Maria Callas' Last Performance"Ah, perfido!" Paris 1976

[Paddy818]

I want to believe you but this sounds more like her around the time she recorded it and I wonder if this is a rehearsal for that which would be early 60s. I do know she was a hard worker but undermined by illness and insecurity. She is still the greatest!

[sirdicaudore]

In every single word she still is the one and only Maria Callas! Oh, Maria... Thank you for every single moment of your life... How much I miss you...

[MultiZahl]

callas ist wunderbar

[artdanks]

I'm surprised how excellent she sounds here, considering what she sounded like so frequently in the last years.

[clytemnestre1]

@clytemnestre1 

[Matt75003]

I have heard it said that she was accompanied on this occasion by British pianist and conductor Jeffrey Tate. She was a competent pianist and could accompany herself when rehearsing at home (there are pictures that show her doing it). Nevertheless, the words she mutters when she interrupts herself after getting the words wrong do suggest that she is talking to an accompanist (although she could conceivably have been speaking to herself after realizing her mistake).

[Matt75003]

Callas and Beethoven, alone together in an empty theater. Listening to this recording is like eavesdropping on a conversation between the gods of Olympus.

[trschaefer]

This does sound like it could be Callas... But the claim that she is accompanying herself at the piano sounds preposterous...

[MoeWesley]

It absolutely is authentic.



[Lirico96]

L'ultima Divina

[darkblueangel1956]

Nonostante l'età, le condizioni fisiche ... UN ANGELO SU QUESTA TERRA, CON I SUOI DONI INFINITI, per noi comuni mortali !!!!!! INDIMENTICABILE !!! PER SEMPRE !!!!!

[sutherlandfan64]

This is not right. It just cannot be. In 1976 she certainly didn't sound like this. I even doubt she accompnied herself. The whole thing sounds ludicrous to me. I think this is the work of an overzealous fan of Callas... another one, desperate to make a point. Se sounded absolutely dreadful whith Di Stefano, there's no way she would have done this. Doesn't even sound like her, certainly not at that period. Fake!!!!

[Faust075]

@sutherlandfan64 This is not a fake . This is really Maria Callas, a year & a half before she died. And indeed, her voice is in a much better condition than 3 or 4 previously. When she was practising in 1976, one day, a journalist managed to get into the theatre and took a picture of her, while she was having a break, sitting on a chair. The next day, the picture was in the head news with the comment : " Callas is in dispear as she cannot reach a high C". After this, Callas stopped practising.

[baritonebynight]

@sutherlandfan64 A lot of it has to do woth the mental status of the singer. A happy singer sings much better than a sad/stressed singer. I believe this is real because this is between Callas and herself. She has nothing to prove...vs her 1973/74 tour when she had everything to prove. A singer can also rework their technique, when a voice declines, it can be regained with a lot of hard work.

[Keithj136]

Once again the staggering Class of Maria Callas.

[SusannaBrennt]

really does sound in good health and condition.

hard to believe is was in 1976 ...

[Tenorbravo]

I am speechless.. Elle est? absolument exceptionnelle.

[YaelBerman]

Thank you so much for this treasure :)!

[Strophal]

Are you really sure this was taken in 1976??Her voice seems in excellent condition. I heard her when she started the world tour with Di Stefano and it was catastrophic, a pain to hear, shrieking up and hollow down, only mid range surviving. Very sad. Is it possible that exercise gave her back her voice? or more simply is this an earlier recording?

[MelWolff]

ahhh not accompanies herself..! ...i was like a bit scare about it...it couldn't be impossible but a lot to do in the same time!

[1401JSC]

Accompanies herself !

[gomongio]

unfortunately it's not a very good-quality recording.... Callas forever

[leprincebeaumont]

Favolosa anche a un anno dalla morte! Si parla troppo spesso del 'declino' della Callas. Beh, vorrei io declinare così: incredibilmente brava!

