Rossini Il turco in Italia

The fame and legacy of Maria Callas are nearly unsurpassed in the modern history of opera. Her fame has transcended the usual boundaries of classical music, and she has been the inspiration for several movies as well as the successful Broadway play "Master Class." Her extensive catalogue of recordings remains among the most coveted and controversial for both her fans and detractors.

Though American by birth, Callas (born Maria Anne Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulos) was born of Greek parents, and at age 13 her mother took her back to Greece because of financial difficulties caused by the Great Depression. She studied voice at the Royal Academy of Music in Athens with Spanish coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo and made rapid progress; she soon sang Santuzza in a student production of Cavalleria rusticana. Her professional debut came at age 16 in a minor role in von Suppé's Boccaccio.

While still in Athens during World War II, Callas sang her first Tosca in 1942. In 1945, she returned to the United States and sang several auditions, but nothing came of her visit. Her first appearance in 1947 at Verona as La Gioconda brought her to the attention of Tullio Serafin; Serafin became her musical advisor for many years, acting as her coach and conductor of many of her performances.

The entire world of opera was stunned when, in 1949 -- while singing Brünnhilde in Die Walküre at Venice -- she agreed to sing Elvira in Bellini's I Puritani, alternating performances during the same week. That same year she traveled to Buenos Aires to sing Turandot and Norma. In 1950, she sang Aida at the Teatro alla Scala, but she did not become a regular member there until 1952. Summer of 1950 brought her to Mexico City where, in one month, she sang Norma, Aida, Tosca and Il trovatore. During these early years, Callas would sing nearly any role offered including Isolde, Leonore in La forza del destino, Constanza in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Elena in I vespri siciliani.

As she matured, Callas began to concentrate on a smaller core repertory, including Cherubini's Medea, Bellini's Norma, Puccini's Tosca, Bellini's La Sonnambula, and Donizetti's Anna Bolena. Most of her other roles were heard only in one series of performances. After 1959, she rarely appeared on the opera stage, but she did sing concerts in America and Europe. Her last opera performances were in June 1965, in Paris as Norma. She came out of retirement in 1973 to tour the world with Giuseppe di Stefano in a series of recitals. Although financially rewarding, the tour did nothing to enhance her reputation. In 1971, she gave a series of masterclasses at the Juilliard School of Music in New York which were quite successful. In 1977, she died of a sudden heart attack in her Paris apartment.

Maria Callas was one of the most controversial singers of the twentieth century. She had a wide range from high E to the F below the staff, and an innate feel for the style of bel canto roles, but she was most notable for bringing a commitment and intensity to her dramatic portrayals that was nearly unprecedented at the time.

Using photorealistic video projection, Callas was brought back to the stage for a new tour in 2018. Callas in Concert features an interactive Callas on stage performing some of her most iconic recordings with a live orchestra. ~ Richard LeSueur

Tall, well-built, handsome, with a dramatic presence, bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni made a powerful impression in the decade following the end of WWII. He was particularly popular in Italy where audiences admired his immense, forceful voice. In America, he was celebrated in San Francisco and Chicago, but less well-liked in New York. His voice went into decline early, eroding at both ends of its compass and becoming perceptibly less voluminous. Rossi-Lemeni continued performing, however, making an estimable impression with his acting and effective declamation.

Rossi-Lemeni's father, a colonel in the Italian military, and his Russian mother both knew the children of the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin, and Nicola found himself absorbed with that artist's legacy from an early age; he collected every Chaliapin recording he could find. After initial training with his mother, he studied repertory with Gigli's accompanist, Vito Carnevale and, at 18, began coaching with Ferruccio Cusinati, an assistant to conductors Serafin and Guarneri. With Italy's entry into WWII, Rossi-Lemeni was conscripted and sent to the Russian front in his father's division. Soon after the war's end, Rossi-Lemeni made his concert debut in Verona, singing for Allied personnel. His first stage appearance followed in 1946 as Varlaam in a Venice production of Boris Godunov. Engagements in other Italian theaters ensued and he sang at La Scala in 1947, remaining there until 1961. His first performance in Milan was as Varlaam, with Tancredi Pasero as Boris and Boris Christoff as Pimen.

In Buenos Aires, Rossi-Lemeni made his debut in the title role of Boris Godunov in 1949. His first North American appearance took place in San Francisco on October 2, 1951, once again as the tortured Tsar. Critic Alfred Frankenstein hailed the bass as "a new star" and described his talents as "immense." He observed: "The adjective 'king-sized' has been done to death in contemporary journalism, but you don't know what it really means until you have seen this man, his overwhelming physique and his imperial bearing."

During the 1952 - 1953 London season, Rossi-Lemeni made his Covent Garden debut, also as Boris. His December 30 performance was found more realistic and restrained than that of Boris Christoff, heard in two earlier seasons. Rossi-Lemeni's Metropolitan Opera debut took place on November 16, 1953, as Méphistophélès in Faust. While critics were impressed with his stage persona and acting, reservations were expressed about what many considered rough singing.

When Carol Fox, Lawrence Kelly, and Nicola Rescigno sought to bring large-scale opera back to Chicago, they mounted two performances of a "calling card" Don Giovanni with Rossi-Lemeni in the lead. Cheered by critic Claudia Cassidy, the production opened the door to a successful fall season for the Chicago Lyric Opera and, soon, a permanent place among the world's major companies. Rossi-Lemeni returned in the fall for Norma with Maria Callas, when Cassidy described his Oroveso as having "the magnificence of Michelangelo's Moses." He also sang Rossini's Basilio, showing a rare gift for comedy. In two subsequent Chicago seasons, Rossi-Lemeni sang in I puritani, La bohème, Faust, L'Elisir d'Amore, and L'Amore dei tre Re.

