Extensively thought of the best singing actor in opera historical past, Callas died in 1977 on the age of 53. Now, a number of new releases rejoice each her singing and her appearing.
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. Many critics contemplate soprano Maria Callas the best singing actress within the historical past of opera. She died in 1977 on the age of 53, and this December would mark her a hundredth birthday. Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz says that a number of new releases rejoice each her singing and her appearing. This is Lloyd’s evaluation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MEDEA, ACT 1: ‘DEI TUOI FIGLI LA MADRE’ (MEDEA) [LIVE]”)
MARIA CALLAS: (Singing in Italian).
LLOYD SCHWARTZ, BYLINE: That was Maria Callas in a dwell efficiency at La Scala in 1953, performed by Leonard Bernstein. The opera was Luigi Cherubini’s 1798 “Medea,” a uncared for work during which Callas’ thrilling and complicated efficiency revived new curiosity. The sorceress Medea has been deserted by her lover Jason, the daddy of their two youngsters. Within the aria, she’s each accusing Jason of cruelty and begging him for pity. Who however Callas was able to expressing simultaneous extremes of pathos and rage?
Each her dwell and studio performances of “Medea” are a part of a brand new 135-disc field set simply launched for her a hundredth birthday. The set known as “La Divina: Maria Callas In All Her Roles,” which isn’t 100% correct since no audio appears to exist for Callas in no less than a few her earliest roles. However the set consists of no less than one full recording of every of the operas she made commercially, in addition to dwell performances of operas and live shows, her well-known grasp courses at Juilliard, Blu-rays of her few televised performances and even alternate takes and dealing studio periods launched right here for the very first time. When you’re brand-new to the Callas phenomenon, this gigantic assortment can be one-stop purchasing.
One other well-timed Callas birthday launch is a brand new Blu-ray of her solely film. It is also known as “Medea” and is a part of the Criterion Assortment’s new field set of 9 movies by the highly effective and disturbing Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. His 1969 “Medea” is a really private, political, visceral and violent tackle the identical Euripides tragedy that impressed Cherubini’s extra austere and formal opera. Within the movie, Callas shouldn’t be a lot a classical heroine as a extra primal priestess wallowing in bloody rituals. She would not sing a word, and the music right here has the unoperatic high quality of Center Jap and Jap European folks music.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
SCHWARTZ: Callas’s appearing is overwhelming. Although Medea would not communicate very a lot, Callas’s eyes alone reveal her profound spirituality, sexual turmoil, motherly affection and unbridled need for revenge. When Medea does communicate, she has hair-raising issues to say, which brings me to my one main reservation about this film. Callas and Pasolini evidently liked working collectively, however for some motive he did not appear to love the best way she spoke Italian, despite the fact that she sang most of her operatic roles in Italian, even in operas that have been meant to be sung in German or French, like “Medea.” However in probably the most extensively distributed model of the movie – the one in Italian, which is the one within the new Criterion set – Medea’s talking voice is the voice of Rita Savagnone, an actress who dubbed the Italian voices of such English talking stars as Vanessa Redgrave, Joan Collins, Whoopi Goldberg and Liza Minnelli. A minimum of a model of the movie exists during which Callas truly dubbed her personal voice in English. Right here is Medea praying desperately to her misplaced gods.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “MEDEA”)
CALLAS: (As Medea) Converse to me, Earth. Converse to me, solar. You’re disappearing, by no means to return once more. I can now not hear what you might be saying.
SCHWARTZ: And this is Medea, the tender mom, soothing her two younger sons simply earlier than she’s about to homicide them.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “MEDEA”)
CALLAS: (As Medea) Come, my love. Come, my little man. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
SCHWARTZ: And it is Callas who will get the inexorable remaining line of the film in English.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “MEDEA”)
CALLAS: (As Medea) Now your tears are nothing. You’ll perceive if you end up outdated.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I urge you within the title of the god you maintain pricey, please let me contact as soon as extra these poor, harmless our bodies.
CALLAS: (As Medea) No. And do not ask once more. It is ineffective. Nothing is feasible anymore.
SCHWARTZ: So far as I do know, the one approach to hear the English model is on a British Movie Institute DVD, which requires a global DVD participant. However what’s much more tragic is that Maria Callas did not make extra motion pictures.
GROSS: Lloyd Schwartz reviewed “La Divina: Maria Callas In All Her Roles” on the Warner label and the brand new Blu-ray of Pasolini’s movie “Medea” by the Criterion Assortment. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, the New Yorker’s Jonathan Blitzer talks concerning the chaos surrounding the subsequent speaker of the Home. We’ll additionally speak about Jim Jordan, who misplaced his bid as speaker however stays the pinnacle of the highly effective Judiciary Committee and is heading up some controversial investigations. I hope you may be part of us.
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(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN DI MARTINO’S “ISFAHAN”)
GROSS: FRESH AIR’s govt producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and critiques are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed as we speak’s present. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I am Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN DI MARTINO’S “ISFAHAN”)
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