Maria Callas (Medora) - Il Corsaro (G. Verdi)

Il Corsaro rehearsal in 1969 with Maria Callas as Medora. Act I, Scene 2:

(In Medora's room in an old tower with a balcony looking at the sea)

MEDORA
Egli non riede ancora!
Oh come lunghe, eterne,
Quando lungi è da me, l'ore mi sono!

(Takes harp.)
Arpa che or muta giaci,
Vieni, ed i miei sospiri
Seconda sì, che più veloce giunga
Il flebile lamento
Al cor del mio fedel, sull'ali al vento.

Non so le tetre immagini
Fugar del mio pensiero,
Sempre dannata a gemere
All'ombra d'un mistero:
E se di speme un pallido
Raggio su me traluce,
E passeggiera luce
Di lampo ingannator.
Meglio è morir! Se l'anima
Se 'n voli in seno a Dio;
Se il mio Corrado a piangere
Verrà sul cener mio:
Premio una cara lagrima
Chieggo all'amor soltanto,
Virtù non vieta il pianto
Per chi moria d'amor.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Opera
• Maria
• Callas
• Verdi
• Corsaro
• Byron
• Corsair
• Medora
• Aria
• 1969
• Romanza
• Egli
• non
• riede
• ancora
• Non
• so
• le
• tetre
• immagini

[Gobbi2007]

AulendilElessar, thank you. I am dying to know where this came from, because I am assuming there is more in that secret fountain! You can even hear Rescigno talking to the orchestra. Next thing we will have here is the "lost" D'amore al dolce impero and Io son Titania that got discarded for the 1954 recital. Please tell me you have them! Or the entire Turco from 1950. Maria sings "niega il pianto" with awesome phrasing. Awesome phrasing. Again, thank you.

[AulendilElessar]

Sorry but I dont have those arias. Maybe you could ask "dural" (Another YT user). I found this song in a download program. (I just noticed "dural" has the same aria only that I have the lyrics). I hope this was helpful.

[xafnndapp]

This recording come from the whole sessions of recordings she tried to make in 1969. A year ago the original tapes were put on Sotheby's auction. Of course someone recorded them before. Six CDs in total (I have them!), many hours of tiring and often hopeless recording.

She never authorized the release of course, but in 1978 two arias were put together and released by EMI on LPs and then on CDs.

This is one of the takes of Il Corsaro.

I find it quite sad...

[AulendilElessar]

Please upload some of the arias!

[sciorgiodark79]

quel passaggio di ottava è favolosissimo GRANDE MARIA!!!!!!

[ebu82]

Only a word: Beautiful!

[raigekimaru]

@AmatureComposer

seriously, I don't know why so many aging sopranos insist on singing repertoire that is now too high for them (and resort to wobbles and shrieking). Callas later in her career would have made a wonderful dramatic soprano or dramatic mezzo, but NOT coloratura soprano. ( I would have LOVED to here her as Azucena)

PS: that said, I believe this is a rehearsal and she's saving her voice (personally, I kinda like it better this way. her contralto low register sounds bad ass)

[AmatureComposer]

The voice sounds good. She takes a few bars one octave lower though. It's a shame she didn't try to sing music written for mezzo-soprano at that stage of her career. She could be a good Carmen or Dalila.

[MultiZahl]

Unglaublich wie zauberhaft Maria Callas im Jahr 1969 diese Arie singt-man hat

doch unentwegt seit 1965 in der Presse behauptet sie hätte ihre Stimme verloren

etc.-was für ein absoluter Blödsinn der sogenannten Musikkritiker!!!!!Diese Leute

verstehen offenbar garnichts von Musik ! Liebe Maria Callas einfach Classe gesungen-- Bravissima wir lieben Dich!!!!!!!!!-

[Bhavatam]

@semiramide1945 Now I understand you perfectly.

[semiramide1945]

@Bhavatam Please do not misunderstand me. I adored Callas ever since as a child I saw her in Anna Bolena in Milano, 1957. I only think that by 1969 the voice of that Bolena was essentially no more. I cried when those recordings were released after her death because she never authorized their release. Just another way someone had of making money off her fame. She was a once in a century phenomenon. We will never see her like again. Mai piu- grazie signore- Ernesto

[Bhavatam]

@semiramide1945 I do not agree; nor anybody could.

[kickwithfist]

My last names corsaro lol

[gustopheles]

@whipittome You're obviously an Ardoin fan :) An ex of mine said that if Callas sang like this in the earlier 60s, her voice would have had a few more years of resiliency.

[gustopheles]

I guess this must have been right after de Hidalgo realigned her upper register? If only she'd retrained with her a decade sooner - she sounds perfect here, beyond reproach considering the shambles her voice had been in years earlier.

[semiramide1945]

It was Pauline Viardot-Garcia remarking to a friend at a concert where Giuditta Pasta attempted a comeback. With tears she turned to a friend and said, A wreck of a picture, yet still the most beautiful picture in all the world." How Maria suffered those last years. I hope she knew how much she was adored by fans all over the world, she even in 1969 could string together some beautiful things, but the voice was gone. May she rest in peace.. Ernesto