Maria Callas, often considered the greatest soprano of the 20th century, had a career both illustrious and tragic. Born in New York on December 2, 1923 to Greek immigrant parents, Callas rose to fame in the 1940s and became a dominant figure in opera, known especially for her dramatic performances and interpretative qualities. However, Maria Callas’ career was marked by a decline in her vocal abilities that began in the mid-1930s, leading to an early retirement from the stage.
Music critics noted problems with her high notes as early as 1956. The pressure to perform demanding roles such as “Tosca” and “Norma”, known for their high technical demands, took a toll on her voice. By 1958, during performances such as “Il Trovatore”, it was evident that Maria Callas’ high notes were becoming increasingly strained and unstable.
Callas’ personal life also played a significant role in her vocal decline. After separating from her husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini in 1959, Maria Callas entered into a tumultuous relationship with Aristotle Onassis, a Greek and Argentinian business magnate, one of the richest and most famous people in the world at the time. This experience not only affected her emotional state, but also led to changes in her lifestyle that were detrimental to her career. The stress of public exposure and personal turmoil contributed to a loss of focus on the disciplined practice needed to maintain vocal health.
However, a critical aspect of Callas’ vocal decline is rooted in her singing technique. Although she had remarkable control over many performance techniques — such as legato and dynamic range — the soloist’s method had inherent flaws, experts say. He often pushed his voice beyond its natural limits, particularly when reaching higher notes, a tendency that resulted in a split voice; while he could produce beautiful sounds in the lower registers, the upper register became increasingly problematic.
In addition, Callas had a habit common among singers of her era: carrying her chest voice too high in the soprano register, similar to Broadway belting techniques, an approach that added tension and contributed to the roughness of her tone over time.
Other explanations “blamed it” on hormonal changes caused by early menopause, including the soloist’s weight loss, as world-renowned soprano Joan Sutherland speculated. Callas had lost no less than 36 kg.
On the other hand, a close friend of Callas’, Tito Gobbi, had stated that her voice was unchanged, Callas actually suffering from a confidence problem: “She was at the top of a career that any human being could wish for, she had an enormous responsibility. She was forced to give her best every night and maybe she felt that she was no longer capable, thus losing her confidence.”
After several years of absence from the scene following his initial retirement around 1965, Callas attempted to return to the limelight in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These attempts were met with mixed reactions; while audiences were eager to see their idol again, critics noted a significant deterioration in vocal quality. In performances such as those at Covent Garden in 1962, Callas struggled with high notes that had once been safe and vibrant.
Eventually, Maria Callas lost her voice due to a combination of physical demands from demanding roles, personal turmoil that affected her emotional well-being, faulty vocal techniques that resulted in irreversible damage over time, and an inability to adapt effectively during times of change in both personal life and professional expectations.
His last public performance was on November 11, 1975.
Thus, writes the New Yorker, when she died in Paris on September 16, 1977, at the age of 53, Maria Callas’ career had long been limited to fleeting comeback projects and most often unfinished (…). The tempestuous, capricious diva who abandoned her husband and the stage for a seductive billionaire, only to be dumped in favor of a president’s widow, has achieved a level of name recognition that singing in opera could never have brought her .
“I never lost my voice, but I did lose the strength of my diaphragm. Because of these organic ailments, I lost my courage and boldness… The result was that I overstrained my voice, and that made it destabilize” (Maria Callas)
Maria Callas was born in New York City on December 2, 1923, to George and Evangelia Kalogeropoulos, recent immigrants from Greece. Before deciding that she wanted to study music at the National Conservatory of Athens, Maria Callas faced an unhappy childhood – she was overweight and had a rather conflicted relationship with her mother, who was quite rigid but ambitious in her plans to daughter’s future. However, music was the center of her emotional life from the beginning. He would listen to other students’ lessons all day, then borrow opera scores and study them at night. At the age of sixteen, Maria Callas had her first contract, with the National Lyric Theatre; at eighteen, she sang Tosca, and until 1945 appeared in large and small roles on the stages of Athens and Thessaloniki. In the fall of that year, he returned to New York, where he spent most of 1946 studying and auditioning; in the spring of 1947 he obtained a first-class Italian debut engagement in “La Gioconda” at the Verona Arena. There she was among the leading singers, taken under the wing of one of Italy’s greatest masters, Tullio Serafin, and supported by a wealthy Veronese industrialist, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, who became her manager, lover and eventually husband.
He performed 100 shows in 1950, the most he ever performed in a single year. She was considered by many to be the greatest opera soprano (as well as the greatest opera actress) of the 20th century. In 1960, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2007 he received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She was also included by Time magazine in the top 100 of the greatest personalities of the 20th century.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
