Stunning and graceful
Impersonating sacrifice
Yesterday i finally got the three opera recording (EMI records) I had been waiting for so long ago: Madama Butterfly, Turandot, and La Traviata.
All three with Maria Callas as leading character. Her voice is honestly not the easiest to the ear. Shrill at time, sharp and bold... but La Callas is the only one that puts all her heart in what she sings. La Callas, from little I have been hearing of her singing performances, actually becomes the charater she impersonates.
I know it might sound silly,but all the other cantatrices I been istening to gave me the impression of listening to themselves, instead of actually living what they are singing: too much vibrato, dare I say, too much perfection. Pretty boring, in two words.
I am not what yo ucan call an opera fan. I have no particular knowledge, nor been to actual opera performance ever. I cannot tell the stories by heart, and, as everyone, I know by ear this or that aria, that's all.
I felt myself touched in the heart though. But those almost all the time dramatic stories - a story of betrayed love that ends by death (For Violetta and Cio-Cio San at least). You just cannot sing about death and lost love as if you were enjoying your singing can you?
The recording dates back from 1955 : the sound is crappy, and still, the actors and actresses' performance stunningly stand out, and stand over any further recording, with improved sound. How strange... In the latter, you can hear Maria strive to reach the highest notes, without that perfection in emotion the former preserves.
51 years later, Violetta passes away, again and again, her love as sacrifice, her voice as last Will.
3 comments:
Well musicians are often called on to perform work that they don't have the greatest depth of artistic desire/need to do. It's especially difficult maybe in classical music where the ensembles are so large and the patronage/audience often much more conservative in taste than the musicians. There is definitely a sense in which performing nothing but certain recognized pieces of canon from centuries ago feels very degrading.
For that matter when the commitment to craft is as deeply personal (whether artistical or more clearly egotistical) as it is in music it's hard to listen anyone else. Little bands can't agree within themselves. It's truly a wonder, and probably somewhat an accident of history, that so many people find themselves agreeing at all with music that was written out of a different age. The conductor of the choir I was in freshman year--95 percent music majors, people who wanted supposedly to learn about music--had to plead with the singers to care at all about a 20th century composition which was among the dearest pieces of music to him personally.
P.S. - Great entry. The above comment is a bit of a digression, I know.
As much as music sinks to the level of entertainment there are recordings and moments where it cuts straight through all of that, for whatever reason, and is completely consuming--even if it's just one thing I notice in a song I'd heard a hundred times before.
Don't worry about digressing here ^^ i always enjoy your reading.
Am now busy as hell, but i won't fail to react to your comments: as always your ideas open new points of view, and I thank you for that !
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