My neighbors are over the moon that I have the new 69-disc set of Remastered Maria Callas: The Complete Studio Recordings (Warner). The things they – in Bangkok, just south and west of Madama Butterfly's Yokohama and Turandot's Peking – didn't know! For me, the thrill has less been new knowledge than renewed confirmation of what I had long suspected – for example, that the 1955 Rigoletto was as great as it looked, if previously not ever quite sounded – and falling ever deeper into the Callas trance.
If I were to say only one thing about the originals and these remasters, it's that this set has made me love Puccini again, which is up there in miracles with the loaves and the fishes. The Madama Butterfly with Karajan, which I've now heard a half-dozen times and counting, is more nail-biting, kimono-rending (mine) each time.
There have been earlier Callas remasterings, as recently as the Oughts, but this is something else altogether. There's a fat, immensely readable, mouth-watering book, with fabulous photographs, explaining the engineering, often from improved original sources. It frees me to resume the idolatry.
I've been an eye-clawing fan of Callas – the only singer between tenors Caruso and Pavarotti whose last name was synonymous with opera around the world – since I stopped hating that sonic skewer of a voice and starting hearing in it beauty of the rarest kind, allied with unmatched penetration of utterance. If you hate the sound of Callas' voice, these ingeniously remastered versions of all of her studio recordings are only going to make things worse. There's detail in the singing never heard before, and heightened presence.
The tracks that were hard to take – say, the curdling 1963 "Nacqui all' affanno" from La Cenerentola , perhaps still fresh in SF Opera-goers' ears – have only gained in excruciosity. On the other hand, the much-cleaned-up, live "Adieu, notre petite table" from Manon, from the EMI "studio" disc Callas a Paris (the Aristotle Onassis-obsessed Callas of 1963) reappears shorn of audience noise (eruptive applause at the end of singing of the utmost delicacy) and sounding more perfect than ever. I've never thought it the best thing Callas recorded, by far, but have always treasured it most – proof, if nothing else, that I can hold my breath for 3'23" then cry full-out.
No amount of remastering would transform some of the complete-opera studio recordings into more than sketches (admittedly, by a Rembrandt) of what were to become, onstage, her matchless Traviata Violetta, Sonnambula Amina, Lucia, Medea and Norma. Callas has vexed us forever with composite performances – in our minds' ears – of vocal impersonations that grew in all directions.
But while I had laid aside her 1954 Norma in deference to the summits she was later to reach in the role, the "new" 1954 emerges, with a quiet background acoustic, as more than a noble early effort, but rather, a rich, detailed characterization, noble and fiery by turns. For decades I turned my back on it in favor of the more "insightful" 1960, but I'm back, eating a plate of crow. The same for her matchless Amina, which in the studio channels the greatest of her bel canto forebears.
The 1953 Tosca has had a range of "pressing" problems on LP and CD. As newly engineered, it's gone from definitive to mandatory. Here is the proof of what a scenery-chewing diva Callas was not. Her Floria Tosca is the picture of a vulnerable woman made courageous by love. The 1964-65 remake is now mercilessly exposed, and the warning can be made in an exact analogy: only if you like late Billie Holiday more than early should you take late over early Callas as Tosca.
As remastered, the 1954 Puccini Arias disc strikes with an impact comparable to the one it made on LP, and the spruced up new Puccini complete operas could make them fully competitive again. Her Mimi, Turandot and Manon Lescaut step right out of the speakers as flesh-and-blood women, and the transformation of her Cio-Cio San from child "bride" to abandoned mother is now, wiped clean, a nearly unbearable study of innocence defiled.
Mad Scenes remains the best of the recital discs. If you're going to get just one of the individual releases, this is it. It's all there, the Callas artistry at its zenith, now with nothing between you and your Calvins.
Old Callas hands who already have it all will be getting this set. But they haven't been overlooked, with sumptuous new live material just out from Myto. A phenomenal Norma from 1955 restores music cut from the 1954 studio version, presented at the correct pitch. Welcome to the world of historical bootlegs. And a 1951 I Vespri Siciliani, complete and from a newly discovered source, is the only recording of Callas singing the Verdi role she sang more often than any other.
As I was finishing this review, a guy from down the hall knocked on my door. "Who's that woman?" Before I could answer, he railed, "First I hated that voice. Now I can't get it out of my head." Welcome back, Maria.