Search - Nicola Rescigno, Maria Callas, Teresa Berganza :: Maria Callas ~ Cherubini- Medea [selection]

COMPLETE MEDEA

tom h. | Greenport, NY | 08/23/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First of all this is the complete opera and not a selection despite what both Amazon and the jewel case say (it's in the liner notes).



Due to the mythical hype surrounding this particular version of Medea I went with this as my first version. It did not disappoint.



Whether or not Maria found out she was fired from the Met before, during, or after the performance is something that has never been clear. What is clear is that she put a touch of venom into her voice that I had never heard before, and I've heard a lot of Callas. The rest of the cast sounds just as good if not better than Madame Callas. Carron, Vickers, Zaccaria, and Berganza really shone this night.



Intense is the only word I can use to describe this performance. As if it were going to be the last Medea in Dallas rather than the first.

Nicola Rescigno keeps the orchestra tight throughout, as always, never drowning out the voices.



The only problem on this and other live recordings of the era is the sound quality. It's actually better on this than on some others I've heard, but it can be grating to the ears if one isn't used to these horrible recording techniques. I hate to rate live opera from the 50's because I know that what I'm hearing is not what the people heard. But in this particular case if it sounds this good here it must have blown the people in Dallas away that night."

Superb

Dr. Philip Cokkinos | Athens, Greece | 11/09/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the famous Dallas MEDEA, recorded live in November 1958. It really is superb and I consider it to come only a close second to Maria's mesmerising 1953 Scala performance, conducted by Leonard Berstein. In Dallas the conductor is Nicola Rescigno and he does a great job, respecting the score as if it were a classical symphony and adding dark, Promethean tomes. The famous Greek actor Alexis Minotis directed this production.



It should be noted that Callas always sang MEDEA in the Italian translation wiith sung recitatives, added by Franz Lachner some 50 years after the work premiered, and not the original French version (MEDEE) with spoken dialogue, as originally composed by Cherubini in 1797. I have listened to both versions and vastly prefer the Italian, which sounds leaner, cleaner, and much more effectively direct in the drama. This may sound like a "sacrilege" but I would regard it to be one of those very rare occasions when the revised opera version is better than the original.



Maria Callas was only 35 in 1958 and already in vocal decline, as the also famous Lisbon TRAVIATA earlier in the year will confirm. But here she is captured in nearly pristine voice, with long breath control, raw chest notes, soaring high notes, prodigious stamina, and practically no vibrato. Her malignant stage characterisation simply takes one's breath away, the way she makes several phrases drip with poison and is darkly brooding in her confrontations with Creon and Jason.



The grand Paris opera gala is only a month away, and already there the voice sounds slightly over the hill.

At the 1959 Covent Garden MEDEA there is some loss of volume, the vibrato is more pronounced, the high notes are strained.



Jon Vickers is admirable in the graceless role of Jason and he inhabits the drama very well. His Italian diction, here at the beginning of his international career, leaves something to be desired. He did improve on this very quickly and I greatly admire his elegant, impeccable phrasing in later recordings, made most evident in his magnificent Otello and Tristan.



Teresa Berganza sings Neris, the maidservant. She is quite good, although the voice needs more heft in the superb Act II aria "Solo un pianto" (the jewel in the opera), in which Rescigno conducts her too fast. The two best renditions of this aria are offered by Fedora Barbieri and Giulietta Simionato in the 1953 and 1961 Scala performances, respectively.



This MEDEA is absolutely recommended.



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