callas_assoluta_amazonI 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 from ArtHaus Musik. Arguably the most documented and analyzed of singers, Callas features in at least seven other documentaries. Her life story has been told many times – her childhood in New York, her move back to Greece as a teenager, her studies with Elvira Hidalgo, her estrangement from her mother, etc.

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.

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