Women From The United States

"I think the secret of Maria Callas was her willpower. Maria Callas was born with all sorts of disadvantages. Her voice was not of the most beautiful quality, and still, she made this instrument the most expressive, the most telling, the most true to the music that she interpreted. Maria was not born a beautiful woman. Maria was fat, obese, ungraceful — when you realize the type of body she was born with, like that of a pachyderm — but she turned herself into possibly the most beautiful lady on the stage."

"People are funny, because they can’t be happy. If they have somebody like Maria Callas in front of them, they always try to find something wrong, something bad, a few mistakes, you know? And maybe she had three voices, maybe she had three ranges, I don’t know — I am professional singer. Nothing disturbed me, nothing! I bought everything that she offered me. Why? Because all of her voices, her registers, she used how they should be used — just to tell us something! She had a message for us, a fantastic message. She had such a big power, and then she just disappeared."

"It’s enough to hear her, I’m positive! Because she could say everything only with her voice! I can imagine everything, I can see everything in front of my eye."

"When I was around thirteen, fourteen years old, in communist Poland, we had no recordings at all. I don’t know how my mother found this old-fashioned recording, with Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi — you know, it was Tosca. I had only this one recording in my house, and I was listening to [it] ten times a day. I knew by heart everything — I could sing Cavaradossi, Tosca, Scarpia — each role. I was very young, and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do in my life. And when I for the first time heard Maria Callas, suddenly I got proof — “Yes, I want to be a singer, I want to sing like she sings!”"

"She sang as if she had the most beautiful voice in the world — and sang so beautifully that she might as well have had such a voice. Thus she moved opera back a century to the age of Viardot, the acting singer."

"Yes, the woman could act. At the very moment she entered, you saw in full Aida, Anna Bolena, Gioconda, felt their eyes on you even before they uttered a sound. ... The gestures — so authentically antique, yet strangely devised entirely on her own — were completely equalized into her stylistics, with one set for the Greeks and Romans, another for post-Renaissance royalty, a third for more contemporary characters. Yet, all this was subsidiary to the heavy Kunst of developing the psychology of the roles under the supervision of the music, of singing the acting...."

"[Callas was] An outstanding historical figure, ranking with Malibran, Viardot, Toscanini, and Mahler. She is somewhat like Viardot, Chorley's "tones of an engaging tenderness" mingled with those "of a less winning quality." It was a flawed voice. But then Callas sought to capture in her singing not just beauty but a whole humanity, and within her system, the flaws feed the feeling, the sour plangency and the strident defiance becoming aspects of the canto. They were literally defects of her voice; she bent them into advantages of her singing. [Her voice] is what she had. What she made was a musical information of what was happening to her characters, a searching virtuosity. Suffering, delight, humility, hubris, despair, rhapsody — all this was musically appointed, through her use of the voice flying the text upon the notes...."

"Listening to Callas is like reading Shakespeare: you’re always going to be knocked senseless by some incredible insight into humanity. She is a huge bonfire! The thread, the "inner serpent" that she would get in certain music was so complete — for example, in the Lucia recording, the phrase "Alfin, son tua." Lucia, at her absolute happiest moment, would have said to Edgardo, "I am finally yours." For me, the woman Lucia came to life in that moment, and I understood why she was out of her mind, you know? You’ve got it all in that one phrase."

"There was some wonderful demonic thing that worked inside of her to fuse the elements of technique and expression and transcend the [roles she assayed.] ... She's an inspiration to everyone that follows her, but she’s also a kind of cautionary tale for artists, so they understand that you risk a great deal when you’re that hungry."

"No coloratura or fioritura was ever done for its own sake — it was always at the service of some expressive challenge....Her runs always gave the impression of being done so effortlessly. I liken it to the greatest ballerinas — they never made you aware of how painful it is to be en pointe. Callas transcended and transformed pain and difficulty into sheer weightlessness and ease and joy. It's absolute perfection in itself, and then on top of that she overlays expression — that's the thing I adored about this singer. She must have spent hours, days, weeks, years on this art, you know? The one I'm floored by is the Entführung that she did. ["Martern aller Arten"] is just beyond belief. I don’t think anyone has sung it better...."

