Maria Callas in “Lucia”, the tragic little bride

2023-08-08 18:44:49

It was in 1952, in Mexico City, that Maria Callas began her first Lucia. This young Scottish girl who was forcibly married to a man she did not love, in the name of family honour, was born of the imagination of Walter Scott, who published his Fiancée de Lammermoor in 1819. Sixteen years later, Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) created his three-act opera at the San Carlo in Naples, a French version of which was applauded by the Parisian public in 1839. Since then, the success of this thwarted passion a soul tender to madness and murder has not been denied. Flagship of Italian romanticism, Lucia of Lammermoor offers the title role, fearsome but infinitely touching, a musical and emotional apotheosis.

Thirty-something, at the height of her possibilities, Maria Callas makes this sacrificed destiny her own, giving her a psychological depth that transcends the cascades of vocalizations with scintillating high notes. “She completely de-trivialized the interpretation”, testified Herbert von Karajan, who conducted it at La Scala in Milan and recorded this Lucia in 1955 (1). The famous maestro, who was himself a high profile star of the classical world, admired as much “the level of preparation with which the soprano approached rehearsals” only his sense of the smallest detail and his permeability to suggestions to further refine his approach to the characters. Together they will also record The Trouvère by Verdi and Madame Butterflyabout Puccini

Maria Callas and Herbert Von Karajan, conductor, on January 18, 1954, during a performance of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera in three acts, Lucia di Lammermoor. / Erio Piccagliani/Teatro alla Scala

In addition to her singing teacher at the Athens Conservatory, Elvira de Hidalgo, Maria Callas owed much to another master of orchestral conducting, the Italian Tullio Serafin. It was he who really made her debut in Europe, in 1947, at the Arena of Verona in The Gioconda by Ponchielli. He will record with her two memorable versions of Lucia(read the marks). In the first, the singer’s voice is confusingly charming, youthful and subtle: what cruelty, feels the listener, to hear this brilliant sun sink into premature twilight. The second, six years later, testifies to a voice perhaps a little less radiant, but the artist has still delved into the mysteries of the score and the broken impulses of poor Lucia. The recklessness of the beginnings hurts the heart so much it seems doomed to disappear, the despair which leads to unreason amazes by its truth, its obviousness.

Legendary perfectionism

To achieve such an incarnation, Maria Callas explained to first draw ” silhouette ” of the character, she who, according to her artistic agent Michel Glotz, “Keep saying she was an actress who sang and not a singer who played”. Once these contours have been drawn, she “studied strictly” music for the “merge” with the drama. «Worriesconfided Callas again, begin with the deepening of the work, the vibrations of the voice which must marry each word… It is never finished. »

Maria Callas and Giuseppe Di Stefano, January 18, 1954. / Erio Piccagliani/Teatro alla Scala

An illustration among many others of her legendary perfectionism which, pushed to its limits, could make her intractable. With herself in the first place: “She almost always felt unworthy of the great masters she sang about,” remembered Janine Reiss, vocal coach with whom she refined so many roles.

“Let me finish my life. I will leave the earth, join the light…”, exults Lucia in the grip of madness. For her, reality no longer exists, the little fiancée becomes a heroine, an icon, which Maria Callas makes even more radiant.

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Listen to “Lucia” by Maria Callas

Three recordings recall the hallucinations of Lucia of Lammermoor, transcended by the soprano.In the first two, Callas has as his partner his friend Giuseppe Di Stefano, glory of post-war Italian singing.

• 1953 : under the direction of Tullio Serafin with the Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano and the baritone Tito Gobbi.

• 1955 : under the direction of Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin City Orchestra, tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano and baritone Rolando Panerai.

• 1959 : under the direction of Tullio Serafin with the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra, tenor Ferruccio Tagliavini and baritone Piero Cappuccilli.