[Lirico96]

Addio, Maria

[GoldenAgeSunshine]

Sorry ONEGIN65 but your title is misleading: This is NOT a performance at all. This is a PRIVATE REHEARSAL SESSION, captured live from inside the Th. des Champs-Elysées in Paris, an unauthorized one. This is NOT a performance as your heading is stating, and the initial photo (BTW beautiful!) adds to the confusion. But I always LOVE your postings! Just a few purist thoughts from your ardent follower and supporter! Merry X'mas to you, dear.

[AmericanEvita]

Even in her last years, Callas' voice was really beautiful. Yes, it's lost it's enormous power and you can tell it's "softer" and subdued but it's beautiful, it was like she was trying on a different technique! Callas never did really lose her voice. It's just that she was very sick. She was on medication and had health problems. Of course an unhealthy opera singer is going to sound different than when she was young and healthy. But this is gorgeous considering her age.

[leonardovittori1]

@AmericanEvita CAllas took Mandrax.. which was a barbituate. And speaking as one who has taken plenty of narcotic drugs for back pain.. Narcotics affect the voice.. especially the upper voice.. they do mine.. When my back is not acting up.. I am a high baritone.. when it is .. I am a bass.. LOL. I really believe al those narcotics, and sleeping pills and the like, affected her upper voice, and her voice in general.

[bonanplu]

@leonardovittori1 It seems she started to take pills since her debut so, because she never managed to sing well, not even in 1947/53

[MariaCallasLegend]

@bonanplu Are you crazy??She did not sing well even in 1947/53??????You are terrible!!!!Just listen to her 1952 armida and tell me who can have better coloratura,voice and breath control than Maria and also be more exciting!Callas was the most exciting singer in all histiry of opera,because simply she was Violetta,Norma,Isolde,Elvira,L­eonora,Medea,Carmen,Tosca,Amin­a,Imogene,Paolina,Gilda,Armida­,Lucia,Rosina,Mimi,Manon,Cio Cio San.....

[gustavojoris]

@MariaCallasLegend Ignore people that say such things, they are miserable ones trying to get attention no matter how. You encourage them by replying.

[emma41093]

@bonanplu OMG you are kidding!!!!!

[lhrlyc]

this was NOT a performance - this was a rehearsal in Paris in 1976 - and she was NOT self-accompanied, but the British conductor [forgot his first name] Tate was at the piano

there is a later short tape of her rehearsing FORZA at home with Vasso Devetzi at the piano, made early in 1977, the year of her death

[pianomags]

@lhrlyc Any ideas if there is a versin of the FORZA on here / elsewhere?

[keybedder]

@lhrlyc Jeffrey Tate.

[distefano13069609]

@lhrlyc Yes this was a rehearsal : 3/03/76: Rehearsal: Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées: accompanist Jeffrey Tate

Beethoven Ah ! perfido, op. 65

Callas was rehearsing for a possible concert, which never occured. Pippo almost got her back to the stage in 1975 for a Tosca production in China (which was to be filmed, Chinese film and telecast all of thed Operas presented) but the Theater wanted to make it a concert version, and Callas said that without her costumes she felt naked.....

[dermotafan]

This is just incredible, compared to what she did in her last concerts with Di Stefano.

[celebrity19812004]

Her voice sounds sooo much better than those 1970's concerts with Giuseppe Di Stefano.

[makisrata]

@GeorgiNM Ihave upload her last recording on August of 1977!It is a rehearsal of the aria of Leonora from La forza del destino with her friend Vasso Devetzi at piano!

[gondorado1]

In 1:39 she is telling something to someone, I think the man/woman playing the piano. So, she was not playing it.

[ciociosan]

@gondorado1 she was probably talking to herself. probably.

