A magnificent Callas masterclass - Eboli from Don Carlos by Verdi
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2018
- THE JUILLIARD MASTERCLASSES (1971 - 1972)
A series of classes given by Callas in October-November 1971 and in February-March 1972.
The one above is a class for the mezzo Sheila Nadler, given at the 24th of Febraury 1972.
DON CARLOS (1867) - G. Verdi
grand-opera in 5 acts.
The aria above is from the 1st act, and it is titled 'Nel giardin del bello' and sung by the mezzo role of Princess Eboli.
The libretto is beautiful, have a read:
ENGLISH:
PRINCESS EBOLI
In the Garden of Delights,
Dwelling of the Saracen,
With the pleasurable scents, under the shade
Of the laurel oaks, of the many flowers
A beautiful dancer
All covered in veils,
Seems to be watching
A star up in heaven.
Mohammed, king of the Moors,
Is going to the garden;
He tells her: "I adore you,
Oh gentle beauty!
Come, for the king
Is inviting you to rule with him;
That long-desired queen
Is no longer missing for me".
[CHOIR]
Weave the veils
Oh, graceful damsels
While, remains up in the heavens
The Great Star.
For veils are, under starlight,
Far dearer to love!
PRINCESS EBOLI
"Yet I can barely see
(For the skies aren't clear)
The beautiful mane,
The delicate hand, the foot.
Come on! Lift that veil
That is hiding you from me;
For, without that veil,
You must be like Heaven itself".
If you shall want to give me
The gift of your heart,
You will have my throne,
For I am king!
Do you want it? Bow down
For I want to please you.
Allah! The Queen"
Mohammed exclaimed.
[CHOIR]
Weave the veils
Oh, graceful damsels
While, remains up in the heavens
The Great Star.
For veils are, under starlight,
Far dearer to love!
ITALIAN:
EBOLI
Nel giardin del Bello,
saracin ostello,
all’olezzo, al rezzo
degli allòr, dei fior
una bella almèa
tutta chiusa in vel,
contemplar parea
una stella in ciel.
Mohammed, re moro,
al giardin sen va;
dice a lei: «T’adoro,
O gentil beltà!
Vien’, a sé t’invita
per regnar il re.
La regina ambita
non è più da me.»
Coro:
Tessete i veli,
vaghe donzelle,
mentr’è nei cieli
l’astro maggior.
Sono i veli, al brillar delle stelle,
sono i veli più cari all’amor!
EBOLI
«Ma discerno appena,
(chiaro il ciel non è)
i capelli - belli,
la man breve, il piè.
Deh! Solleva il velo
che t’asconde a me;
esser come il cielo
senza vel tu de’!»
Se il tuo cor vorrai
a me dar in don,
il mio trono avrai,
ché sovran io son!
Tu lo vuoi? T’inchina,
appagar ti vo’:
«Allah! La regina!»
Mohammed sclamò.
Coro:
Tessete i veli,
vaghe donzelle,
mentr’è nei cieli
l'astro maggior.
Sono i veli, al brillar delle stelle,
sono i veli più cari all’amor!
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Eboli was a sexy sensual girl - having her affair with the King! As Callas says part way through "she was a woman". I love this lesson as the mezzo doesn't have the interpretive skills to make a single change. She is F and FF - mf, p and pp dont exist for her - nor any variation of vowel sounds no colour no intelligent use of portamento.. But the minute you hear Callas open her mouth to sing it - you hear every ounce of Eboli's aristocratic sensuality - and the sexiness pours out of her singing. Just the first phrase that Callas sings - on the single breath - with a tiny portamento from end of the first half - f to the p second half. Genius. And Callas' continuing varying choice of the "a" vowel sound is breathtaking as she uses different ones to convey different feeling ("playful", "murmur", "elegant").
