto a Maria, che tanto insegna e tanto dona cantando. A parte il programma concertistico spericolato che solo lei poteva offrire, finalmente una Lakmè con spessore e dramma nel colore della voce, invece del solito piattume. Thanks Marx for posting the video, but above all thanks to Maria for her great teaching, and the plenty of sound and soul she puts when singing whatever piece. The concert program is hard, conforming to her art and her attitude, and at last a dramatic Lakmè especially when compared to too often flat performances both before and after her. Thank you!
Callas era portentosa, unos registros inigualables, cantaba con el alma y el sentimiento, evocaba emocion pura y grandísima interpretando en los escenarios . Bravisima!!!
Credo che queste registrazioni risalgano a prima della famosa dieta che cambio` totalmente l'aspetto fisico dell'Artista, ma forse influi` sulla sua voce che qui appare molto piu` potente e pastosa di quanto non siamo abituati a sentirla negli anni seguenti... Senza nulls togliere alla sua forza espressiva che mantenne e forse addirittura migliorò per sopperire alla perdita, per quanto poco evidente fosse alle orecchie di un comune ascoltatore.
strongly agree. callas was not human. she was a phenomenon. was there anything she did not sing as if presenting the prime example for everyone to follow after her? a goddess from another galaxy yes!
Revient maria! Per touti! Helliniqui fini. Les plus belles voix sont en Grèce, l on apprend à chanter en italie! Ce propos est d elvira de hildalgo je crois. Vaporis.
I wish I could have attended this concert live. She must have sounded so magical and powerful live. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ nobody will ever be as perfect as Maria. She is my absolute number one. She had the voice of God coming out of her. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
L’opera intera venne rappresentata in maniera più lucida alla Scala qualche mese dopo, anche la cavalletta di Lady in cui Maria fu capace di inserire ancor più di furia ed elettricità.
In questo stupefacente concerto possiamo apprezzare l'eccezionale qualità del canto di Maria Callas. Il suo canto nella cavatina del Macbeth è straordinariamente incisivo, l'aria si conclude con una cadenza brillante che sale fino a un ottimo DO acuto. La Divina offre un'interpretazione imponente, di notevole forza ascensionale, alla fine della cabaletta sale a spirale a uno squillante SI acuto.
She made her North American debut in Chicago. She sang La Traviata and her Alfredo was the great Canadian tenor Leopold Simoneau. He told me that her intensity onstage frightened him so much he could hardly sing!
Potrò dire che Callas ha una perfetta messa di voce, che le agilità sono straordinarie per una voce cosi grossa, che la collocazione, il fraseggio, lo slancio .... sono eccellente, che la estensione e inverosimile, etc. etc. etc., ma solo dirò "cágate lorito", che e un espressione popolare de Madrid, mia città, che vuol dire tutto insieme. Grazie Maria
I have this Record since 20 y. Wrapped in Red Velvet. I love this very FRONTAL SINGING! She is just attacking every tone within thé Cords, as a Man would and should do! A Grand Magnificent INSTRUMENT!
Megismételhetetlen...A brilliánsan szárnyaló hang...mely a lélek mélységeit is be tudja mutatni... Soha nem lesz még egy ilyen CSODA...BRAVISSIMO drága Maria Callas! Köszönjük a CSODÁT!
Acuñe la frase "esta mujer es un milagro" y no puedo expresar nada más ante su perfección Divina. Gracia y buenas noches Marx. Saludos desde Santiago, Chile. Dr.Fernando Rivas-Burattini. 🤝👏👏🎼🎼🙏✝️🙏🇨🇱🇨🇱.
Concuerdo con usted Dr. Y el milagro se repite aún a tantos años de su muerte. Era única e irrepetible. Saludos cordiales de un mexicano radicando en Uruguay.
@@latinoamericanasas3722 Buenas tardes don Luis. Que gusto y agradecimiento por su comentario. Buscaré la publicación que menciona en RRSS. Saludos cordiales de un chileno que ama México " lindo y querido". Tengo familiares directos en CDMX. Dr.Fernando Rivas-Burattini. 🤝🙏✝️🎼🎼🇨🇱🇨🇱🇲🇽🇲🇽.
