03/03/2004

Maria Callas - the outstanding musician of the twentieth century?

Last night's BBC2 broadcast, Maria Callas - Living and Dying for Art and Love, was built around her February 1964 Covent Garden performance as Tosca, opposite Tito Gobbi. Appropriately, given the subject, it was exquisite.

The film's limited raw material - surviving video footage of Act 2 - was skilfully complemented by computer animation of stills from the rest of the performance, and illuminated by a galaxy of talking heads, including, in addition to the diva herself and Gobbi, Tosca director Franco Zeffirelli and tenor Placido Domingo.

The film used the libretto of Tosca, whose heroine is doomed by love, as a metaphor for the soprano's own tragic demise. Throughout the one hour programme, Callas's supreme artistry, both as singer and actress, and the effect she had on most who witnessed her, was unmissable.

It wasn't the stated aim of the programme, but it made a compelling case for Callas as the outstanding musician of the twentieth century.

The documentary, made for BBC Wales, is sure to be broadcast by a TV channel near you very soon. This kind of rare, high quality TV circulates, globally, for years.

If you haven't yet sampled the artistry of Maria Callas, I envy you your voyage of discovery. There are numerous strong compilations of material recorded for EMI, her major label.

The latest repackaging is The Ultimate Maria Callas Collection, a 3CD set bargain-priced at £13.99. Earlier re-packagings of classic Callas material are often on sale at discount - until Ultimate was released, Romantic Callas 2CD was the most recent collection, but there are numerous others which are highly recommended samplers:

Maria Callas: popular music from tv, film, opera;
Maria Callas sings operatic arias;
The incomparable Callas;
La Divina vols 1-3;
L'Art de Maria Callas 4CD;
Diva 2CD;
Maria Callas: the Voice of the Century 2CD;
Legends of the 20thC;

Any of them would enrich a Callas-less collection.

Gerry Smith

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