"In all her recordings, one witnesses this incredible technique at work, whether it is Puritani, Sonnambula, Lucia, Norma or Abduction, [or] turning around to sing Gioconda and Kundry. This ability to devour all of vocal music history, and take it into herself and spew out such excellent examples of all these different styles — you just think, “How is a voice able to encompass all of this?” Well, it’s not the voice, it’s the woman behind the voice."

"It seems almost inexplicable that the human race, with its ravenous appetite for entertainment, should have failed over so many decades to produce another Callas and Elvis. Neither Pavarotti nor Madonna come close, nor ever will. The desperate efforts of a universal music industry have yielded nothing more enduring than Cecilia Bartoli, the mini-voiced mezzo who tops the opera charts, and the high-kicking, faintly archaic Kylie Minogue, who belongs more to the smiley era of the Andrews Sisters than to the grim virtual reality of Bill Gates. In fact, when we commemorate the Presley and Callas anniversaries, one month apart, we confirm a catastrophic failure of cultural renewal."

"The Chicago Lucia [1954], which I witnessed, absolutely blew everybody's mind, because she stopped the show in the middle of the mad scene. She bowed, [while] the audience went wild, and kept that pose for fourteen minutes. Callas was our lesson, in those days, for how one performed. She had such complete ... we say in German "souveränität" — being above everything. She had this aura of magic. People were always mystified by what she did....Tebaldi had a much more beautiful voice and didn’t have that hollow, breathy sound, which at times was just plain ugly. [But] Callas was unusual because despite the sound of her voice, the force of her personality just magnetized people. It was so present, it came across the footlights at you, that ferocity of hers. It was just all-encompassing. Callas brought the personality, the drama, the magic, the surreal quality to the bel canto roles that Sutherland never did."

"Oh, many. A few, even superior. For sheer strength of character, I wouldn't have dared to cross swords with Callas. I would rather have gone six rounds with Jack Dempsey!"

"Maria had in her blood, in her veins, in her subconscious all the tradition of the Greek Tragedy. She was born that way. In fact, she had her best time during 10 years. That was very short. But the "Myth of La Callas" will continue for ever, because she did so much! She was a magnetic force on stage, the others didn't exist anymore. It's a gift of Nature, a gift of God. It' a talent, a great talent."

"Callas, way above the rest. Tebaldi had a fantastic voice, like an angel's. But even when Callas's voice wasn't perfect, she had so much interpretation. Opera is storytelling. Feelings must be conveyed. Acting must be moving. And Callas had it all."

"I used to listen again and again to recordings by Maria Callas. She was so musical and so theatrical at the same time. That is rare! I admire the way she cares for the words, so that everything comes from the text. She takes everything from the text and the music to elaborate a character and make her really interesting and impressive. She brings her own nature to the part — what she is, her passion, her fragility, doubts, feelings, violence — everything she is. And she never betrays the text or the music. We're very different, thank goodness, and I am happy with my own voice. But I feel very close to her in terms of discipline — trying to be as disciplined as she. She is an example to follow! Maybe in the past, people were more interested in voice and beautiful sounds. Maria Callas changed that. She arrived, brought a new way of doing opera, opened the way for us. We don't have any excuse now for not doing it!"

"She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only great music but great idea of interpretation. She has given us the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly possible before her. That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream. It is not right. I am much smaller than Callas."

"Callas? She was pure electricity."