Then she sings the soprano part at 22:onwards (magical) and tells her student - don't worry about the notes - look at the words to find the interpretation. And this final words: "THE PERFUME THAT YOU MUST GIVE IT". Great advice, great imagery, superlative teaching.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
So much of piano and fortissimo is not in pushing to make a big sound or coming off the voice to sing pp. it is in the poetic mind and the imagination , while always staying on the thread of the air and the voice, keeping the squillo alive. Then you can creatively craft a phrase, as callas always did. On a thread of air. Long, imaginative phrases that drew you in or pinned you to the back of the stalls.
She is always the teacher. Amazing.
Bravo!
Callas and you are right, of course. But the problem here is on a completely different plane. The girl who sings Eboli here has "no" voice. I mean wrong technique. You can talk all you want about nuances in arias or images and meanings. I'm sure the girl understands everything about this aria and about type of Eboli, but she also understands that she can't let go of her voice, otherwise she just can't do anything at all, because she doesn't have it. No technique. She just doesn't know how to sing. First of all, she needs an experienced teacher who will "set" her voice, equalize the registers, make the top more fiery, a tight middle and a bright chest sound. It's simply a matter of technique. When the voice is freed, meanings, character, nuances and so on will take its place.
Wow, the sense of Eboli's character that Callas is able to communicate in purely vocal terms is astonishing. I don't care what condition her voice was at this time. Her vocalizing is so desciptive of Eboli's charater, I can imagine the scene in my mind as Callas sings it.
And this was Callas in a nutshell. Making any role her own. In her fach, out of her fach, something she had sung, something she hadn’t sung.
An encyclopedia of Opera. A psychologist of composers of librettists. An actress. An instrumentalist. Everything. She was, is and will always be everything.
She is so sweet and kind......Really she is a fabulous, passionable teacher. The teacher of all opera's dream.
This masterclass and hearing Maria's extremely insightful vocalises, tips and lessons about this role, has got me yearning more than ever for Maria to have sung mezzo roles such as Amneris, Eboli, Azucena or even Charlotte (which she planned on doing in 1978). Just imagine..
In Robert Sutherland's book about Callas (he was the pianist for her final tour), he says that she was perfectly willing to perform a mezzo role onstage, she just didn't want to do Carmen because she thought the role was vulgar! I also have read that she was planning Charlotte in Paris when she died. If you hear her personal recordings from 76-77, her voice was in very good condition!
Everything you state it totally true. She was preparing to do Charlotte in eaely 1978 at the Opera Garnier in Paris, and she rehearsed it always until her death with her pianist friend Vasso Devetzi. Her voice indeed got much more stable by her last years.. and if only we had the tapes that Maria kept in her house from that time (Vasso took them after her death)
N. Lidar By the way, run don't walk to see Maria by Callas if you haven't already. It's amazing in every way. There is home video of her stay in Palm Beach in 1975 which is charming and heartbreaking at the same time.
How magnificent it would have been to have heard her as Charlotte. Her French albums, even with the vocal difficulties on the second one are spectacular and certainly she would have been the most emotionally moving of all Charlottes.
I had read this.... but she could have batted Carmen out of the park!!! She did record it but Callas could actually act...so a staged performance could have been stupendous. Had she lived longer, she could have nailed these Mezzo roles.
Maria Callas, the best one forever and forever.
It means EVERYTHING
Superhuman Callas !!! The breath of God !!!
Callas. Phenomenal. I would have loved her as my voice teacher
Callas is a gift from Heaven !
MARIA CALLAS THE BEST ONE FOREVER.
Thanks for posting. I didn't realize that besides being the greatest singer ever she was the greatest teacher of Opera!
I sincerely recommend to you her masterclass of Rigoletto's "Cortigiani! vil razza, dannata...". It is HAIR RAISING.
Troppo onesta per cantare da mezzo, cosa fatta da molte colleghe ... Era così artisticamente onesta che sisteneva che il pubblico merita il massimo non quello che può bastare... Nessusa come lei !!!!!
This is one of the hardest arias a mezzo has to sing. Riddled with intricate coloratura, sustained melismas and a singer's intonation has to be spot on with the exposed high A's.