During the 1950s, Rossi-Lemeni made a number of recordings for EMI, several with Maria Callas. Ildebrando Pizzetti wrote his Assassinio nella Cattedrale (one of five operas dedicated to the singer) for Rossi-Lemeni in 1958. Rossi-Lemeni and his wife, soprano Virginia Zeani, taught at Indiana University beginning in the early 1980s.

Although he was not an international conducting star, Gianandrea Gavazzeni was one of the most respected and dependable of opera conductors, considered one of the great preservers of the authentic Verdi tradition at La Scala. He was also a composer, but renounced that career.

At the age of 11 he entered the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, studying piano there from 1921 to 1924. In 1925, he entered Milan Conservatory, remaining there through 1931. His primary area of study was composition, mainly under Ildebrando Pizzetti.

He started his musical career in the traditional entry-level job of répétiteur (i.e., individual coach who ensures that singers are prepared according to the conductor's interpretation), as a pianist, and as a journalist in the field of music.

When he had an opportunity to conduct, he began to champion the music of his fellow composers Pizzetti, Luigi Dallapiccola, Gian-Francesco Mailipiero, and Goffredo Petrassi, the leading modernists on the Italian scene at the time, having also supported them in his journalistic writings.

Gavazzeni composed actively at this time. His oratorio Canti per Sant'Alessandro (1934) and an opera, Paolo e Virginia (1935), were performed and well received. He wrote additional orchestral and vocal music. But in 1949, as his conducting career was taking off, he not only announced his retirement as a composer, but also banned any further performances of his works.

In 1948 he first conducted at La Scala Opera in Milan, where he continued to conduct frequently through 1977. He was the artistic director of that house from 1965 to 1972. He also often conducted at Maggio Musicale of Florence. His British debut was at the 1957 Edinburgh Festival, conducting a guest appearance of the smaller La Scala touring company called La Piccolo Scala. He appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1965, leading Anna Bolena by Donizetti, and at the Metropolitan Opera (his U.S. debut) in 1976. He conducted widely in Europe, including several appearances at the Bol'shoi in Moscow, and in Canada and the U.S. He was best known for his interpretations of operas of Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and the verismo school.

He continued his notable career as a music journalist. His Musicians of Europe (Musicisti d'Europe, Milan, 1954) was a notable summing up of the immediate post-War classical music scene, and biographical/musical studies of Bellini and Donizetti are also well respected.

Nicolai Gedda -- possessor of one of the widest-ranging repertoires ever, phenomenal technique, and a bright, resonant voice with clarion high notes and a seductive mezza voice -- had one of the finest singing careers of the 20th century. He excelled in music of English, French, German, Italian, Russian, American, and Swedish composers, and was equally adept in traversing styles from the Baroque to the contemporary; he was as noted a performer of oratorio and songs as of opera. His performances were masterpieces of authentic style, from language and diction to phrasing. While performing Samuel Barber's Vanessa, in which he created the role of Anatol, critics consistently acclaimed his diction as the finest in the cast, even though he shared the stage with Rosalind Elias and Eleanor Steber -- both native speakers of English.

Gedda's father was Russian, his mother Swedish, and in 1929 his parents moved to Leipzig, where his father became cantor and choirmaster of a Russian Orthodox Church. As a child he sang in the church and performed Russian songs at weddings and parties. Having no wish to remain in Germany as the Nazi party rose to power, the family returned to Sweden in 1934.

As a teenager, he developed a strong ambition to become an opera singer, but unable to come up with the money to fund his studies, he became a bank teller, though he continued to participate in singing competitions. A wealthy bank client who was also an instrumentalist with the Stockholm Opera happened to hear Gedda mention his aspirations, and asked Karl-Martin Oehmann, a music teacher who had himself been an operatic tenor, to take him on as a pupil. Gedda later credited the development of his spectacular technique to Oehmann's teaching. Shortly thereafter, he won the Christine Nielsson Scholarship, which enabled him to begin music studies at the Stockholm Conservatory as a full time pupil in 1950.

In 1952, Gedda's recording and performing careers began simultaneously. Walter Legge, the famous producer for EMI, was in Sweden, and agreed to audition some of the students. He was immediately bowled over by Gedda's voice, musicianship, and technique; given that Gedda spoke fluent Russian, he signed him on the spot to take on the role of Dmitri in his upcoming recording of Boris Godunov, starring Boris Christoff -- all despite the fact that Gedda had yet to make his stage debut (which came only a short time later, in a production of Adolphe Adam's Le Postillon de Lonjumeau)! This began a lifelong association with EMI.

He made his La Scala debut in the 1952-1953 season as Don Ottavio (Mozart's Don Giovanni), and Carl Orff asked him to create the role of the Bridegroom in Il Trionfo dell'Afrodite; his Paris Opera debut in 1954 was as Huon in Weber's Oberon, and his Covent Garden debut in 1954 was as the Duke of Mantua. These were soon followed by debuts at Salzburg (Don Ottavio, 1957) and the Metropolitan Opera (Faust).

His life-long association with EMI made him one of the most widely-recorded tenors, though in the compact disc era, EMI had been rather dilatory in re-releasing many of his recordings.