How_Does_the_Newspaper_Review_Help_Us_to_Understand_Callas's_Reputation_as_a_Diva_

Jay S. Harrison’s 1956 review of Tosca played by Maria Callas does little in helping us understand Callas’s reputation as a Diva, as it merely concentrates on her singing and acting without mentioning her career or her life off stage. In fact to the ordinary person the review may even seem somewhat confusing. The initial impression left on the reader’s mind is that Callas was very ordinary in her singing and acting. “On the basis of her present performance this much is sure: her soprano is not big, nor is it of a quality even approaching velvet.” (J.S. Harrison (1956) review of Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera House) Harrison starts his review of Callas very negatively; he then clarifies himself and makes a distinction between the two acts of the play: the first being quite ordinary but the second electrifying. This is further explained by asserting that Callas possessed a “dual remarkable nature.” (J.S. Harrison ibid) According to Harrison, in the first act, Callas was disappointing, very ordinary, not worthy of her reputation that preceded her. “Her portrayal was rather pale, her entire manner was not with her, and she seemed distant, remote, her voice as well, taking on those qualities. In consequence, the electricity native to the act was no brighter than that produced by a five and dime flashlight. (J.S. Harrison, ibid) In the second act, Callas, according to Harrison was magnificent. She was “transformed as if by witchcraft”, (J.S. Harrison ibid) she lives up to her ‘Diva’ expectations; her performance is electrifying and flawless. “Her voice steadied, it’s pitch punctured notes like so many tooled arrows, and it’s color lightened, brightened and finally glowed.” (J.S. Harrison, ibid) “She reacted to the hideous net of events gathering around her exactly.” (J.S. Harrison, ibid) “Her despair at Cavaradossi’s torture, her revulsion over Scarpia’s lust, her resignation as she realizes that she is she is lost were all tightly etched in her face; and even her muscles grew visibly tense moved from one tormenting scene to another.” (J.S. Harrison, ibid) The above assessment of Callas having a ‘dual nature’ in her performance, to some may seem to indicate vulnerability and to the naïve weakness, but to the trained eye and ear, sheer talent. It reinforces what Robert Philip wrote about Callas: “What Callas has – which nobody else has in quite the same way – is an extraordinary powerful and sensitive way of acting the words as she sings them.” (Robert, Philip, The Diva, 6.5, p178) Obviously, as with any performer, regardless of their status, one is not without shortcomings. The weakness in Calas’s voice when trying to reach a high note is noted by Harrison as well as Phillip: “Indeed, there are moments, especially in the top register where the tints in her voice prick the ear like barbs” (J.S. Harrison, ibid) “Callas sometimes struggles to control a rather aggressive wobble in her top register, particularly when she is singing loudly.”(Robert, Philip, p.178 ibid) Towards the end of the review, Callas is portrayed negatively as “a very feminine Tosca, never an Italian Brunnhilde… that the soprano’s youthful femininity detracts a mite from the more regal, majestic aspects of the role.” (J.S. Harrison, ibid) In contrast, Callas’s public life, especially after her retirement gives a different picture. She ended her own marriage and started a public relationship with Aristotle Onassis. He was a prominent shipping magnate who never married her, but rather, left her and married Jacqueline Kennedy. (Robert Philip, p.175 ibid) This proves that she was “a woman who had the courage to follow the imperatives of her heart even when they collided with the values by which she once lived.”(Marion Lighana, Rosenberg, Revisioning Callas, Essay published in usitalia)