[motardbear15]

The only wonder is that her voice sounds far better than it was when she made the farewell concerts with Di Stefano ! She seems to have recovered her voice of the 1954'

[LyricoSpinto]

This is wonderful and I am a huge fan, BUT - this can't be when it is daid to be? there is non of the tell tale damage that was there for years before she actually stopped. Those signs will not go away? I will listen and enjoy but greatly doubt - thanks for the posting - oh! and the sound of the voice and piano can't be her playing unless she played and looked out at 180 degrees

[Faust075]

This is absolutely true. It was recorded in Paris, at the "Théâtre des Champs Elyssées" where Maria used to go regularly to practice. The manager of the Theatre was a close friend of her. This was actually recorded in August 1976, just 1 year before she died. The only "mistake" is that she is not playing the piano herself here. There is another recording of her made in August 1977, about 2 weeks only before her death.

[GeorgiNM]

This is fascinating! Have you heard that actual LAST recording?

[Plowrightclips]

How one be sure to be of the date 1976? The voice sounds much earlier than this to me, and this cannot be her playing the piano, listen how far apart the two sounds are !!

[KILLERADVICE]

Beautiful and so clever...

Still the great and unique Maria Callas!

[sillyboydeux]

I'm replying to myself by adding that in her interviews, early rehearsals were subject to a process called "straightjacketing", in which every note and mark in the score is acknowledged and delivered, but the "couche d'amour" was not yet worked out by the artist, the final gloss and smalto. Nevertheless, having recording this 13 years earlier, she was able to impart enough passion and artistry to give a good idea of what the performance would have sounded like.

[sillyboydeux]

I had heard this tape existed, and was always afraid to listen, not because I doubted that her voice had been completely restored, but because I knew it. So many years later, here we have a timeless document of decidedly one of the most influential musicians of all time, from Paganini and Cortot to Ponselle, Caruso. Listen to the perfect artistry, 40 years in the making, not a sour note or a breath misplaced, and the soul so refined by suffering and triumph, perfect practice and pathos. Ti amo.

[Tenorbravo]

Ms. Callas was UNIQUE. She will be always in our hearts. I had the opportunity to see her performing alive in Rigoletto, IL Travatore, and Madame Butterfly. She was able to interprete each character and able to touch our souls too. What a DIVA.

[xafnndapp]

you saw her performing in Mexico City in 1952?...

[webbersarahlover]

she died too young only 56 years!!!!!!!!!!

[Faust075]

She was born in 1923 and died in 1977. At the age of 53.

[GOTICO671]

@webbersarahlover  53 years

[Elisabetta611]

The tragedy is that she is in her best vocal shape since 1959 here. And she never came back after that disastrous tour. May she rest in peace.

[DanBarthy]

There was one last attempt at a comeback, Charles Vanne, a friend who was ruuning the Thèâtre des Champs Elysées, offered LA CALLAS the theater to practice in to get the feel of singig on a stage again. One day, a reporter from "France Dimanche" sneaked in while she was singing, took some photos and wrote about the collapse of her voice. Her inner resolve that had been mastered with such difficult was blown away. She was in agony. She was shriveled, shrunken, isolated.

[Elisabetta611]

I meant "Poor Maria" re: the reporter who sneaked in and then bashed her efforts in an article. She sounds lovely here. And for your information: In my opinion she is the greatest soprano who ever lived. Didn't you read my second comment? Or check to whom I was replying? Honestly....

[pirocagrande]

I reallly , reallly apologize....please forgive-me!!! I am gonna exclude my terrible comment right away! it is true, I just read the "poor Maria" part---and I defend her art with blood!

A thousand apologies

[Elisabetta611]

No worries. There are a few trolls here on Youtube who bash Maria quite cruelly. It's quite natural to defend her. Peace! :)

[Elisabetta611]

Alright, lets try this again. I think it's horrible what that reporter did. She could have had a comeback. It breaks my heart to know that her final years were filled with so much sadness.

[TheFeuerzauber]

@DanBarthy WHAT!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?! This is a typical reporter... He should burn in hell for this...

[lapoireUS]

Was this really recorded in 1976 ??

Her voice was such in a good shape compared to the early 70's, I really didn't expect to hear such a good performance when I began to watch this video... thank you so much for posting this.

