ni aussi puissamment !

Ni aussi SUBLIME !!!! JE PAVOISE !!!!

Sutherland could

Truth to tell she lost more than audacity. Her throat doctor during her decline wrote that he had never seen such battered and bowed cords. You can only be superhuman for so long. This recording is beyond spectacular.

@@ransomcoates546 I have never heard or read anything about a doctor saying that about Callas' cords. However, she herself (a year before her death) said in an interview that she lost her diaphragmatic support, and I agree.

@@ransomcoates546 Quite to the contrary, doctors said her vocal cords were fine. What happened to Callas was the progressive loss of breath support after she became thin. Phyllis Curtin first mentioned this, pointing to videos of Callas that shows her chest sinking and her shoulders coming forward. Renee Fleming also pointed to the same thing, saying that Callas probably was one of those singers whose weight was an integral part of her breath support. Had she been a soubrette, it probably wouldn't have mattered, but she sang the heaviest and most demanding music. Sutherland said that Callas's body became too frail to support the sound she had been used to making. Callas herself described it as, "I never lost my voice, but I lost strength in my diaphragm. ... Because of those organic complaints, I lost my courage and boldness. My vocal cords were and still are in excellent condition, but my 'sound boxes' have not been working well even though I have been to all the doctors. The result was that I overstrained my voice, and that caused it to wobble." You can hear a change in the voice between '53 and '54, as she became thinner and thinner.

@@Shahrdad Joan Sutherland also stated that anyone who heard Callas after 1955 never had really heard the "Callas sound" with her husband, Richard Bonyng adding that on those early years Callas' voice just poured out the way Flagstad's did (Kirsten Flagstad, the wagnerian soprano)... so it was really a Huge sound! I imagine that it took some time, some few years between the weight loss and the straining in her voice, or at least is what I can listen... Until 1957 Callas delivery was untouched, just listen to her Sonnambula's from that year... its all done with extreme ease... However, in 1958 it start to sense more tension and wobble as you said, but not before 1958. Anyways, its a miracle how she endured so much singing like that, singing full voice up to the highest notes, endless legato lines, all the fireworks and power combined in the most demanding roles a soprano can take: From Isolde, Brünnhilde, Abigaile or Armida... to Violeta, Lucia, Amina or Norma... among so many others, who else could do that? What a Miracle!

I totally agree

Very well said !!! addictive shall we say !!

That is so true! I became addicted to Callas' voice long ago. If someone were to ask, I'm not sure how to explain it. Regardless of the opera, when Callas makes her first vocal entrance I'm hooked. I read reference once to Callas' "four voices." Regardless, I will be the first to admit that there are times when her voice is, to be frank, ugly, and that is usually during music that is not supposed to be pretty, such as the "Suicidio" perhaps. On the other hand, there are times when her voice, both the voice itself and her phrasing, are the most hauntingly beautiful sound imagineable.

Callas high notes are strident and clear , light in color, she sings sharp because Callas forced the voice

@@ginopietracupa4305 yes, especially after loosing all that weight. But...who cares! She is magnificent anyway.

and which singers don't force their voice according to you?@@ginopietracupa4305

They also discussed including "Divinités du Styx" on the record. Imagine having the Alceste aria in bearable sound!

@@kbhprinsesse Serafin did not always guide Callas in the best direction--despite her deep respect for the maestro. In so many cases her performances with other conductors are superior to those with Serafin whose tempi are often unbearably slow--death for bel canto. Compare the "Normas" of 1955 first with Serafin and then with Votto. The second is far more dramatic.

@@jamesnickoloff6692 I agree that the La Scala 1955 "Norma" is more dramatic than the RAI 1955, but I think it's unfair to compare dramatic intensity in a radio recording and a live performance.

@@kbhprinsesse The 1955 RAI "Norma" with Serafin was, as far as I know, a concert performance in front of a live audience--not done in a studio. You can hear the public applaud in the recording. The great music critic John Ardoin, who for the most part had a high estimation of Serafin and his influence on Callas, criticizes the conductor a number of times in his study "The Callas Legacy." In the fourth edition of 1995, see pp. 80, 89, 96, 121, 127 207. All of these comments have to do with tempo.

@@jamesnickoloff6692 I didn't say there was nothing to criticise, merely that there is a difference between a concert performance and a live performance. Even though it may have been done in front of an audience, there are still no sets and costumes, not props and live action. I wholeheartedly agree that the La Scala performance is superior to the one from RAI, but the La Scala performance is IMO outstanding compared to ANY "Norma", by Callas and other sopranos.

è VEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I agree completely with what you have to say. In addition, I would add that Callas has that "added dimension" that is so difficult to define (and so difficult to find in singers or any other artists). Yes, Callas makes "music" out of these bel canto arias, which unfortunately usually sound like just a lot of fast notes (with the "ha ha ha" effect as you say). Callas' genius, IMO, was her implicit understanding of the music and ability to make it beautiful.

I can listen to it endlessly.

AlePiznik *Cough* Cecilia Bartoli, Marilyn Horne *Cough*

You do not even have to go to "Rossini singers"....Caballe already sings it better (not to mention having a much more beautiful voice).... .

@@alexbeascoechea7510 Caballe never had the complete florid technique of Callas. She often fudged and never could trill. And a lot of her coloratura was aspirated, with Hs dropped everywhere. She did have a beautiful voice, however.

SONO D'ACCORDO CON Té

She was bone thin by 1954

Mar R By 1954 she'd already lost a great deal of weight. Colbran's voice had a three-octave span which enabled to sing both soprano and mezzo roles. This is the tessitura of the roles written for her veers between both registers.

Это опера Россини "Армида". Ария "Любовь - блаженное царство".

Wobble? I think you're imagining things. Think about the strain on her vocal cords after so many years of virtuoso singing from 1939 to 1954 and beyond (in part because of selfish mentors and in part because of her own desire to scale the heights).

@@jamesnickoloff6692 you just answered why there is an obvious wobble

@@misanthropelife I see your point, but I still don't hear a "wobble" in 1954--or any real fault. But then I myself don't really hear what I would call a "wobble" at any point in Callas' career. Yes, I hear shrill notes, what could be called "screeching," unpleasantly metallic sounds, etc. But not really an oscillation, moving back and forth, on and off a pitch. Perhaps I don't know what a wobble is.