voce, voce, voce
“I think that there will be an increased desire in the future to hear great singing again. Certain operas rise and fall on having the requisite vocal chops, and no degree of theatrical energy or physical glamor can replace this.” So says is IMG Artists Vice President and Artist Manager Matthew A. Horner (known affectionately around these parts as “Little Matthew”) in an interview just published on the arts marketing blog Life’s a Pitch.
Herr Schmidt has been drawing horrified reviews for years on the Continent.
What a scandal that a fine young British artist like Ashley Stafford wasn’t hired in the first place!
Sanford, it is by no means certain that Callas’s weight loss negatively impacted on her voice. If I think of some of her most spectacular, famous, revered recordings, I think of the 55 Trav, the 55 Lucia, the 57 Anna Bolena and the 57 (I think) Ballo – all happened after she became very slim, and all find her in remarkably secure voice. I don’t think of the 49 Nabucco or the rather overblown Aidas from the early 50s, although let me just say that I am a huge fan and do of course find much to admire in these earlier recordings.
I would speculate that the primary 3 reasons for Callas’s vocal decline were the fact that she debuted in heavy repertoire very young, the irresponsible early juxtaposition of widely different repertoire, much of which she could do amazingly but ultimately wasn’t suited to, and her own insecurities and personal hang-ups which caused some kind of crisis of confidence and aggravated the pre-existing vocal issues. I could be wrong too – it is of course all conjecture, but the answer is in any case more complex than the fact that she dropped a lot of weight.
I once read an interview with Caballe in which she said she sang the Queen of the Night to her teacher in the conservatoire. Her teacher said sure, you can do it, but it isn’t right for you. I wish somebody had said that to Callas about her attempts at very high, light coloratura repertoire, as well as the Turandot/Abigaille/Brunnhilde type things she took on. Who knows what would have been the outcome, but I reckon we’d have had more of her for longer.
On the other hand, I rather wish Dame Joan had taken on the Empress in Solti’s recording of Die Frau ohne Schatten, as was mooted at one stage, and cut short a few more years of Bolenas and Borgias…
Another shot in the foot, Vicar: ANY baritone would have been better than Andreas Schmidt on this occasion.
It lies a little high, but I think Tomlinson would have done wonderful things with Schmidt’s part
Callas lost too much weight too fast.
She sang what she could sing, to work period, at first, then after the feat of I Puritani and Walkure, she could do what she wanted, which was pretty much bel canto in the true callas scala years.
Just at the thinnest period she started running out of rep and did Ballo, Don Carlo, and rep that was not bel canto. Kindly remember that Pasta, Malibran and Patti all began singing at 14 under Garcia, famed vocal god, and lasted well into their early fifties singing. Melba well into her sixties, and Tetrazzini past that. Bel canto and prodigious amounts of performance.
Scaramuccio – too bad you don’t like Korngold and think his music is so “overblown” you have to keep saying it.
Fact is, some of will never agree with you- and that’s fine- different strokes for different folks. I’d rather sit through 20 performances of “DTS” than one Fidelio or Peter Grimmes.
Is Peter Grimmes the fairytale version (coming this Holiday season from Julie Taymor)?
I agree with Cocky Kurwenal on Callas here. Giulietta Simionato herself has said that the heavy repertory Callas sang from her earliest years (Santuzza and Tosca for two; I believe she sang Santuzza while still a conservatory student) did actual physical damage to her in the long term, resulting in the audible “wobble” heard on some high notes. . . And as for the coloratura roles, I remember thinking while watching an interview with Elvira de Hidalgo, Callas’s teacher, that Callas had a deep-seated need, I think, to overcome obstacles that seemed impossible. Look what she did with herself. In essence she transformed herself from a “pachyderm” (per Rescigno) into Audrey Hepburn . . . de Hidalgo said (among other things) that Callas would always try to sing the highest notes, and essentially to compete with other students who could sing higher and faster than she herself could. . .she was born with that huge dark voice, but became preoccupied (obsessed?) with the challenge of subjugating that voice to her will so that it would sing the coloratura repertory.
As a soprano, I really can’t listen to Callas, because her (singing) voice just sounds painful to me – even in her early recordings her voice sounds stretched; I don’t believe her weight loss had any effect on it. (And she never was what I would really call “fat” anyway.) Perhaps the weight loss was a way to reinvent herself, given the vocal problems already evident at the time.
Or better, we might even take her at her word, that she did it for theatrical reasons, as other posters have said they’ve done above.