Editing Maria Callas (section)

===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>