Maria Callas - Paris 1958
Callas’s Paris debut came relatively late in her career. She sang her first opera in 1939, had her first Italian successes at Verona in 1947, made her South American debut in 1949 and reached La Scala in 1950, London acclaimed her in 1952, Chicago in 1954, Berlin in 1955, Vienna ’56. That same year also saw her long-expected, long-delayed arrival at the Metropolitan, New York, and the next brought her back home to Athens. Venice, Rome, Palermo, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Dallas, Madrid, Lisbon and Edinburgh were other cities to witness the triumphs and controversies of this extraordinary decade. And then at last came Paris: the city she was to make her home and in which she was to die.
In defence (if it was felt to be needed) loyal Parisians might have argued that the point was not that Paris was late, but rather that this first appearance at the Opéra was the final summit, the ultimate conquest, and that the splendour of the occasion in the Palais Garnier on that December night bore witness to the fact. Had any other city given her quite such a magnificent welcome? Where else had the head of state turned out in the pouring rain, with all that was elegant, famous and rich packing the house for a show that played to a whole continent beyond its walls? And then, when she appeared on stage, that slender, stylish figure, in the gown variously described as scarlet and champagne, adorned by a million dollars’ worth of loaned jewellery, descended the staircase and stood before this brilliant audience, was it not exactly the scene of which dreams are made? At the centre of the stage she stood, which at that moment felt like the cultural centre of Europe if not of the world. At the very least it provided a gratifying end to a year which had begun in anger and continued in turbulence.
1958 is still remembered as the year of the Rome walk-out. For Callas, the new year had opened with throat-sprays and panic: the voice had disappeared and Norma loomed. This was to be the opera of the new season’s first night, which would be attended by the President of Italy and his wife; what is more, the performance was to be broadcast and for the part of Norma no understudy or substitute was available.
So Callas sang the first act. At the end came hisses and boos, exacerbated by the high price of seats and the high esteem in which she was known to be held by the scorned Milanese, and she left the theatre. It was also believed that the success of the Adalgisa and Pollione in that act (Miriam Pirazzini and Franco Corelli) had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, no more of Norma was given that night, and after an unusually long interval everybody went home, the President leading the way. Scandal erupted in the morning, and there were demonstrations and even fights. Parliament discussed the matter and newspaper editors wrote leading articles on it. Callas had her defenders, but from that time onwards the legend of the tigress followed her wherever she went.
The spring brought American successes, though they were prefaced by a court hearing and a reprimand from the American Guild of Musical Artists concerning breach of contract in San Francisco. Then there were troubles with mother and Rudolf Bing, triumphs and insults in Milan, a bitter-sweet farewell to La Scala, and a fraught, flawed, but unforgettable Traviata in London. A concert-tour in the States, a brilliant but exhausting Medea in Dallas, an equally wearing and highly publicised contretemps with the Metropolitan, and she was ready to come to Paris.
Another factor was involved too, a more constant and worrying one than any of these individual events. After all, everything finally depended upon the voice. It had gone through hard times: the Isoldes, Briinnhildes and Turandots of earlier years could not fail to have left their mark, and then the exploitation of the top notes in the dazzling and briefly triumphant creation of the dramatic coloratura, all had to be paid for. Even in the prime years culminating, perhaps, in the achievements of 1955, the voice and its production had raised misgivings, quietened only by the genius that so clearly inspired her performances. But Paris had missed her in those years, and the voice which uttered Norma’s rebuke to the warmongering druids was not the sweetest in the world, nor yet the mightiest or firmest. In the ‘Casta diva’ too, there must have been some in the audience who allowed an honest doubt to cross their minds. After the publicity, the scramble for tickets, the dressing-up, the fanfares and guard of honour, was this the voice that launched all that ballyhoo?
