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Following is an overview of some of Callas\u2019s career highlights at La Scala.<\/p>\n
Callas\u2019s very first performance onstage at La Scala was as a substitute for the much-adored Renata Tebaldi, who was unwell. It was, by all accounts, a tepid debut. A skin condition had given the 26-year-old soprano facial blemishes that she awkwardly covered with veils. In \u201cMaria Callas: An Intimate Biography,\u201d by Anne Edwards, the director Franco Zeffirelli (who would go on to work with Callas) recalled \u201cthis overweight Greek lady, peeping out from behind her trailing chiffon,\u201d with an \u201cunevenness\u201d in her voice. Her two remaining performances of \u201cAida\u201d went much better, but this inaugural \u201cAida\u201d was a blow to the young prodigy\u2019s self-confidence.<\/p>\n
This was the first time that Callas was headlining a La Scala production \u2014 kicking off the opera house\u2019s season, in fact \u2014 and it was a triumph. She was understandably nervous at the start. \u201cThe miraculous throat of Maria Meneghini Callas did not have to fear the demand of the opera,\u201d the music reviewer Franco Abbiati wrote in the newspaper Corriere della Sera (according to the biography \u201cMaria Callas: The Tigress and the Lamb,\u201d by David Bret). Mr. Abbiati lauded the \u201cphosphorescent beauty\u201d of her tones, and \u201cher technical agility, which is more than rare \u2014 it is unique.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was Callas\u2019s first time with the renowned conductor Herbert von Karajan at the baton, and she didn\u2019t disappoint. In the famous \u201cmad scene\u201d \u2014 where Lucia stabs her new husband on her wedding night \u2014 Callas appeared barehanded, in a nightgown and messy hair, on a dimly lit staircase; she had turned down the dagger and fake blood that are usually used to portray the murder. Yet her performance was so realistic that mesmerized audience members jumped up mid-performance, clapping and cheering, and tossed red carnations onstage that Callas touched as if they were gobs of blood. In Opera News, the critic Cynthia Jolly hailed \u201cCallas\u2019s supremacy amongst present-day sopranos,\u201d and \u201ca heart-rending poignancy of timbre which is quite unforgettable,\u201d according to the Bret biography.<\/p>\n
The character of Violetta in \u201cLa Traviata\u201d is widely considered one of Callas\u2019s three finest roles \u2014 along with Donizetti\u2019s \u201cLucia di Lammermoor\u201d and Bellini\u2019s \u201cNorma.\u201d And the May 1955 staging by the director Luchino Visconti is, in turn, considered her finest \u201cTraviata.\u201d It was \u201ca revolutionary production\u201d that was \u201crenowned for its realism, the intimacy and the gorgeousness of the setting, the painterly qualities,\u201d said Mr. Fisher of The Times. It also \u201cencapsulated so much\u201d of the Maria Callas that audiences have come to know and revere. Set in La Belle Epoque, with ornate d\u00e9cor and costumes, the show triggered another audience frenzy on opening night. People cried out Callas\u2019s name, sobbed uncontrollably and showered the stage with red roses, which a tearful Callas picked up as she took a solo bow. The conductor Carlo Maria Giulini later confessed that he, too, had wept in the pit. Yet Callas\u2019s monopolizing of attention in her solo bow was too much for the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, who quit the show that night.<\/p>\n
This was another Visconti spectacular, and another triumph. Callas played Anne Boleyn, a doomed wife of Henry VIII, in a somewhat lesser-known Donizetti opera. Queenlike, she appeared in a dark blue gown and enormous jewels at the top of a grand staircase, surrounded by royal portraits. Musically, she gave it her all, triggering 24 minutes of applause (according to the Edwards biography), a La Scala record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n