Editing Maria Callas (section)

==Artistry==
Callas's own thoughts regarding music and singing can be found [[wikiquote:Special:Search/Maria Callas|at Wikiquote]].

===The musician===
[[File:Visconti Callas 1957.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Callas getting ready with the help of [[Luchino Visconti]] in Milan, 1957]]
Adored by many opera enthusiasts, Callas was a controversial artist. Although Callas was the great singer often dismissed simply as an actress,<ref name="mordden">{{cite book|last=Mordden|first=Ethan|author-link=Ethan Mordden|title=Demented: The World of the Opera Diva|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|year=1984|isbn=978-0-671-66800-6|url=https://archive.org/details/dementedworldoft00mord}}</ref> Callas considered herself foremost a musician, that is, the first instrument of the orchestra."<ref name="harewoodparis"/> [[Grace Bumbry]] has stated, "If I followed the musical score when [Callas] was singing, I would see every tempo marking, every dynamic marking, everything being adhered to, and at the same time, it was not antiseptic; it was something that was very beautiful and moving."<ref>''Maria Callas&nbsp;– Living and Dying for Art and Love'', TDK DVD Video, Released March 22, 2005</ref> [[Victor de Sabata]] confided to Walter Legge {{when|date=April 2018}}<!--Legge doesn't say. All he says is that "VDS once told me;" most likely it was during the recording of the first Tosca for EMI-->, "If the public could understand, as we do, how deeply and utterly musical Callas is, they would be stunned",<ref name="schwarzkopf"/> and Serafin assessed Callas's musicality as "extraordinary, almost frightening."<ref>[[Tullio Serafin|Serafin, Tullio]], "A triptych of Singers," ''Opera Annual'', No. 8, 1962</ref> Callas possessed an innate architectural sense of line-proportion<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} and an uncanny feel for timing and for what one of Callas’s colleagues described as "a sense of the rhythm within the rhythm".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}

Regarding Callas's technical prowess, Celletti says, "We must not forget that she could tackle the whole gamut of ornamentation: staccato, trills, half-trills, [[gruppetto|gruppetti]], [[Musical scale|scales]], etc."<ref name="debate"/> D'Amico adds, "The essential virtue of Callas' technique consists of supreme mastery of an extraordinarily rich range of tone colour (that is, the fusion of dynamic range and timbre). And such mastery means total freedom of choice in its use: not being a slave to one's abilities, but rather, being able to use them at will as a means to an end."<ref name="debate"/> While reviewing the many recorded versions of "perhaps Verdi's ultimate challenge", the aria "D'amor sull'ali rosee" from ''[[Il trovatore]]'', Richard Dyer writes,
<blockquote>Callas articulates all of the trills, and she binds them into the line more expressively than anyone else; they are not an ornament but a form of intensification. Part of the wonder in this performance is the [[chiaroscuro]] through her tone—the other side of not singing full-out all the way through. One of the vocal devices that create that chiaroscuro is a varying rate of [[vibrato]]; another is her [[portamento]], the way she connects the voice from note to note, phrase to phrase, lifting and gliding. This is never a sloppy swoop, because its intention is as musically precise as it is in great string playing. In this aria, Callas uses more portamento, and in greater variety, than any other singer&nbsp;... Callas is not creating "effects", as even her greatest rivals do. She sees the aria as a whole, "as if in an aerial view", as [[Sviatoslav Richter]]'s teacher observed of his most famous pupil; simultaneously, she is on earth, standing in the courtyard of the palace of Aliaferia, floating her voice to the tower where her lover lies imprisoned.<ref>Dyer, Richard, "The Sopranos", ''[[Opera News]]'', March 2001.</ref></blockquote>

In addition to her musical skills, Callas had a particular gift for language and the use of language in music.<ref name="schwarzkopf"/> In recitatives, she always knew which word to emphasize and which syllable in that word to bring out.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Michael Scott notes, "If we listen attentively, we note how her perfect [[legato]] enables her to suggest by musical means even the exclamation marks and commas of the text."<ref name="scott" /> Technically, not only did she have the capacity to perform the most difficult florid music effortlessly, but also she had the ability to use each ornament as an expressive device rather than for mere fireworks.<ref name="whitson">{{cite journal | last=Whitson | first=James C. | title=The Callas Legacy|journal=[[Opera News]]|date=October 2005 }}</ref> Soprano [[Martina Arroyo]] states, "What interested me most was how she gave the runs and the cadenzas words. That always floored me. I always felt I heard her saying something—it was never just singing notes. That alone is an art."<ref name="whitson" /> Walter Legge states that,
<blockquote>Most admirable of all her qualities, however, were her taste, elegance and deeply musical use of ornamentation in all its forms and complications, the weighting and length of every [[appoggiatura]], the smooth incorporation of the turn in melodic lines, the accuracy and pacing of her trills, the seemingly inevitable timing of her portamentos, varying their curve with enchanting grace and meaning. There were innumerable exquisite felicities—minuscule portamentos from one note to its nearest neighbor, or over widespread intervals—and changes of color that were pure magic. In these aspects of bel canto she was supreme mistress of that art.<ref name="schwarzkopf" /></blockquote>