Callas was so insightful when she said the role has to be 'sang with grace'. Eboli is a noble woman, the second most powerful at woman after the Queen. It has to be sang with an almost conceited dignity, that shows the more superficial side of her personality. But I don't have to tell anyone this- Verdi made it crystal clear with how he wrote this.
The score of this aria seems to have delicate embroidery of coloratura, plays of chiaro-scuro and spear-like high notes. So many, and I repeat so many, mezzos sing Eboli as if she is a psychopathic maniac who cannot control herself and her actions - when she is exactly the opposite; she is an cunning woman who is blinded of her action's consequences by confidence and high self regard. She is a woman drunken with the exclusivity and melodrama that comes with being a royal.
I completely agree! O don fatale is supposed to be an outburst of the emotions and thoughts she carries with her. Most of the opera she is supposed to be calculating and clever. When she is sung like a madwoman through the whole thing she loses dimension.
N. Lidar my god, without getting into details, your words not only paint a perfect image of Eboli but also of my employer. I can totally confirm your perception of how a Royal is and should be 😂
That first phrase that Callas sung. What? How?
Eh, I'm so happy this exists.
"It means nothing"
I am trying to learn this area. This is by far the most useful lesson I have had for it
che meraviglia ! Callas , impareggiabile !
Callas, kind and brutal at the same time.
I can't wait to learn this incredible song!!!
In the very first phrase Callas creates a character without anything but her voice. What other singer has ever done this. You also hear how much better the student is immediately by simply taking the very simple changes that Callas suggests. These are not magic [although there was a type of magic in Callas] but simply an understanding of the relation of the music and the words.
Bravo to the wonderful pianist.
this is unbeliavable! I’ve listened to almost every recording of this aria and callas version is the best even though shes soprano. I wish we had the full recording of this aria sung by Callas and the masterclass was so amazing!
debio ser una maestra asombrosa un amor de mujer
The voice doesn't obey this girl. Callas can brilliant show HOW it should sound, but nothing will change. What this girl needs is not Callas, but an experienced teacher who can make her voice work.
Brilliant. I think the student improved as she took direction, particularly when she finally did something with the cadenza @21:31.
How come I love her madly?
Will somebody please explain that to me?
Musical smarts are born.
How are you supposed to get a job when the student is this amazing?!
I had the pleasure of singing with the late Ms Nadler many years after this wonderful class. She was a lot of fun to work with and it was undoubtedly a "voice and a half", a very powerful and fairly flexible mezzo. But she was never really at home on the top of her range and Eboli is notoriously tricky because it was actually composed by Verdi for one mezzo (Rosine Bloch) and then when plans changed, finished off with a very different singer, Pauline Gueymard-Lauters, in mind. That explains the divergent characters and tessiture of the the "Veil song", clearly for a lighter, more flexible voice (Bloch) and "O Don Fatale" for a far more powerful and dramatic instrument (Gueymard). Not that Sheila would have ever done the role on stage-- the voice was just too short on top and she always billed herself as a contralto.
But isn't Ms Callas amazing! Even with the remains of her voice, and close to the end of her career/life, she could summon up the many facets of Eboli's mercurial character.
OMG can you even imagine how intimidating it would be to have sung your aria and then NOT hear a positive comment? Of course, all of Callas’ critiques are 100% valid. So sad, though, hearing Callas’ voice struggling to produce the notes. During these classes, some days she sounded fantastic, but other days she was clearly struggling. Love this music.
The student has pretty good staccatos on the high notes!
But she sings forte all the time and seems to not listen or even trying to change her way of singing.
I read in the comments about "the girl": Sheila Nadler (RIP) was already 30 here. By the age of 30 Callas was already giving masterclasses in singing.
Peccato sia morta....quanto poteva darci......❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
What would be truly amazing to hear would be if someone were to splice together the parts maria are demonstrating into a complete aria. She sang most of the aria, the missing portions could just be filled in with a pianist carrying the vocal line.
