Maria Callas · Discography of Concert and Recital ... - Frank Hamilton

• Setting roles in different periods
• Visconti’s view of Iphigénie
• Callas unhappy about the period used for La Scala’s Fedora
• Movement in Tr aviata
• Did Verdi conceive the Prelude to Tr aviata as the start of a flashback
• Need for beautiful costumes in static operas
• The importance of having vision in opera
• The difference of opera in the nineteenth century and in this century
Cannot modernize opera too much, but the repetition should be cut
Interpreting old operas in a modern world
A repetition must be justified by something, or it must be cut or changed
Conductors prepare cuts before rehearsals begin
Never sing a cabaletta twice, ‘‘never risk it twice’’
Audiences are different today than one-hundred years ago
• Opera in films, opera and Television, opera and the gramophone
Young people today are afraid of romanticism, sentimentalism,
and things old fashioned
Is opera dead, how can we revive it?
• During the early Italian career, conductors were also the directors
Composers today and the public
Everything moves too quickly, conductors no longer teach today
• Choice of roles in the career, starting with heavy roles
• Wagner’s effect on the voice, appreciation of Wagner
• The challenge of Norma
Preparing the role of Norma; Norma’s character; interpretation
Part III, Second programme:
Most of the unpublished portions of the second programme have been lost, so the
third CD renders the edited final version of the BBC broadcast unchanged (repeating
some of Part II).
• Choice of roles in the career; starting with heavy roles
• Wagner’s effect on the voice; apprecitation of Wagner
• Movement training came principally from Elvira de Hidalgo
• Preparing the role of Norma; Norma’s character; interpretation
The different voices of Norma; one must sing best in the last act
• Breathing in bel canto; "one must always sing in the center of a note"
• Norma and Violetta are both noble roles, similarity of roles
• Big voices in Mozart and Verdi
• Setting operas like Tr aviata in different periods
Did Verdi conceive the Prelude to Tr aviata as start of a flashback
Interpretation of Violetta; Visconti and Serafin
Finding the appropriate vocal color for a role
• Harewood comments on the number scores in her bookcase
• Interpretation of Carmen
Bizet’s opera and Mérimée’s novel
Carmen’s nature goes against Callas’ principals
• Interpretation of Tosca and Tosca’s character
Bringing roles from the ‘‘soul and mind’’ and giving to the public
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