===The actress===
[[File:Maria Callas as Guilia.jpg|thumb|Callas as Giulia in the Opera "La Vestale", by Gaspare Spontini, 1954]]
Regarding Callas's acting ability, vocal coach and music critic Ira Siff remarked, "When I saw the final two ''Tosca''s she did in the old [Met], I felt like I was watching the actual story on which the opera had later been based."<ref>Ira Siff, in his interview with [[Walter Taussig]], "The Associate", ''[[Opera News]]'', April 2001</ref> Callas was not, however, a realistic or [[verismo]] style actress:<ref name="scott"/> her physical acting was merely "subsidiary to the heavy ''[[Art|Kunst]]'' of developing the psychology of the roles under the supervision of the music, of singing the acting&nbsp;... Suffering, delight, humility, hubris, despair, rhapsody—all this was musically appointed, through her use of the voice flying the text upon the notes."<ref name="mordden"/> Seconding this opinion, verismo specialist soprano Augusta Oltrabella said, "Despite what everyone says, [Callas] was an actress in the expression of the music, and not vice versa."<ref name="rasponi">{{cite book|last=Rasponi|first=Lanfranco|title=The Last Prima Donnas|publisher=Limelight Editions|date=June 1985|isbn=978-0-87910-040-7}}</ref><ref>Schneider, Magnus Tessing, 'The Violettas of Patti, Muzio and Callas: Style, interpretation, and the question of legacy', from ''The Legacy of Opera: Reading Music Theatre as Experience and Performance'' (Dominic Symonds and Pamela Karantonis, eds.). Rodopi (Amsterdam), {{ISBN|978-90-420-3691-8}}, pp. 112–113 (2013).</ref>

Matthew Gurewitsch adds,
<blockquote>In fact the essence of her art was refinement. The term seems odd for a performer whose imagination and means of expression were so prodigious. She was eminently capable of the grand gesture; still, judging strictly from the evidence of her recordings, we know (and her few existing film clips confirm) that her power flowed not from excess but from unbroken concentration, unfaltering truth in the moment. It flowed also from irreproachable musicianship. People say that Callas would not hesitate to distort a vocal line for dramatic effect. In the throes of operatic passion plenty of singers snarl, growl, whine, and shriek. Callas was not one of them. She found all she needed in the notes.<ref name="ReferenceB">Gurewitsch, Matthew, "Forget the Callas Legend," ''The Atlantic Monthly'', April 1999</ref></blockquote>

Ewa Podleś likewise stated that "It's enough to hear her, I'm positive! Because she could say everything only with her voice! I can imagine everything, I can see everything in front of my eye."<ref name="whitson"/> Opera director Sandro Sequi, who witnessed many Callas performances close-up, states, "For me, she was extremely stylized and classic, yet at the same time, human—but humanity on a higher plane of existence, almost sublime. Realism was foreign to her, and that is why she was the greatest of opera singers. After all, opera is the least realistic of theater forms&nbsp;... She was wasted in verismo roles, even ''Tosca'', no matter how brilliantly she could act such roles."<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Scott adds, "Early nineteenth-century opera&nbsp;... is not merely the antithesis of reality, it also requires highly stylized acting. Callas had the perfect face for it. Her big features matched its grandiloquence and spoke volumes from a distance."<ref name="scott"/>

