MARIA CALLAS - The Bellini Opera Collection - PABX052

Callas's first full Bellini opera - her second for EMI - another musical milestone

Her first La Scala recording given the full Pristine XR remastering treatment to sound stunning

The year 1953 was a phenomenally busy one in the studio for Maria Callas. The previous September had seen her first opera recording. 1953 saw Lucia di Lammermoor (January & February), I Puritani (March), Cavalleria Rusticana (April & August), Tosca (August), and La Traviata (September) all recorded by EMI. The middle three were recorded at La Scala in Milan, where Callas was to record the majority of her major opera recordings, with the present recording being the first of these.

As was typical of the day, the voices were dry and the orchestra somewhat boxy and wooden in sound quality, generating a sound which was relatively clean and clear but not particularly flattering to any of the musicians. Furthermore the lower end was somewhat feeble, leaving the lower male voice sounding a little pale; overall the sound was flat and one-dimensional. This XR-remastering, best heard in its Ambient Stereo version, tackles all of these shortcomings; whilst of course the recording remains central and mono, a sense of reality and space is opened up around voices and and orchestra we can truly believe in. The singers - both soloists and chorus - are immediate and very much alive in front of the listener, and the orchestra's tone is full and clear, shedding any hint of boxiness

Careful analysis or residual hum suggests an orchestral pitch of around A4=447Hz, which has been adopted here.

Andrew Rose

For those wishing to hear Maria Callas singing one of her greatest roles, that of Norma in Bellini’s opera of the same name, and one of the first major roles to bring her to international attention, there are two options in her catalogue of studio recordings: the present recording, made in Milan in 1954 with Serafin at the podium, and the 1960 remake with the same conductor and venue, but a different supporting cast.

Each has its adherents, and each has both its big pluses and its big minuses. In the case of the later recording (Pristine PACO 215), the recording was made in stereo, the support cast is much stronger, but the Callas voice is generally regarded as some way past its best.

For the present, 1954 recording, we have Callas at her very peak, but in a stodgy mono recording with a cast which often leaves plenty to be desired. In a review which expressed overall disappointment with the recording, The Gramophone’s Phillip Hope-Wallace, in November 1954, wrote: “So, finally what about Callas, which some people would say, and perhaps rightly, is all that really matters in considering Norma? As I have suggested, where it is a question of musicianship and of dramatic interpretation and coloration of the voice she is quite magnificent, her phrasing has an etched quality, she is at once a great dramatic artist and great singer in the way that Frida Leider was. The musicianship of her Casta Diva leaves most of the versions I know as non-starters, the glissando passages in the cabaletta “Deh bello a me ritorna” shortly afterwards are breathtaking, Norma’s anguish when she finds out that she is betrayed, the reproachful dignity and biting scorn of her scenes with the wretched Pollione and her hieratic magnanimity in dealing with her rival—all these are truly wonderful. She also makes you hear the music for the first time (an overworked description no doubt, but a quality not otherwise easy to describe).”

Nearly half a century later, in 2002, the verdict is similar from Gramophone’s John Steane: “The first [Norma], from 1954, comes to life only when Callas sings. Serafín disappoints in this .. . Nicola Rossi-Lemeni as Oroveso is allowed to sing off­-pitch, and Mario Filippeschi as Pollione sings his role from start to finish as though marked senza espressione . Then comes Callas, and the effect is immediate.

The fascination of this intensely personal, affectionate ‘Casta diva’ is coupled with admiration for a technique which makes her able to do the right thing - the reiterated high As, for example, are not achieved by means of a ‘lift’ and are also not smoothed out (as often happens) into a single continuous note. The fioriture are exquisite - but not so the last note of all, the sustained high F which is perilous in the extreme. Wonders abound in the cabaletta; she leaves, and on comes Ebe Stignani, the Adalgisa. At Covent Garden, as I remember, the sheer beauty of her voice (after Callas’s) was enough to make everybody sit up; on record, the immediate gratitude gives way very quickly to the realisation that we are back in the realm of the blandly inexpressive. And so it continues until Callas’s next appearance, and so on throughout the opera. If the last disc in this set (Act 2) could be issued separately it would perhaps constitute the prime recommendation of all, for here is the great role sung by the great artist at a time when the voice still matched the art.”

The only respite thus far would come in 2014 with this aside, again in Gramophone: “Hearing afresh that 1954 Norma in ‘Maria Callas Remastered’ I can’t help thinking that it was the frailty of the LP format that was 80 per cent of the problem”.

While I’m not sure that this Pristine Ambient XR remaster – or any other – will ever be able to work sufficient magic on certain aspects of this recording, for those whose primary interest is in the remarkable instrument that Maria Callas had at her disposal, it has to surely be an essential release. Multiple sonic veils have been lifted from the original recording, and if there is regret that the source material is what it is, there is delight in being able to shine a brighter, warmer light on it than perhaps ever before.