Callas was a monster, we'll never really realize and understand the artist she was... bravissima Maria.

[moghedien13]

i wish callas had come back as a mezzo. she could have done some awesome awesome stuff with that rep.

[tazkorinthos]

oh dude this is curse..........

[Faust075]

This was recorded less than 1 and 1/2 year before she died. She sounds so much better than during her farewell tour in 1973/74 for a simple reason : this was simply practising, she had no pressure at all, no public, no journalists, no critics. She had nothing to prove to anybody so she could be herself : the greatest Opera singer of all times. This proves that she actually never lost her voice, but She lost her nerves and confidence which both are as much important as the voice for a singer

[athinasophia]

@Faust075 You're really right.She hadn't lost her voice, but her nerves and her body support.Most of the people acted a very disgusting way to her just because they didn't understood her and they didn't know about her condition.They only saw that the Great Callas was gone, that she couldn't sing anymore.Ofcourse she couldn't because that time she had been very ill for a long time.That's why she stopped.These people destroyed her step by step the very first time she started her carreer

[allangoo]

Callas impressed her 1973/74 comeback accompanist Robert Sutherland with her playing except that she scraped her long fingernails on the keys.

His book tells us how lazy she was with practising in that period, but I am astounded at the vocal restoration between 1974 and this recording. She sounds as if she could go straight on stage and sing Medea as well as in 1961.

[imfe08]

she is an artist no a soprano only and she doing to beetoven the same she has gone to verdi and other composer justice by doing a performance that what made her the best of the opera she was a goddest

[lookscudkill]

She never lost her voice. She just went through the natural process of time, and hardly affected. There will always be a less than or greater than in everything, but that doesn't mean she was away from greatness. Callas was one who never ever left that level.

[operagodess78]

She sounds good. She had her high notes and her middle voice back in place.

[filaredo]

Da hast Du wahrscheinlich Recht. Damit ist mein Problem gelöst! Deines bleibt bestehen - oder wie verstehst Du die Hetztiraden auf Anna Netrebko. Vielleicht bist Du ja nur häßlich, impotent, ein Narzisst, dass wäre die positivste Ferndiagnose. Die Frau hat etwas - was Dir Angst macht!!!!!! und normale Menschen verzaubert!!!!!

[zafireh]

Ich hab kein Problem, du Möchtegernpsychologe! Brauchst wahrscheinlich selber einen. Warum sollte Anna Netrebko mir Angst machen?? Mir gefällt nur nicht, dass sie als die beste Sängerin unserer Zeit verkauft wird, aber dann z.B. an der Met eine Lucia abliefert, die manche Studenten an der Musikhochschule besser könnten. Und das Problem ist, dass es hier auf Youtube genug Idioten gibt, die keine Ahnung von Oper oder Musik haben, aber alles einfach nachplappern, was die Presse schreibt.

[filaredo]

Danke! Du bestätigst die Diagnose!!!!!

Die vielen Idioten auf YouTube, die Du hier beleidigst interessiert Deine Meinung nicht - die möchten ganz einfach nur die "schönste Stimme" aller Zeiten hören. Du bewertest wahrscheinlich selbst die Weltliteratur nur nach den Grammatikfehlern.

Am Besten verpisst Du Dich einfach - Du großer Operkenner!! Und vergiß nicht den Besuch beim Kollegen!!!

[zafireh]

Und wenn du etwas Ahnung von Musik hättest, wärst du selbst draufgekommen. Klugscheisser

[lamusicahera]

BRAVA LA GRANDE DIVINA!

Mr. Onassis killed her voice and she has been his assistent only for that reason that she felt in love with this old greek - Retsina....

She didnt noticed that he needed more a Woman like Circe than a Medea .... But she has been one of the best sopranos we can listen on recordings !

One of the one and only Operasingers and real Divas!

BRAVA e grazie

[chambersgif]

una voce ormai in declino non dovrebbe essere pubblicato.

