A Callas Fanboy Continues His Journey

 

As a child I was forever wondering what grown-ups meant whenever they spoke of "fleeting time."  Flash forward more than half a century and I think I'm closer to understanding.  When Maria Callas died on this day, September 16, in 1977. I was 17 years old.  It was a pivotal, transitional year: Although I left home at 13 for boarding school there were still summers home, but at 17 I knew I was leaving for good to study music at a university over 600 miles away from my parents. In many ways this was the most transformative year I was to ever experience.  It seems almost unfathomable forty-six years have passed.  Fleeting time?  63 now, I well understand that phrase.

Over the course of those ensuing years I became one of those "kooks" who collected pretty much Callas’ entire recorded legacy - studio and live - with barely a day having gone by where I've not spent listened to, and thinking about, the singer whose impact on my life was enormous, musically and otherwise. I've done the same with Bach for even longer, so there IS precedent.

Growing older, I became more aware of her flaws, but not one deterred me from believing that, for me, Maria Callas was the consummate singer.  What she was able to do, the characters she could create from the page of the score, and bring them all so brilliantly, so vividly to life, despite those flaws, or even perhaps because of them, made these characters so remarkably real, so utterly human.  Her ability, craft, sourcery, call it what you will, only deepened and made even greater, my appreciation for that truly sui generis artistry.

It was, of course my absolute good luck and privilege that during these years that the internet "happened," and because of it, through it there was the revelation of discoveries of things almost previously unimaginable:  details of student recitals, a more complete look at her training in Athens, those youthful, crazy roles which eventually helped a career that seemed propelled almost as if by a rocket. 

One of the most amazing things was discovering the published programs from her Athens Conservatory days, recitals and concerts from the earliest part of her professional career, and so much more. I ate it all up, spending days upon days digging through all of the archival material I could lay my hands and eyes on. It was dizzying, endlessly fascinating, teasing a smile onto my face, imagining her as Suor Angelica, or singing a wild, dizzying array of arias, songs and scenes none of us - certainly not me -had ever associated with "Maria Callas" with the likes of Rameau, Vaughan Williams ("On Wenlock Edge" with string quartet!), Mozart, Rossini, Brahms, Handel.  I tried to imagine what that young voice may have sounded like in Thaïs' "Dis-moi que je suis belle," or how she closed a concert belting out Landon Ronald's classic, "Love, I have won you!"  Even reading all of this, seeing the documentation, it proved difficult to believe. 

With Callas I can't help but imagine the roles that got away . . . those"almost" roles.  The oune that grabbed me the most was the Greek National Opera's plan to open the 1944 season with the Company's first, Wagner: "Der fliegende Holländer," with the 21 year old Maria (who'd already starred as Tosca there) cast as Senta.  This was to be followed by “Fedora," a role she would sing at La Scala over a dozen years later).  Callas learned these roles, but the company was forced to cancel the entire first half of the season because of the Athens Civil Disturbance.  When it reopened, it was with Maria as Marta in a revival of “Tiefland.”

Before long there came the Walküre Brünnhilde, Isolde, Kundry, Gioconda, Turandot, Aida all segueing towards the bel canto and Verdi (and Toscas) that would define most of her career.  All of this shot into her role as one of the greatest, most talked about, and absolutely controversial stars in the operatic firmament. That controversy "great or not" is still part of what she is remembered for.  It seems fitting.  

After the best years of her career were over, and years of semi-retirement there came projects turned down, offers, and rumors of offers for even more interesting choices no one would would have ever associated Callas with:  a"Salome" with von Karajan; another role debut as "Melisande" for the Paris Opera; Charlotte in "Werther"; Ottavia in "Poppea”; Valentine in "Les Huguenots”. Then, there was Sir Rudolf's "peace offering": a return to the Met in a double bill starring as Elle in Poulenc's "La Voix Humaine," followed by the mime role as the great seductress Potiphar’s Wife with Rudolf Nureyev as Joseph in Strauss’ “Josephslegende.”  Of course, not one of these would come to fruition, most seeming downright improbable and at best, unlikely, yet still that does not diminish one iota the fascinating possibilities in considering what one, or all of these, might have been like had they happened.

Throughout the years since her passing, I've grown up, and learned to love and appreciate countless other singers, but the simple truth remains:  Not one has meant as much to me, has moved me more deeply, or quite broken my heart than La Divina.  Her artistry has been a part of my life from almost the very beginning and, along with a few other major influences like Bernstein or Bach, has shaped the very way I listen to and approach music, how I think about it and the powerful role it has played every day of my life.  For her part in all of this, I can only say, grazie, Maria. Grazie.