Maria Callas

Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddamn rules.

There's no one in her league. That's it. Period.

Listening to Callas is like reading Shakespeare: you’re always going to be knocked senseless by some incredible insight into humanity. She is a huge bonfire! The thread, the "inner serpent" that she would get in certain music was so complete — for example, in the Lucia recording, the phrase "Alfin, son tua." Lucia, at her absolute happiest moment, would have said to Edgardo, "I am finally yours." For me, the woman Lucia came to life in that moment, and I understood why she was out of her mind, you know? You’ve got it all in that one phrase.

Maria, you are a monster; you are not an artist nor a woman nor a human being, but a monster.

I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must.

In October of 1948, just after I moved to Florence to head the Teatro Comunale, Serafin called me from Rome. "Come at once," he begged. "You must hear this girl. She is discouraged and has bought a ticket to return to America. Help me convince her to stay." So, at his home, I met Maria Callas. She was tall and heavy, but had an interesting face, real presence, expression, intelligence.
With Serafin at the piano, she did her usual repertory for me — Gioconda, Turandot, Aida, Tristan. Parts of the voice were beautiful, other empty, and she used strange portamenti. During a pause, she said she had studied with Elvira de Hidalgo, which struck me as curious, for de Hidalgo had been a coloratura. "I know coloratura pieces too," Callas explained, "but I'm a dramatic soprano." "Well," I asked, "can we hear something of a different nature?" So she sang the aria from I Puritani, with the cabaletta. I was overwhelmed, and tears streamed down Serafin's cheeks. This was the kind of singer one read about in books from the nineteenth century — a real dramatic coloratura.

The Chicago Lucia, which I witnessed, absolutely blew everybody's mind, because she stopped the show in the middle of the mad scene. She bowed, [while] the audience went wild, and kept that pose for fourteen minutes. Callas was our lesson, in those days, for how one performed. She had such complete ... we say in German "souveränität" — being above everything. She had this aura of magic. People were always mystified by what she did....Tebaldi had a much more beautiful voice and didn’t have that hollow, breathy sound, which at times was just plain ugly. [But] Callas was unusual because despite the sound of her voice, the force of her personality just magnetized people. It was so present, it came across the footlights at you, that ferocity of hers. It was just all-encompassing. Callas brought the personality, the drama, the magic, the surreal quality to the bel canto roles that Sutherland never did.

Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me.

Maria Callas remains an icon with an instantly recognizable voice. But she was also the first opera singer to be equipped with the ingredients of international celebrity: charisma, glamour, wealth, she had it all, together with the touches of scandal and tragedy that made her story so compelling. Since her time, every female opera singer has been measured against this powerful role model. ... Callas modernized our metier. Her life was a tireless creative search. She was one of the first to recognize the importance of being an actress as well as a singer, and was uncompromising in her belief that, in order to achieve a complete dramatic performance, all aspects of the operatic genre require equal attention. She was a pioneer in restoring forgotten repertoire and in exploring new ways of musical interpretation. To this day, I find that many of her exemplary recordings are astounding.

What [Tulio Serafin] said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that." If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears — and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also — you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know.