This film is now available on DVD with enhanced audio. The
black and white film is very grainy and frankly poor quality. The DVD
presents two historically important gala performances by the celebrated
diva. At the time she was towards the end of her career and her voice
was past its best. There are difficulties, for example, with some high
notes in the Don Carlo aria but her singing is nonetheless still very
worthy of the prolonged applause of the Covent Garden audience.
The first, filmed in 1962 comprised the extended aria,
‘Tu che le Vanità’ from Verdi’s Don Carlo and two arias from
Bizet’s Carmen. The taxing Verdi aria is delivered most expressively
notwithstanding my remarks above. The Carmen arias – the Habanera
and Séguedille are sung with verve and a great joie de
vivre yet the audience is left in no doubt that this Carmen is a dangerous
man-eating spitfire. These brief tantalising glimpses of the Callas
Carmen were to be the only ones left to us for she never sang the role
in any opera house although she recorded the work in July 1964. It is
also a delight to see Georges Prêtre conducting the Royal Opera
House Orchestra in colourful performances of the Carmen Prelude
and Entr’acte from Act III.
The 1964 Gala Concert excerpt is devoted to the Second
Act of Puccini’s Tosca. Again one misses the voice that Callas
brought to her famous 1953 EMI recording (with Tito Gobbi again as Scarpia
and Giuseppe di Stefano as Cavaradossi now available on EMI Great Recordings
of the Century EMI CMS 5 67756 2). Yet Zeffirelli’s inspired direction
persuades Callas to bring an infinitely more persuasive dimension to
her role as the tormented diva at the mercy of her passions and jealousies.
Instead of the imperious operatic diva one normally had met, this Tosca
was presented much more effectively as a vulnerable young girl at the
mercy of her emotions and the cruel manipulations of the sadistic Scarpia
– wonderfully portrayed by Gobbi, imperious, salacious, and utterly
ruthless. The bespectacled, slightly limping Spoletta of Robert Bowman
adds yet another dimension of horror to this chilling Tosca.
Classic Callas that despite, a few practically negligible
carps, should be in every Callas fan’s collection despite the grainy
monochrome film.
Ian Lace
Maria
CALLAS at Covent Garden 1962 and 1964 
Conducted by Georges Prêtre*
and Carlo Felice Cillario