THE RESPECT GIVEN TO THE ART OF BEL CANTO AND THE DIVINA MARIA CALLAS: my personal tribute to a woman who is unrivaled and misunderstood.
I repost this tape of my amateur singing to a Vietnamese audience for my sister in singing,Thu Hoai, to see for fun. I enjoyed this performance because there was no practice, yet the three Vietnamese musicians in the back got on with me so nice!
But the real reason for this re-post was the opportunity for me to write about, and to express my personal, very personal indeed, tribute to one of the women I admire the most: the assoluta singer-actress of the 20th century: the late Maria Callas, who stood for the art of bel canto in our modern time, yet revolutionized the opera stage. I dare not imitate her, because an idol is someone you cannot imitate. I have never imitated her -- in fact, I did not really study her until the year my novel Daughter of the River Huong was published. DOTRH was laced with description of classical music. Having created such lace and understanding the timbre of my work, I decided to seek out the legacy of Maria Callas by reading and listening.
In this tape, my hand gesture, my movements, the intensity of my face, my gown, my scarf, my decision to "rumba" the popular Napeolitan song Come Back to Sorrento, were all my natural self -- I was born with, and grew up with, all those aspects. Also, in this tape, I (already in my 50s) dropped down to a low register because I was singing for a Vietnamese audience whom I believe did not like the high voice that much. The drop was not because I... idolized Maria Callas! These characteristics of mine did not come from watching or listening to Callas -- a novice like me simply can't, and shouldn't!
I think to imitate Ms. Callas or to dig into her personal life is to disrespect her. To learn from her, to try to understand her, to guard her personal life (all made public with treacherous speculations) by not judging her, and to try to use discipline and intellect in the study of music the way she has used hers, is to love her and respect her legacy.
Watching and hearing my dropping down to the lower register did make me poignantly think of her. Ms. Callas's voice stretched super-humanly from low to high. She recognized and taught that in bel canto singing, one must connect the chest voice to the mid-voice to the higher voice -- a point disputed by many other celebrated divas who opine that a soprano should never utilize any such thing as the "chest resonance." Ms. Callas taught, too, that in bel canto, one must remain "light" even if one could be "heavy," as one masters and exhibits all the embellishments the composers of bel canto had created! (Instead of distinguishing "light" from "heavy," many of my Vietnamese compatriots have described voices as "thin" or "thick." I think my voice is "thick" when...I have a cold; it's thickened with mucus!)
These past couple of years, I had to cope with the loss of my singing voice (meaning I no longer...like what I hear and many times cannot sustain a long phrase with breath). Then, I began to fully understand the lessons imparted by Maria Callas, her voice, and her life. She had taught me to understand myself and my voice.-- I, somebody she did not know, had never been rightly and adequately trained in her tradition, had become her pupil. She became the teacher to all of us who love the human voice as a musical instrument.
BUT, she became my idol not because of the myth of her voice and her acting.
She did not become my idol because of her celebrity or the sensationalism of her life. I idolized her because of her ability to speak, her strong character, her intelligence, her spontaneity, her intellectual and emotional honesty, her sophistication and class, her growth as she got older, her tremendous lifetime discipline and good taste, and her respect for, and dedication to, her art.
She is my idol because to me she is a female artist that can be "First Lady" of a nation although she never did. (The other performing artist who has First Lady class and caliber is Helen Miren. These are my opinions.)
I love watching Madame Callas because she was so real, not just because she appeared breathtakingly beautiful and elegant in so many memorable moments (In other moments, she could be ...genuinely scary!). She was one of those very rare women born with an egg-shaped face combined with a square jaw line and an oval chin, sparked with dark, huge expressive eyes, and animated with curved lips typifying the big mouth that characterizes naturally born singers!
Her voice and beauty reflect perfection in imperfection. Those who study the legacy of Callas and her art will agree with me: La Callas means perfection and imperfection in one woman, unique and unsurpassed! Live for love, live for art: On the journey to reach perfection, one must be blemished in order to remain pure!
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