Callas: Mezzo or soprano?
MIFrost
a beautiful high soprano voice but I thought she was "officially" (if
there is such a thing) a mezzo soprano. Do mezzos often sing true-
soprano roles? Am I mixed up here?
MIFrost
ivanmaxim
She was never officially a "mezzo-soprano". And yes often mezzos and
sopranos sing the same roles. Wagner fan
MiNe 109
Terry <bo...@clown.invalid> wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 10:51:59 +1000, MIFrost wrote
> (in article
> <a6f22418-a7e3-4330...@j5g2000vbg.googlegroups.com>):
> I think she was "officially" a soprano. Towards the end of her career she
> recorded "Carmen", which is usually sung by mezzos. Mezzos sometimes perform
> and record roles normally taken by sopranos. Christa Ludwig's recording of
> "Fidelio" is an example.
And Rosina in Barber can be sung by either.
Some sopranos began as mezzos and moved up: Bumbry, te Kanawa, etc.
Stephen
Dontait...@aol.com
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 10:51:59 +1000, MIFrost wrote
> (in article
> recorded "Carmen", which is usually sung by mezzos.
Callas was officially a soprano for her stage career. She sang such
soprano roles as Gilda, Lucia di Lammermoor, Butterfly, Mimi in La
Boheme, and many more. The brilliant soprano the poster described is
what she evidently was. She began singing professionally in Greece
during World War II, so by 1957 she had been doing so for at least
about fifteen years, and it had taken a toll on the "top" of her
voice. A wobble developed. It can be heard in her recordings from
about that time. There are those who speculate that the large amount
of weight she lost around 1953/4, when she became the slim diva, took
its toll upon her voice, and that her tendency to give absolutely
everything in performance -- she was a totally dedicated artist -- led
her to do things with her voice that damaged it. And by the late 1950s
she became more and more involved in personal crises that might have
taken a toll upon her voice as well because of emotional stress. I'm
not a Callas maven, so I'm not sure; others might know better.
What I recall reading is that despite the increasing wobble in her
soprano singing by 1960/1, she didn't want to move to mezzo-soprano
roles because it might seem like a public acknowledgement of the
audible and criticized problems on her part. Pride. But I'm prepared
to be corrected about that. The "Carmen" recording seems to have been
her surrender in a way. But I've also read that EMI tried to record
her in mezzo-soprano arias around 1962/3, and that nothing worked. At
least that she would approve. (They might have issued some rejected
takes in recent years.) Callas stopped singing not long after that,
after Aristotle Onassis abandoned her, which she apparently never got
over.
Callas was a sad, and even in a way tragic, figure. As well as a
supremely great artist.
Don Tait