Hola, acá te dejo el link del video que subí, unifique las partes cantadas por Callas, luego el acompañamiento al piano de las partes que faltan, conformando así el aria completa, espero que te guste. Saludos cordiales!!!
ua-cam.com/video/D5BiNWYPtzI/v-deo.html
"It's not my aria." Every aria is her aria.
20:14 - 21:05 or Callas at her best…
(Student never gets it really)
The singer sounded very hyper and loud.
What MARIA CALLAS had can't be taught, you can't buy or sell it, it doesn't come in a bottle. Fact is when CALLAS sings it it resonates with meaning. The student is set on being LOUD, like Dimitrova always was. That's not listenable.
Even Maria didn't know who was the singer that took over her onstage.. What she had was unexplainable
the student sounds nervous to me. Usually, nervousness makes you too loud and dropping your support.
Dimitrova was not always (too) loud, she was a true dramatic soprano and she could actually sing piano even on high notes.
Now I understand why Maria Callas gave up with teaching quite soon. All the scholar must have been like this girl she doesn't get anything of what she says...
It's difficult to correct bad habits in 30 minutes. Had she studied 2 to 3 days a week with Callas for a couple years, I believe she would have been a force to reckon with
Do you specte someone to be able to follow direction on spot? I'm sorry honey, but u know nothing about the process... You are supposed to write it down and work on it for a week before major changes.
@@clefnoteproductions6695 The problem is that she has been allowed to proceed with a technique that makes it impossible for her to sing piano. She was too old to fix that.
@@theoperatripleaxel5417 I'd agree for a beginner but this is a masterclass with people that are already professional singers and that know music quite well or at least they should. Any other professional musician could not come to a masterclass without knowing how to play more piano or legato.
Madonna non e possible!
What's cadenza?
Cadenza is a pure piece of vocal music without words, on the end of the aria (cadenza is in Italian from cadere, falling, the end). The cadenza is a vocal dentelle that embellish or complete the aria's meaning
@@francoisegareau9411 thank you
...traditionally not written by the composer, but a few bars, left "empty" for invention by the actual musician/singer. @@sbaglat6358
People saying that the student is a bad singer and can't follow directions know something about the process of learning an aria/role? She is talented, she did amazing, and she did had her problems with dynamic, coloratura and stuff but she is a student and the aria is new!
How new is the aria? Eboli is one of the greatest mezzo parts in all opera. The student is no novice.
I also think she's talented and has a nice voice. I wonder, however, who and how taught her.
two things that I wished that had happened to La Divina: that she forgot about Italy and went to England and France, where she wouldn't have all the toxicity that the Italian fans threw on her; ii) that she separated earlier from Onassis. I would say that the first would be more important than the second. Had she done that, perhaps she would live longer and healthier? After 1960 she just needed to erase the roles with anything above the high C and she would have continued to be an amazing soprano and mezzo as well.
No one comments on the pianist, who knows the tradition inside out.
Who was the student here?
Sheila Nadler (1943-2022).
Oh My God who is the girl
All info rests in the description box
Very difficult aria.To difficult for this girl.She is very nervous.
Student chose an aria she couldn’t sing.
Student chose an aria she was learning. Don’t be an ass.
@@vxhorusxv
No this is supposed to be a masterclass and not only a singing (tecnique) lesson.
I hope you know the difference.
Vraiment l' élève est médiocre , une voix bêlante et pas d ' expressivité.....
Horrible! Elle ne pas un musician, simplement animal
Omg the girl is really bad...
No, she's not. It's just that Callas is great.
Her handling of Spanish Flair cadenza portion is indeed poor. There are those with ability and no musicianship whatsoever, like this one. Making sounds.
opera singers are so painful... Maria was trying her best but the student was blasting monotonous fake opera style with no meaning. Terrible! Maria is a saint and a real singer - any genre - but the problem is with education in music schools.
The woman trying to sing this really sucks at being teached how to interpret.