Experienced listeners to Callas would not be unduly upset by this kind of experience: it is not unfamiliar, and, as they would know, faith is usually rewarded. At some point, and without having to wait inordinately long for it, would come one of those moments when they would know that this is Callas, uniquely potent in her way with a phrase, a character or an inflection. In the Paris performance the thrill of recognition comes, if not with the first phrase, then with the second - “voci di guerra”, with its tone of command and hint of power in the lower register. In the aria there are those descending chromatic scales, magical as ever; and for the viewer it is fascinating to see how, when chaos threatens with the chorus’s entry in disarray, the smile momentarily freezes on her lips till she signals her own entry with a strong conductor’s downbeat and carries on smiling.
The second recitative, with its pleasing reference to the blood of the Romans, brings her close; but it was really for the Trovatore aria and ‘Miserere’ that Parisians had to wait in order to know for certainty that it was indeed the fabled “impératrice du bel canto” that they had in their midst. For this the lights are lowered. It would be absurd to say that Callas needed a stage, for after all, her recordings were made in a studio and were never studio-bound; but still, a spotlight to her was as sunlight to a flower, and whereas the stage was her natural element she was mysteriously taken out of it when that same stage became a concert platform. Here, in the ‘Miserere’ scene, she is able to enter the night of Leonora’s torment and so to find her way into that desperate, resolute soul who spins such luminous phrases out of her darkened yearnings. The technical perils are evident as she sings, yet so often are surmounted with genuine mastery. Then in the ‘Miserere’ itself, the cry after Manrico’s first solo, “Sento mancarmi”, has thrilling strength and dramatic concentration in it, as has the whole of her singing in the second verse. After that, the smiles and wiles of ‘Una voce poco fa’ might be less than welcome, but here too the mastery conquers. More than an exhibition of brilliant technique, it shows something of the gift that Callas had for comedy, unexpected and sometimes disputed maybe, but as convincing here in its gaiety as the Trovatore had been in its sense of tragedy. These, I think, are the memories to go into store from the first half of that evening’s programme.
After the interval, the second act of Tosca has Callas on stage and in costume. This, with Tito Gobbi playing his unforgettable Scarpia, might have been expected to come as the climax, and perhaps for many it was; yet, bereft of the two outer acts, with their tenderness and quieter lyricism, this brutal scene lays itself open to some over-familiar charges which it can withstand much better in context. Besides, there is always the difficulty of ‘live’ opera filmed: the scale and nature of the acting are gauged for the theatre rather than for the cameras. Even so, it is something to see these two supreme actor-singers of their age appearing together on stage, as they were here, for the first time in this opera. Beside them, Albert Lance, an Australian whose considerable career was Paris-based, has very much the stage-manner of the traditional opera singer. He produces some good, sturdy tone for all that, and his second “Vittoria!” is such a stunner that he relapses for the rest of the part into what for him was the more familiar French (though in fairness it should be added that he was standing in for the much older José Luccioni whose name was printed in the programme and who was said to be “souffrant”). For Gobbi, the vibrancy of his voice impresses at least as much as does the suave malevolence of his characterisation. For Callas, it is good to hear the voice freed, and interesting to see her take the first half of ‘Vissi d'arte’ from the back of the stage. Phrases haunt: the very feminine “non posso pit”, the tearful “Vedi...ecco, vedi”, the sudden thrill of determination in “Si, per sempre”. The face haunts too - those eyes, wide first with scorn, then with horror as the appalling situation becomes clear.
Yes: the Parisians (and Chaplin, Onassis, Brigitte Bardot and the Windsors among them) would have had plenty to mull over. 450 of them were given a splendid supper afterwards: I wonder how much of the conversation there turned upon the cantilena of Norma’s invocation, the mischievous Rosina, the tormented Tosca, the arched phrases of Leonora as she sighs forth her soul outside her lover's prison where monks chant the ‘Miserere’...
© J.B. Steane , 1991. Booklet for the 1080i Blu-ray edition from Warner Classics (825646054122), released on 06 November 2015.