"Callas studied the text, the meaning of the words, and as a result, she became a diva. She became the Great Callas. Because she studied the character, she entered the mind of the character, and she brought the character to life onstage. Today, young singers don’t have this mindset. They don’t have the kind of technique that Callas had. ...Price, Milanov and Tebaldi had stupendous voices and great careers. [But] Callas, as a performer, as someone who expressed the real meaning of the words, was the best. The best. There is no doubt about this — not only for her sound, but because she studied so much. Callas is the diva. She is important to young singers, because she was a serious singer onstage, and she left a great legacy. I don’t know, though, if they can listen and learn from what she left on her recordings."

"Maria Callas remains an icon with an instantly recognizable voice. But she was also the first opera singer to be equipped with the ingredients of international celebrity: charisma, glamour, wealth, she had it all, together with the touches of scandal and tragedy that made her story so compelling. Since her time, every female opera singer has been measured against this powerful role model. ... Callas modernized our metier. Her life was a tireless creative search. She was one of the first to recognize the importance of being an actress as well as a singer, and was uncompromising in her belief that, in order to achieve a complete dramatic performance, all aspects of the operatic genre require equal attention. She was a pioneer in restoring forgotten repertoire and in exploring new ways of musical interpretation. To this day, I find that many of her exemplary recordings are astounding."

"I adored this lady, and I respected her work ethic. She always wanted to improve her understanding of a piece. "Casta Diva", [for instance] — what interested me most was how she gave the runs and the cadenzas words. That always floored me. I always felt I heard her saying something — it was never just singing notes. That alone is an art. It’s an art that you can try to achieve, but you can’t copy, because that’s just imitating without delving into [how she felt] about that particular fioritura. ... how many other artists since Callas have you heard and thought, "She sang gorgeously, but I never cried?""

"I once said to her “It must be a very enviable thing to be Maria Callas.” And she said, “No, it’s a very terrible thing to be Maria Callas, because it’s a question of trying to understand something you can never really understand.” She couldn’t really explain what she did. It was all done by instinct. It was something embedded deep within her."

"I don’t think she always understood what she did or why she did it. She knew she had a tremendous effect on audiences and on people. But it was not something she could always live with gracefully or happily."

"That is such a difficult question. There are times when certain people are blessed — and cursed — with an extraordinary gift, in which the gift is almost greater than the human being. Callas was one of these people. It was as if her own wishes, her life, her own happiness were all subservient to this incredible, incredible gift that she was given, this gift that reached out and taught us things about music that we knew very well, but showed us new things, things we never thought about, new possibilities. I think that is why singers admire her so. I think that’s why conductors admire her so. I know it’s why I admire her so. And she paid a tremendously difficult and expensive price for this career."

"Callas was superhuman. She was on a whole other plane. She really was a Diva — the goddess — and the rest of us are basically her handmaidens."

"From Callas, I learned to respect the music. It’s part of the attention to detail. Today, everything seems to me a bit homogenized. Puccini sounds like Handel which sounds like Bellini. Callas had this sense of style, whether it was learned or just innate."

"Callas was such an example of professionalism. One thinks of her as a flighty diva, which is the wrong thing to learn from her, and she wasn’t at all."

"I happen to think that Callas was the greatest singer of the 20th century. I feel that so many people have learned the wrong things from her, rather than the right things. She was a fabulous musician. When you listened to her, you could almost take dictation. All the dots were there. Anything that was wrong was because of the deterioration of the instrument over time. But usually musical things were not wrong. She has pitch problems and wobbles that came in later."

"I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must."

"Serafin was] an extraordinary coach, sharp as a vecchio lupo [old wolfe]. He opened a world to me, showed me there was a reason for everything, that even fiorature and trills ... have a reason in the composer's mind, that they are the expression of the stato d'animo [state of mind] of the character — that is, the way he feels at the moment, the passing emotions that take hold of him. He would coach us for every little detail, every movement, every word, every breath. One of the things he told me — and this is the basis of bel canto — is never to attack a note from underneath or from above, but always to prepare it in the face. He taught me that pauses are often more important than the music. He explained that there was a rhythm — these are the things you get only from that man! — a measure for the human ear, and that if a note was too long, it was no good after a while. A fermata always must be measured, and if there are two fermate close to one another in the score, you ignore one of them. He taught me the proportions of recitative — how it is elastic, the proportions altering so slightly that only you can understand it. ... But in performance he left you on your own. "When I am in the pit, I am there to serve you, because I have to save my performance." he would say. We would look down and feel we had a friend there. He was helping you all the way. He would mouth all the words. If you were not well, he would speed up the tempo, and if you were in top form, he would slow it down to let you breathe, to give you room. He was breathing with you, living the music with you, loving it with you. It was elastic, growing, living."

