MARIA CALLAS Arias, Vol. 1: Puccini & Verdi (1954, 1958) - PACO225

Pristine producer Andrew Rose has here combined two of Maria Callas’ greatest studio recital recordings, remastering the Puccini into Ambient Stereo and contributing a perceptive, eloquent and affectionate note of his own emphasising Callas’ unique ability to inhabit and animate an operatic role.

For my own part, if I wish to introduce anyone to Callas’s special gifts, I invariably turn to her mesmerising embodiment of Lady Macbeth, featured here in the second half of this programme, to which I make frequent exceptional references in my survey of the major recordings of Macbeth . My first task, however, on reviewing this disc, was to make a sonic comparison between this new release and the two discs in the Warner “big box” La Divina Maria Callas in all her roles ( review ). Being out of copyright, these recitals have been re-issued on various labels, major and minor, and multiply reviewed both on the archive MWI website and elsewhere, but it makes sense to go to the later incarnations of the source recordings. So let me say right away that there is simply no comparison between the two: the Warner remastering sounds thin, hissy, disembodied and distant; with Pristine’s transformation of it into Ambient Stereo, Callas steps forward into focus and we are swept away by the richness of both the sound and the artistry. This Pristine issue, then, is worth it purely for the enhancement of the Puccini recital.

The Verdi album was of course always in superior stereo sound so its transformation here will inevitably be less striking – but once again, there is much more space around the voice and if some slight ambient hiss remains, that is an indication of Andrew Rose’s reluctance to be too interventionist in his re-engineering. As with the Puccini, there is no doubt in my mind that this renovation of the sound is a bonus; I am really quite mystified by anyone who dislikes what he does to augment the listener’s pleasure.

It really is quite astonishing to reflect on the age of these recordings – as I write, nearly seventy-one years in the case of the Puccini and sixty-seven for the Verdi arias– and on how they still form a benchmark for so many opera lovers. Some critics have made much of the supposed wobble and deterioration in Callas’ soprano, manifested even as early as 1954, directly after her dramatic weight loss, but the occasional flaw of that nature is as nothing compared with the vocal and interpretative prowess Callas harnesses in every aria.

She was perhaps temperamentally better suited to portraying Verdi’s mostly stronger women than Puccini’s perpetual victims – and indeed she never performed any of these Puccini roles on stage except for the occasional radio broadcast and concert aria – but then we remember that two of her most celebrated recorded roles were the naïve, lovestruck Gilda and the feisty Tosca which rather reverse my generalisation– so she definitely had the range.

The opening aria from Manon Lescaut displays several of Callas’ great gifts to perfection: her legato, her deployment of heart-breaking portamenti , her command of dynamics and her acuity with text. Alongside such an abundance of vocal prowess some slight pulse on top notes is a negligible blemish. For the second aria from that opera, she darkens her timbre and exploits the trenchancy of her lower register to intensify the drama of the plight of the dying Manon, lost in the desert. Her Mimì and Laura are delicately and lyrically delineated yet they did not form part of her stage repertoire. She is ineffably touching in “Donde lieta uscì” and her voice expands magnificently for the climax of the aria before defaulting into the tenderness of “Addio senza rancor”. She even manages to suggest something of the wiliness of the spoilt little girl in the famous, sentimental Gianni Schicchi aria. The two arias from Madama Butterfly – yet another role she did not perform but recorded in full with Karajan – see her less inclined to play the deceived teenager than to depict a woman of courage and resolve. Turandot as Ice Princess might seem more Callas’ bag but the contrast between the sweetness and yearning in her voice in Liù’s “Signore ascolta” and the power and imperiousness of her Turandot is striking, affirming her versatility. Nonetheless, while she hardly makes Turandot a Shrinking Violet, she does render her more human and even sympathetic than many a more leather-lunged exponent of that killer role.

Just as Turandot might seem to be more truly within her Fach as a dramatic soprano, the Verdi items play to her strengths, even if by 1958 a little more vocal frailty had crept in – but she is still in great voice. Unlike the Puccini operas, Nabucco and Macbeth and featured within her stage repertoire but both only once, relatively early in 1949 and 1952 respectively. A studio recording of Macbeth with Gobbi never got off the ground, so we are left with a live performance in poor sound with Macbeth sung by Mascherini, who is estimable but not Tito and these three arias, which have become benchmark recordings for all Ladies since. Just Callas’ spoken delivery of Macbeth’s letter preceding the aria proper is an object lesson in dramatic stagecraft and what follows is a tour de force. She is chilling, domineering, yet her vocal recklessness is always suggestive of a certain hysteria, a loss of control precipitating her mental breakdown. Just as Serafin was her ideal accompanist for the Puccini arias, Rescigno – her preferred conductor in the late 50s – is wholly sympathetic and idiomatic, finding exactly the right tempo for each aria, while even the great de Sabata, for example, is too fast in the sleepwalking scene. The orchestral introduction with its whining woodwind and growling lower strings is so atmospheric and Callas’ plaintive chant and sudden plunges into her lower register are captivating – just the way she repeatedly enunciates the word “immaginar” in “Chi poteva in quel vegliardo/Tanto sangue immaginar?” (Whoever could have imagined so much blood in that old man?) is gripping. This encapsulates the greatness of Callas the dramatic tragedienne singer and Pristine’s revitalisation allows us to hear it even more vividly. The last, pulsed, top D flat caps one of the greatest recordings I know.

After such an embarras de richesses the two subsequent arias could be anticlimactic – but in them Callas displays the same command. Abigaille is scarcely less unhinged than Lady Macbeth and Callas throws herself into the wild octave leaps of the introduction with the same abandon, before singing the central cantilena section with a seamless sweetness.

After such almost exhausting pyrotechnical displays of dramatic intensity, the Ernani aria is like a welcome bonus, the opera being one of the most consistently melodic in Verdi’s earlier output. Callas despatches its lilting waltz and tripping cabaletta with such musicality – and indeed ease. If you don’t have this music and love Callas’ voice, acquire this – and even if you do, you might still want it for its much enhanced sound.

Ralph Moore
MusicWeb International