Love, without music
I need to state right off the bat that I have never been one to worship at the altar of Maria Callas. While I can acknowledge her greatness, there are many other singers whom I prefer in the Bel Canto repertoire.
So I was skeptical when I began watching Callas Assoluta
I was hoping to hear wonderful music, but no single scene or aria is allowed to play in its entirety. Even the famous Tosca scene in which she kills Scarpia is only played in brief excerpt.
All of her well-known roles are represented, but the included book doesn’t list what the excerpts are or from what year. That information is listed in the final credits but scroll by at a such a fast clip, I had to keep rewinding to read them all. What I did find fascinating was all of the photos of Callas as a child and young adult.
Technically, the DVD is a mess. Several scenes either stalled the first time and then played, or stalled permanently and then jumped to the next scene. The English narration is atrocious. Two examples jumped out at me. In one, the word “epitome” is pronounced with a long o and no final e, and in the other, recounting the incident when Covent Garden management came to plead with her to show up for a fourth Tosca after she canceled the first three, the narrator says she “relinquished,” when it should be “relented.” Furthermore, despite the fact that the film was made in 2007, there is no Dolby sound.
There is one musical moment that tantalizes, however. In 1952, she sang Konstanze (in Italian) and there is a brief excerpt of “Marten aller Arten.”
If you know nothing about Callas, this might be a good introduction, but there are so many better documentaries about her that I’d skip this one.
La Cieca welcomes Our Own Sanford to our stable of reviewers.
Thanks Stanford, i was thinking about this DVD. Now I know….
Callas never had a “perfect” voice. She was always a singing actress not a singer who also acted. But if you saw her when she was in her prime, the experience was unforgettable and unique. I heard her do I Puritani and Butterfly in Chicago in 1955?/56?. Even when she was not singing, just sitting or standing while someone else did, your eyes were on her such was her charisma.
Can someone please recommend one or two of the seven documentaries alluded to in Sanford’s review? Thanks.
Thanks Sanford – think I’ll skip this particular DVD.
What do you think of her Puccini and Mozart? These are not Bel Canto and I like her in both – depsite a remark from her regarding Mozart which caused ructions.
As for the Bel Canto repertoire: having tuned into a BBC Radio 3 documentary some years back, I am sorry to have missed out on her live Lucia.
i only ever liked her as kundry
Sanford, I love your grammar bitching.
“In one, the word “epitome” is pronounced with a long o and no final e, and in the other, recounting the incident when Covent Garden management came to plead with her to show up for a fourth Tosca after she canceled the first three, the narrator says she “relinquished,” when it should be “relented.””
is there a British English pronunciation of “epitome” that differs from ours?
midispiacemolto: Using the word in a sentence, “Dame Jo’s Médée, in crisply declaimed English, is generally recognized as the epitome of tragédie lyrique.”
is your sentence missing a clause?
i meant the pronunciation, and I don’t see your point.
Thanks, Sanford. Very informative review.
I really like these contributor reviews. A great idea, La Cieca.