London Album Discography, Part 1: London LL-1 Main Series (1949-1958) By David Edwards, Patrice Eyries, Mike Callahan, Randy Watts and Tim Neely. Non avrei mai creduto di non dover pi. E sono rimasto orgoglioso di aver. Mdi ensemble e Ensemble da camera de laVerdi Soprano Donatienne Michel-Dansac Piano Luca Ieracitano Conductor Emilio Pomarico. Giancarlo Giannini Giancarlo Giannini (La Spezia, 1. In carriera ha interpretato un'ampia gamma di. Puccini: Tosca / Molinari-Pradelli, Tebaldi, Del Monaco Release Date: 04/30/1991 Label: London/Decca Grand Opera Series Catalog #: 411871. Callas’s status as a cultural icon endures 90 years after her birth, with the lasting legacy of La Divina. The gods who looked down on Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria. Maria Callas: The Ultimate Diva. The gods who looked down on Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulou must have been a diverse bunch. We may guess at there being tutelary deities from her homeland, Greece. Given her regular success in the title roles of Cherubini. Whoever they were, they created an artist and a woman who epitomised, in her short life (1. Yet, in both a life and career full of apparent contradictions, she appeared to try to live to the full the words of that opera. Adored by the masses on stage and on record, where she role- played the greatest romances of all time, Callas was a lonely individual who never found a satisfactory love interest of her own. Crushes on attractive young colleagues who turned out not to be so interested (Leonard Bernstein, Franco Corelli) were interspersed with longer relationships with older men . A dumpy, overweight young girl as her career started, Callas transformed herself, in 1. A workaholic from her first childhood singing lessons in New York to her last private rehearsals for Beethoven! As may be seen from the two films of Act II of Tosca (still the only extended examples to emerge showing her in a full operatic performance) she was an athletic singing- actress, an imaginative . But the dramatic soprano who had started singing Turandot, A. As we shall soon see, the sobriquet . The Divina of legend . But behind the scenes, there was more to the story. The prime motivator of Callas. This was sheer hard work on the music . A little later she auditioned at the city! De Hidalgo recalled the aspiring singer. This included work on trills, chest tones, passagework, chromatic runs, an extension reaching to a high E natural and legato (Callas. Her first appearance in Tosca Act I was almost thwarted by drama in the wings: a run- in with the husband of the embittered, replaced soprano Remoundou, who had sent him to prevent the young upstart making it to the stage. Later, watching Callas rehearse in Fidelio, it was Remoundou who asked, . With Serafin, Callas went on at first to sing Turandot, Aida, Br. His grasp of repertoire compelled him to look beyond contemporary vocal stereotypes. In the 2. 0th century so far the bel canto roles of Donizetti, Bellini or Rossini had been taken generally by light coloratura voices like that of de Hidalgo; productions became showcases for vocal agility rather than serious music drama. Callas, thought Serafin, could bring to these works a heavier voice that took all their agilt. With Serafin she studied the role of Norma (which she debuted in Florence, November 1. January at Venice. Callas would uncover once more the sheer drama of bel canto parts like Bellini. This was the very quality . The timbre is basically darkly hued and has the power to cut through full orchestration in exclamatory sections, but includes great agility in the filigreed bel canto style and can be manipulated to sing at any dynamic level at any register. She realised the value of the text; she possessed a natural musical instinct, and an immense knowledge; and on the stage she had a radiance which reflected every mood and movement. Using the widest variety of vocal colours and effects, she transformed Una voce poco fa into a visceral reflection of Rosina. In the introduction to Ardoin. She had three hundred. Every role she portrayed had a special voice, and within that particular timbre she would constantly change colours to convey the message of the composer. How can you do this with only a beautiful voice? This went for the theatrical side of her performances as well. Verdi was always thinking drama first, whatever the resulting difficulties and apparent inconsistencies for his soprano interpreter.) Before Callas, there were Violettas who could act the emotional drama of the girl with the camellias and those who could tackle the florid singing required in Act I. Callas did both, from an Ah, fors! Morir si giovine. Callas. Meneghini offered the young diva the security to pursue a career she had neither the funds nor representation to manage on her own. Then, while preparing to sing Cherubini. With a new ease about her body language came a hypnotic use of facial expression. Callas now began to appear on the fashion as well as the arts pages, the very opposite of the cartoon . She also started to want to move in circles other than Meneghini. Callas now had rivals (Joan Sutherland and Renata Scotto were two of her younger colleagues now in the same repertoire frame), increasing vocal problems and the added pressure of an escalating social schedule eating into her stage and concert engagements. She began to cancel performances and put off learning new roles. Then, in the summer of 1. Callas, who had worked unceasingly for a decade, believed that she had found love and fulfillment as a woman at the point when she was seeking an escape from the pressures of her career. As conductor Carlo Maria Giulini wrote sympathetically after her death (and echoing again the words of Vissi d. The attractions of high life and society were open to her, and it was impossible to reconcile the two ways of life. But who can blame here? She had dedicated herself to art, and now she wanted to enjoy life. However, it was impossible to achieve a 1. That, in a way, was the tragedy of Maria Callas. Retreating into the studio, she returned to music as her consolation. For the microphone you have to tone it down. But she did give a number of concerts . Callas threw herself into this relatively behind- closed- doors process almost up until her death. Sometimes, as in the unpublished 1. London Philips sessions on Verdi/ Donizetti duets with Giuseppe di Stefano, she used the recording process . Here is a woman, in one sense the most modern of women, but there lives in her an ancient woman . As Lord Harewood wrote: . She drove colleagues and managements almost as hard as she drove herself, and she played safe over nothing except in her insistence on meticulous rehearsal. With her heroic attack and bravura, she raised vocal pyrotechnics to a new level of expression, at least in our times, and yet her vocal method was never technically secure. Her performances, at least in Italy, amounted to little short of battles and her attitude towards the public was more like a matador. Perhaps these paradoxes were a product of the inner struggle which allowed ?
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