Andrew Rose

"Many readers will have listened to La Sonnambula broadcast from Edinburgh, with the same Amina, Elvino and Rodolfo. The first thing to be said is that La Divina is in far better voice on this recording than she was in Scotland. There she was tired (between recordingLa Sonnambula and singing it on the stage she recorded Manon Lescaut, and then Turandot, which may perhaps have had something to do with it). The première had uneasy moments, and by the third performance, which was broadcast, almost every sustained note around about G started to crack and collapse. This does not happen in the set; there we hear the Amina which for two seasons has delighted audiences at La Scala, and very wonderful it is. The voice is not perfect. There are once or twice hints of that second note underlying and sullying the proper one. There are sharp, wobbly notes (the final one of “Come per me sereno”, for example). But there is also much exquisitely beautiful singing—lovely tone, movingly tender phrasing, gloriously delicate and virtuosic moments such as at some upward arpeggios in “Sovra il sen ”.

I have used the words “spellbinding and sublime art” about Callas’s interpretation of the role. It is very intricate, and fired by poetic intellect. I should like to quote Felice Romani, the librettist of the opera, on the subject of his heroine, for all that he says is relevant to Callas’s performance: “The role of Amina” he wrote, “although it may seem at first sight easy to play, is perhaps more difficult than many others deemed more important. It calls for an actress who is playful, ingenuous and innocent, and at the same time passionate, impetuous and affectionate; who has one cry for joy and another for sorrow, different timbres for reproof and for pleading; who displays in every movement, in every glance, every sigh, a certain stylisation mixed with realism such as we find in some paintings by Albani and certain of Theocritus' idylls”.

Thus, said Romani, did Giuditta Pasta create the role . . . and thus does Maria Callas perform it. I need hardly point out how strikingly she colours every phrase, note and word. After a couple of playings, almost every line of recitative sticks in the mind with the exact colour and expression that she gives to it; “Compagne, teneri amici”, before “Come per me”; “Il cor soitano”, the only dowry she brings Elvino ; “Qui! perchi? ”, filled with terror and amazement as she wakes in the Count’s bedroom; “Alt ! il mio anello”, the cry which wrings our hearts as much as Brünnhilde’s shriek, and far more affectingly, when the ring is torn from her finger. Sooner or later I shall have to brave the comparison with Pagliughi, so let me plunge in here to remark that Pagliughi sings “Qul! perchi?” with far less character, yet is touchingly beautiful all the same; but that her “Ah! il mio anelio ” goes for fairly little; that she is much less passionate and moving in her pleading with Elvino in the forest scene.

Pagliughi is far more the “playful, ingenuous and innocent” heroine only. I love her performance. The beautiful thread of tone, the notes dropped sweetly and truly into place, afford a kind of pleasure that Callas cannot provide. Her phrasing of “Come per me”, though less intricate than Callas's, is also extremely beautiful. I can’t quite define why Callas’s “Ah, non credea” should strike me as less than satisfying; perhaps the timbre is too strongly coloured for the line of the music. “Ah, non giunge” is relatively unaffecting because simple gaiety is not something that this soprano can easily express. Welling, interior, almost unbearable joy, yes, but not bright, clear happiness. Pagliughi is deliciously bouncy in this final aria; Callas turns it into a rather self-conscious and excessively elaborate display. The second verse can take a lot of decoration (Pagliughi sings only Bellini’s notes—yet how attractively), but the embellishments must sound fresh, not, as here, laboured.

Romani also said that the singing of the role should be “at once simple and adorned, spontaneous and perfectly judged, finished but without showing the signs of study”. Between them, but not separately, Callas and Pagliughi embody his perfect heroine. It is Pagliughi who has the cry for joy—every time she sings the word “gioia”, which comes often, she gives it a little joyous inflexion, particularly in the final “Oh gioia” of her awakening, marked by Bellini con un pianto di contento—but Callas who has the cry for sorrow: listen to her tone as she starts the quartet “D’un pensiero” at the end of Act 1.

The concerted numbers go well in the new set, especially the two soprano/tenor duets of Act 1, with limpid sixths in the second verse of “Prendi, Panel” and fascinating phrasing of the lovely “Son geloso del zeffiro”. Monti’s voice has been stepped up a little by the engineers to sound more robust than it does in life. He is a smooth, reliable, well-tuned and tasteful singer, though a much less interesting artist than Tagliavini, whose interpretation seems more personal, and more deeply felt. Zaccaria too is reliable, though here not in the Siepi class: the divine melody of “Vi ravviso” counts for much more in the Cetra set, and Siepi shows far more imagination in his utterance of the beautiful verses which lead into it. Ratti’s Lisa is delightful, and Cossotto brings a lovely firm voice to the part of Teresa, though she tends to sing too loudly. Norberto Mola’s Scala choir is outstanding in the chorus describing the fantasma, and also in the one where the villagers creep into the Count’s bedroom, only to be surprised by finding a girl asleep on the bed..."

