Agreed - on every point. She craved love and acceptance, and while I believe she never doubted her worth as an artist, she was insecure as a human being. To her great misfortune, she didn't have the right person in her corner, someone who could give her the unconditional love she deserved.

Though of course even then her perfectionism may have pushed her in the same direction, if she truly felt losing weight would give her more tools as an actress.

@@veramayer9571 It is sad. I wish that she could have met her soulmate! She had a lot of love to give! You would only have to hear her sing one note to know this with every fiber of your being! *sad smile*

@@veramayer9571 I suppose that back in the 1950's there was a lot of pressure on women to measure up to impossible standards of beauty, as there is now. Me and my husband have 11 year old twins! Sometimes Baby Girl asks me if a certain outfit makes her look fat. I tell her the truth. She is absolutely beautiful the way that she is!

And what would the reason be, according to you?

@@stefanodepeppo The acoustic strategy. The volume actually does not matter all that much in regard to operatic projection. It is entirely possible to be extremely loud in terms of sheer volume of the voice yet not be audible past the first few rows properly. The so-called squillo is an acoustic strategy in how you adjust your harmonics and formants. In terms of Maria and her squillo. Her utilising as much twang (narrowing of the aryepiglottic sphincter) as she did in the higher range, her vowels and simply the height of the note were what made the note so large. This isn’t uncommon live to be honest above high D. I regularly see opera live and people who actually have a very balanced technique for their high end tend to have this effect on the very top. Except most people use less twang and rounden their vowels more in the higher range. Callas’ use of her vowels is what made her sound almost ‘brassy’ in the upper end.

Actually her reviews of her Wagnerian roles and Turandot of the time were generally thrilling. She almost always had some bad reviews. Beniamino Dal Fabbro, famous music critic of the first half of the century, ALWAYS gave her bad reviews when she sang at La Scala. We can indeed question if her voice was actually suited for real dramatic roles, or if it was more a matter of her dramatic temperament which served perfectly her oh-not-so-perfect skills for big dramatic roles.

Well she constricted a bit when singing lighter roles, especially post weight loss. When she still had good support the results could be excellent but you can hear that she’s much more comfortable in a dramatic role like Medea than Lucia by ‘57. Her voice was dramatic and weighty, a very large instrument but with plenty of flexibility. I don’t think she was a natural for the standard dramatic repertoire ‘Turandot, Brünnhilde, Isolde’ etc., even if she found some success in that repertoire, but was instead a true dramatic coloratura most at home singing Norma, Anna Bolena, Medea, Amelia, Leonora (Trovatore), Lady Macbeth, Imogene, Abigail and, though the role doesn’t quite belong in the same fach so to speak, Violetta. In those roles she was truly unsurpassed.

Indeed. ButBut as far as we know most sopranos from the first half of 19th century had much more versatility than the ones from the first half of 20th century. Definitely Galli Curci and Toti dal Monte could not sing Elvira from Ernani or Lucrezia from I due Foscari as Tacchinardi did! So Callas brought back a kind of dramatic approach even to those roles which just a few decades before her had became dominium of light coloratura sopranos.

❤

Rescigno cuenta cómo durante los ensayos, María no podía pronunciar el fraseo sin que se volviera blando debido al tempo rápido hacia el final, pero ella insistió en que él lo dirigiera de esa manera. La noche de la función "no teníamos cantante, teníamos una ametralladora" - Sorry, I used google translate for this, i hope it makes sense

@@CallasfanRecordings muchas gracias

@@CallasfanRecordings You did a wonderful job at explaining it to perfection using google translate

@@MrLuis85698 Yes, but what Rescigno was referring to wasn't "pronunciar el fraseo", but those couple of bars of very fast notes which during rehearsals she wasn't able to properly sing at that tempo (becoming smudgy), and that as the live recording shows she indeed made the miracle during the performance.

@@miguelantoniofaundezrojas2826 Mas bien se referia a la incapacidad de Maria en los ensayos de poder cantar de manera precisa esas notas muy rapidas al tempo que Rescigno propuso, y cuando el le dijo que habria tomado el tempo mas lento para acomodarla ella contesto que no se atreviera porque era deber de ella cantar esos dos compases a ese tempo que le gustaba, y asi hizo (como ametralladora...) en la función.