In regard to Callas's physical acting style, [[Nicola Rescigno]] states, "Maria had a way of even transforming her body for the exigencies of a role, which is a great triumph. In ''La traviata'', everything would slope down; everything indicated sickness, fatigue, softness. Her arms would move as if they had no bones, like the great ballerinas. In ''Medea'', everything was angular. She'd never make a soft gesture; even the walk she used was like a tiger's walk."<ref name="Callas, A Documentary 1978">''Callas, A Documentary'' (1978), Extra Features, by [[John Ardoin]], Bel Canto Society DVD, BCS-D0194</ref> Sandro Sequi recalls, "She was never in a hurry. Everything was very paced, proportioned, classical, precise&nbsp;... She was extremely powerful but extremely stylized. Her gestures were not many&nbsp;... I don't think she did more than 20 gestures in a performance. But she was capable of standing 10 minutes without moving a hand or finger, compelling everyone to look at her."<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Edward Downes recalled Callas watching and observing her colleagues with such intensity and concentration as to make it seem that the drama was all unfolding in her head.<ref name="downes" /> Sir Rudolf Bing similarly recalled that in ''Il trovatore'' in Chicago, "it was Callas' quiet listening, rather than [[Jussi Björling|Björling]]'s singing that made the dramatic impact&nbsp;... He didn't know what he was singing, but she knew."<ref name="bing">{{cite book|last=Bing|first=Rudolf|author-link=Rudolf Bing|title=5000 Nights at the Opera|publisher=Doubleday & Co.|location=Garden City, New York|year=1972|isbn=978-0-385-09259-3|url=https://archive.org/details/5000nightsatoper00bing}}</ref>

Callas stated that, in opera, acting must be based on the music, quoting Serafin's advice to her:
<blockquote>When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act onstage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that. If you take the trouble to really listen with your Soul and with your Ears—and I say 'Soul' and 'Ears' because the Mind must work, but not too much also—you will find every gesture there.<ref name="harewoodlondon" /></blockquote>

===The artist===
[[File:Maria Callas 1959 Amsterdam.jpg|thumb|upright|Callas acknowledges applause in 1959 at the Royal [[Concertgebouw, Amsterdam|Concertgebouw]] in Amsterdam]]
Callas's most distinguishing quality was her ability to breathe life into the characters she portrayed,<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} or in the words of Matthew Gurewitsch, "Most mysterious among her many gifts, Callas had the genius to translate the minute particulars of a life into tone of voice."<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Italian critic Eugenio Gara adds:

<blockquote>Her secret is in her ability to transfer to the musical plane the suffering of the character she plays, the nostalgic longing for lost happiness, the anxious fluctuation between hope and despair, between pride and supplication, between irony and generosity, which in the end dissolve into a superhuman inner pain. The most diverse and opposite of sentiments, cruel deceptions, ambitious desires, burning tenderness, grievous sacrifices, all the torments of the heart, acquire in her singing that mysterious truth, I would like to say, that psychological sonority, which is the primary attraction of opera.<ref name="debate" /></blockquote>

[[Ethan Mordden]] writes, "It was a flawed voice. But then Callas sought to capture in her singing not just beauty but a whole humanity, and within her system, the flaws feed the feeling, the sour plangency and the strident defiance becoming aspects of the canto. They were literally defects of her voice; she bent them into advantages of her singing."<ref name="mordden" /> Giulini believes, "If melodrama is the ideal unity of the trilogy of words, music, and action, it is impossible to imagine an artist in whom these three elements were more together than Callas."<ref name="scott" /> He recalls that during Callas's performances of ''La traviata'', "reality was onstage. What stood behind me, the audience, auditorium, [[La Scala]] itself, seemed artifice. Only that which transpired on stage was truth, life itself."<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Sir [[Rudolf Bing]] expressed similar sentiments:<blockquote>Once one heard and saw Maria Callas—one can't really distinguish it—in a part, it was very hard to enjoy any other artist, no matter how great, afterwards, because she imbued every part she sang and acted with such incredible personality and life. One move of her hand was more than another artist could do in a whole act.<ref name="documentary"/></blockquote>

To [[Antonino Votto]], Callas was:<blockquote>The last great artist. When you think this woman was nearly blind,<!-- mentioned by Trivella in the Education section; without glasses, the world was a blurr and she could not see the conductor or the audience. During dimly lit scenes in Sonnambula, Visconti had to put a perfumed handkerchief on the sofa and she would follow the scent to the spot. And in the CG Toscas, Gobbi (the dead Scarpia) would whisper "go left" "Go right" to her --> and often sang standing a good 150 feet from the podium. But her sensitivity! Even if she could not see, she sensed the music and always came in exactly with my downbeat. When we rehearsed, she was so precise, already note-perfect&nbsp;... She was not just a singer, but a complete artist. It's foolish to discuss her as a voice. She must be viewed totally—as a complex of music, drama, movement. There is no one like her today. She was an esthetic phenomenon.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</blockquote>