Maria Callas sings "Casta Diva" (Bellini: Norma, Act 1)

[AndrewMeronek]

I'm often actively listening, sometimes for my own enjoyment and sometimes looking for ideas to apply to my own tromboning.

So - Maria Callas was apparently something of a legendary opera performer. Can listening to this inform my own ballad playing? ABSOLUTELY! Problem is, there is so much to dig into just in this one performance.

Maria definitely had some stuff figured out.

[BGuttman]

You can learn a lot from listening to a lot of different opera stars.

There's a reason Rochut chose exercises written by Marco Bordogni (a vocal teacher of note) for us to work on musicianship.

[boneagain]

I have long enjoyed recordings of this wonderful singer.
Always something to learn.
But first of all, so much to hear and feel.

I particularly like the first 30 seconds of this clip.
One might think she is fidgeting.
If so, look again.
She is VERY clearly listening to the music, and visualizing the context.

Yes, she does pull attention to herself. That's what diva's do.
But in this case she uses that attention on HER to bring the audience attention to what is happening in the orchestra. Watch her face as the flautist does particularly nice turns of phrase. Watch her subtly expand her "figeting" just before she starts to sing, actually helping bridge from the introduction to her entry.

Now think about, say, a big band, where a player gets a few bars to ride, and the rest of the band starts looking off to nah-nah land. Or think about just about every college solo appearance you see, with the pianist playing a part twice as hard as the trombone line, and the trombonist staring intently at the sheet of music on the stand, counting measures.....

... and all that's just from how she does the intro... yeah, VERY well said, Andrew: SO much to dig into!

Dave

[AndrewMeronek]

Musically speaking, a few things strike me:

The microphones are obviously not as sensitive as what we have today, and I can hear at times when Callas is singing diminuendo on held notes that the mic clearly stops picking her up as well. BUT - that means that she's really singing dynamics, which is awesome. The control that she has is definitely noteworthy.

I do not speak Italian, but I'm pretty sure that if I did, I would be able to understand what she's singing. Her consonants aren't buried in an out-of-control vibrato, which is my (and many people) biggest criticism of modern operatic singing.

From the video description: "The great Maria Callas performs an aria from her signature role, Bellini's druid priestess Norma, with the Orchestre de l'Opera National de Paris and Georges Sebastian. Recorded live at the Palais Garnier on the 19th of December 1958"

It would be interesting to hear from someone who knows more about opera than I do to talk about how other aspects of a production, like staging, have changed since then.