A.P. The Gramophone, 1957

This recording is unusual in that it was only the second time that Maria Callas recorded an opera with the La Scala company for EMI that was made in the Basilica di Sant'Eufemia, a late 19th century church in Milan. Ironically the previous time this location was used - normally recordings were made during the summer 'off-season' in the Teatro Alla Scala - was for a previous Bellini recording, Norma, from 1953, both recorded in mid-March at a time when, I assume, the opera house was unavailable.

As a result of this unusual acoustic, especially for opera (normally churches and opera houses are at the opposite ends of the spectrum when considering natural reverberation within the space), this remaster proved more than usually tricky. It is unfortunate also, at a time where stereo discs were only a year or so away and, in the US at least, stereo tapes were already outselling their cheaper mono versions, that EMI stuck with mono recording - despite the success of their previous outing in London with Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia (PACO191).

This Ambient Stereo remaster therefore aims to manage two things at once - both to enhance and "fix" the sound of the original recording, and to place it in the more acoustically appropriate space of one of the world's great opera houses. I hope you will find success on both fronts.

Andrew Rose

“On balance, too, I should choose the new Columbia Norma in perference to the same company's still available 1954 set which also has Callas and Serafin with the Scala chorus and orchestra. The recording is far better, and so are the men: Corelli gives us a likeable Pollione more than a little reminiscent of Lauri-Volpi, and Zaccaria contributes a sound, if not very distinguished, High Priest. Though I always long to hear a lyrical soprano as Adalgisa, I greatly took to Christa Ludwig's performance, which was thoroughly Italian (in the good sense of that adjective), with shapely phrasing and firm attack.

Of course, Callas herself is the heart of the matter, and I do not see how it can be denied that her vocal (as opposed to interpretative) powers show here a certain decline. For a long time her sustained upper notes have resembled a slow trill; now they often are that. From countless examples I select one, the high A flat at the end of the first recitative, just before "Casta Diva". If someone were to put the stylus down, without previous warning or explanation, on this note, and if we did not at once recognise the timbre, we should conclude that (perhaps for demonstration purposes) as part of a singing lesson, someone was executing a shake at an unusually slow rate. Much the same thing happens to almost every long-held note above the stave, and often to E's and F's also.

Below, the tone is usually veiled, seldom beautiful or pure in the abstract, but often fascinating in context. Though I cannot help wilting under those huge high tremolos, I come in the end to admire and almost to love the lower regions of Mme Callas's voice because of the incomparable art, now richer than ever, with which it is deployed. There are refinements and subtleties (for instance, the sudden piano on the phrase "pei tuoi figli" in Norma's plea to Pollione) which come closer to the world of some great Lieder singer–a Gerhardt, even – than to that of Italian opera as we know it today. Of the same order is her exquisite fining-off and shading away at the end of many phrases and cadences: for instance, in the first two phrases of "Deh non volermi vittime" in the Finale, or in the "Mira, o Norma" duet with Adalgisa. This opening scene of Act 2 is indeed the high water mark, artistically, of the whole set.”

“The Gramophone and the Voice” – Desmond Shawe-Taylor, The Gramophone, January 1962

Maria Callas recorded her first opera in Italy in September 1952. Eight years later she recorded an opera for the last time at La Scala, her career as a recording soloist in full-length works almost over. Two more recordings were to follow – both recorded in Paris in the mid-sixties with Georges Prêtre conducting – and were received with mixed reviews. (Her 1964 Carmen was liked by The Gramophone, her Toscaof 1965, the last Callas opera recording, was not.)

It seems incredible today that such a stellar career in the studio was so short-lived. But as the article quoted here suggests, her voice was starting to fail her, and despite her ever-greater artistry as a performing singer in opera, clearly her producers were ready to move on.

A golden age of opera recording, which had needed the new technology of long-playing records for its success, was reaching a curious place, one where instead of continuing to explore the operatic repertoire, artists like Callas were being asked to re-record in stereo works that they’d only recorded a very few years earlier in mono. Certainly the sound was better here in 1960 than it had been in 1954, but given the high expense of buying a set of LPs such as those of an opera that runs for at the time – the cost of the three long-playing discs, including sales taxes in the UK, was over £170 – nearly $220US – in today’s money.

Despite the great leap forward in sound quality, there is still room for improvement. I find some of the stereo positioning of the voices less than convincing, and alas right now I’m unable to do much about this, but the overall sound in this XR remaster is now much fuller and richer than in the original EMI, bringing a welcome added depth to the entire production.

Andrew Rose