Drama Queen
“Drama Queen” brings together the most dramatic studio recordings ever made by Maria Callas during the course of her career. Or, to express it more accurately, this compilation brings together some of the most dramatic operatic scenes and arias ever recorded. Even four decades after her death in Paris in 1977, what the director Franco Zeffirelli said about her still holds true today: there is a “BC” and “AC” era – “before Callas” and “after Callas”.
On the one hand, Maria Callas fulfilled the roles entrusted to her with a unique degree of precision and profound feeling. Admittedly, the emphatic quality of her interpretations was based on a second, technical quality that made it possible for her to sing the most widely varied or even contradictory roles. The critics who witnessed her performance tried to outdo each other in the superlatives about her vocal control – for example when she effortlessly leaps from the middle F to high G in “Casta diva” in Bellini’s Norma. In the final analysis, it is this apparent effortlessness – for which the mastery of all registers is essential – that allowed Callas to convey yet more expression in her breathing even at the high dramatic point and also sets La Divina (the divine one) apart from all other singers.