"It takes a little more time to get into the role, but not very much more. In making a record you don't have the sense of projection over a distance as in an opera house. We have this microphone and this magnifies all details of a performance, all exaggerations. In the theater, you can get away with a very large, very grand phrase. For the microphone, you have to tone it down. It's the same as making a film, your gestures will be seen in close-up, so they cannot be exaggerated as they would be in a theater."

"Bel canto does not mean beautiful singing alone. It is, rather, the technique demanded by the composers of this style — Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini. It is the same attitudes and demands of Mozart and Beethoven, for example, the same approach and the same technical difficulties faced by instrumentalists. You see, a musician is a musician. A singer is no different from an instrumentalist except that we have words. You don't excuse things in a singer you would not dream of excusing in a violinist or pianist. There is no excuse for not having a trill, for not doing the acciaccatura, for not having good scales. Look at your scores! There are technical things written there to be performed, and they must be performed whether you like it or not. How will you get out of a trill? How will you get out of scales when they are written there, staring you in the face? It is not enough to have a beautiful voice. What does that mean? When you interpret a role, you have to have a thousand colors to portray happiness, joy, sorrow, fear. How can you do this with only a beautiful voice? Even if you sing harshly sometimes, as I have frequently done, it is a necessity of expression. You have to do it, even if people will not understand. But in the long run they will, because you must persuade them of what you're doing."

"Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddamn rules."

"What a lovely voice, but who cares?"

"What Tullio Serafin] said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that." If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears — and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also — you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know."

"I admire Tebaldi's tone; it's beautiful — also some beautiful phrasing. Sometimes, I actually wish I had her voice."

"Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me."

"You don't appreciate home until you leave it and, let me tell you, you can't appreciate life till you've almost left it! Some people hope and die with their song still in them. I used to think that happiness resulted when my earnings matched my yearnings! But not anymore!"

"I don't wanna get rich — just live good."

"Before Dolly, Loretta and Reba, there was Patsy. She was the first female country headliner and one of the first artists in the genre to have crossover pop success, which is basically a pre-requisite in terms of Rock Hall induction. During her prime, Cline was very much on the same level as fellow stars like Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley and is a clear example of the Rock Hall’s need to focus more on women."

"When I find out who stole it I'll take blood, ass and all!"

"You're alright honey. Anyone who'll stand up to "The Cline" is alright. We're going to be good friends."

"Find one person in the audience and sing to them with all of your heart. And then cast a spell over them. Hoss, if you can't do it with feeling — don't."

"Oh, I just sing like I hurt inside."

"It's incredible. Nine? Wow. I just remember winning my first one, getting the medal and the plate, the pin with the diamond for first place. My ninth title, I have no answer for that because I never thought it would be possible."

"At 13, I was fearless. I looked at everything so positive. When you're older and been through it all, you know how bad it can get. There is a fear of failing."

"As a child, I'd wonder, 'When I die, will people still remember me 1,000 years later?' And without the gold medal … Well, the Olympics are the ultimate achievement in my sport. At times I think, 'Why should I push myself all those long hours in the rink?' But then I think, 'How will I ever know how good I could have been?' I want to be the Michael Jordan of my sport."

"I was able to afford a car that didn't break down every five minutes."

"We never really cared about all the things that other people cared about, you know? Like, people recognizing me on the street never interested me. I've always been kind of suspicious of the world, anyway, so it's pretty easy for me to live in my own little world."