Maria Callas

 

If ever the maxim 'no one is irreplaceable' is trotted out, just think of Maria Callas.

Rudolf Bing thought she believed she was bigger than the Met and so decided to do without her. That was the Met's funeral of course. 

As a callow youth, I thought I was bigger than Callas in a way. One afternoon, my parents said they has a free ticket for the Royal Gala performance of 'Tosca' with Callas at Covent Garden and would I like to come? I declined on the basis that I would have to get dressed up and there would be a whole lot of stuffed-shirts there. What an idiot.

I did get to see Callas though. She sang 'Norma' at the Paris Opera (Salle Garnier in those days) in May1965.  I was working as 'Assistant de langue anglaise' at the Lycee mixte de Libourne, Gironde. 

I took the train to Paris and managed to get a ticket. I had been put off by the 'circus' surrounding Callas. I doubted if her fans knew anything about music or really appreciated who she was. Sure enough when she set foot on stage there was an ovation such as you had never heard before. This lasted throughout the Druids' march and would have gone on all evening had she not put her hands up in a gesture to stop the applause.

What happened next was extraordinary. I had been expecting that she would dominate the stage elbowing all others aside and pushing herself to the front but not a bit of it. She played her role as an integral part of the production. She was a good pertner to all her colleagues.

There is a clip from a performance in this run. You can see the fluidity of her arms and the seriousness of her art. The voice is not what it was but that didn't matter. 

The rest of the cast was not on the same level. How could it be? I remember Charles Craig as Pollione. Today we would be happy to have him in this role but then he was just OK. The surprise was how wonderfully Georges Pretre was in this repertoire. He is not associated with bel-canto opera but he conducted with a Chopin-esque rubato which was impressive and entirely appropriate.

Recently I read about how Jon Vickers didn't want to sing with Callas because he supposed she was a diva and a fraud. However, in their first rehearsal together he realised she was a genius.

Coming from Vickers that is praise indeed and fully merited of course. For sure there will never be another Callas.