Maria Callas

Let us listen to Signora Gina Guandalini once more...

...Memorials and studies on the woman are announced still, much in the sense that they occur continuously, whilst the balance on the artist appears now to be closed. The unmistakable interpretive vocal stamp left on all one type of operas, and precisely on the Italian serious operas or Italianate ones, from Gluck to the rewriting of the Verdian Macbeth (1865), constitutes a shining legacy left by Callas which is heavily binding on all the interpreters of today. Since Callas, we must admit we have not had authentically enthusiastic performances of Alceste, Medea, Armida, Il Pirata or Gioconda, although we have to refer to the “after Callas” period as one of the most shining as far as female singing goes since the middle of last century. Callas has changed our tastes. The passion for the central register of the male voice, on which the Caruso's, Titta Ruffo's and Gigli's myths were based, has disappeared, leaving in its place the desire to listen to female voices which are especially daring in the lowest and highest notes, as the phenomenon Sutherland and Horne prove. Forty years ago, these two sublime singers would not have thought of exploring the pre-Verdi repertoire with the authority and resounding results which we know.

Thus, the sense of saturation in regards to the repertoires of late 1800, 1900 and the consequent, enormous interest for the 1700 are apart from the fact that Callas did not have operas of 1700 in her repertoire except for the two operas by Gluck, Orfeo by Haydn and Il Ratto dal Serraglio. The increase of interest has been progressive and inevitable. At this point, it may be curious to see which operas did Callas refuse during her career: if the interest is obvious for The Consul by Menotti, Troilus and Cressida by Walton, Mourning becomes Elektra by Marvin David Levy and Vanessa by Barber, the clear-cut refusal concerning The Queen of the Night by Mozart, the three roles in The Tales of Hoffmann, Donna Anna, Semiramide and Dejanira in Hercules by Haendel (proposed by Beecham) has the taste of a great and lost occasion for those who have regard for Callas. There is then an interesting group of projects referred to during varied interviews but never actuated: we refer to Zazà by Leoncavallo with Gobbi, the Requiem by Verdi entertained for a long time (from 1953 to 1969), Ernani and Francesca da Rimini mentioned to William Weaver as two certainties for the 1956-1957 season at la Scala ( there were, as we know, Sonnambula, Anna Bolena and Ifigenia in Tauride) and, lastly, a Moses intended for la Scala during that crucial season of 1957-1958. But when, during an interview in 1961, Callas tried to justify her own melodramatic silence with the hopeless search for a score which could have renewed the triumphs of Anna Bolena and Il Pirata, we know that it was an excuse. The field of action extended beyond the eye, from Monteverdi to Mercadante but the “internal motor”, that is, the desire to carry on besides a “body” of an elastic and integral voice, was amiss.

Gina Guandalini