[poupounakis]

in this aria Jeffrey Tate plays piano and not Maria Callas...i have the CD with this aria in Paris.

[ArcanaMundi81]

She is reseharing alone in the Theatre!

But the very last recording is a phrase of "Deh non m'abbandonar signor pietà di me" taken in August 1977 for study in her Paris flat in Avenue Mendel, with Vasso Devetzi at the piano.

[dadarkdude2]

Is this her last performance ever? Or just her last performance in Paris?

[MrCafiero]

Callas was a great pianist. And this video proves what I have always said, which is that she could have gotten her voice back with intensive training. To bad she was never able to see it fully through.

[kgarmaker123]

I agree, her vocal decline in my opinion was a combination of factors.... mostly a very messy personal life, along with some bad posture, and lack of support... ... The vocal cords sound fine here.

[BeauTenor]

I agree. I have always thought that Callas had such a messy personal life that she just let her voice get out of shape - you know, use if or lose it. The muscles in the larynx are like any others, and they respond better when they are being exercised regularly (as does the support mechanism). She sounds great here.

[accordeonsteve]

A real surprise: to hear that great singer playing very well herself!!

[zafireh]

every great singer is a great musician and plays at least the piano very well!!! The best examples are Callas, Bartoli, Tebaldi. And i think that you can hear in the singing if a singer is really a musician, or "just" a singer.

[filaredo]

So ein Schwachsinn. Du bist geistig gestört - ab auf die Couch mit Dir!!!!

[zafireh]

Was geht denn mit dir??? Geistig gestört ist scheinbar jemand anderer. Das, was ich da geschrieben habe, haben mit auch schon andere gesagt! Das ist nichts neues!! Nur Du scheinst davon wirklich keine Ahnung zu haben!!!!!

[Marroiamaxu]

Not all true. Playing the piano equal yes a better knowledge of MUSICAL THEORY..but it does not ALWAYS shows on the singing. It is a plus yes. I for example can read my music, study the score, solfejo....it's just enough to get all the info you need from the score.

I can do a harmonic analysis of the harmony... but there's no really point on that.

[Marroiamaxu]

The opera singer has much to worry like: text, interpretation of the character, plot, voice emission, language etc..

Just so you can see how wrong you are, Natalie Dessay can "barely play piano and uses 3 fingers" to play her MELODY!!!

Pavarotti could not solfeje! Let alone play piano.But YES, Piano is a great weapon for the Singer/Musician!

[zafireh]

That´s the point!when Natalie Dessay is singing, i miss the musicality! !She has the high notes, but i think, the rest is boring! Just my opinion...

[luvxl]

She's just taking a lot more time maturing, but her recent performances are really good. She actually hits less notes and conveys more emotion, in my opinion. She's really something, although no "callas material", but we shouldn't forget that la Callas had both a soprano and a mezzo voice; she was able to be every character, every woman. How can anyone compete?

[akattara]

Is this true?

Even if she wouldn't have accompanied herself,it doesn't change the value of this document!

Thank you Oneghin65 !

[lochness11]

Voice has more confidence,and certainty,than the World Tour voice.Sad she died just a little more than a year later,when with a carefully chosen repertoire she really could have been a concert artiste.I emphasise---she needs an orchestra to both support and challenge her.

[greve]

Thank you for this!!! There could not be anything more essential than Beethoven in regard to Callas. Of course she sang in public very seldom (sadly) works of Beethoven (her Leonore ???). Here her voice seems to have regained much of the breaking-through effect of earlier.

[markivens]

her voice is in much better shape here than during the 1971-72 world tour... I think she never gave up hope of singing on stage again... How sad it didn't happen anymore...

[2muzikiluv]

the voice is in good condition here!

[AGNOSFALTSOS]

~ ~ ` __



super

kallas per sempre

[oPeRa1923]

Bravo!!! Bravo!!!

this is he first time i heard a recording of this song accompanying herself with the piano...

I love her even more!!!

Brava, La Divina!

Bravo, Onegin65!

thank you very much! ^_^