She seems momentarily preoccupied with the exposed top C at the end, a solid if not exactly dolce as marked note, but once past the aria, she is on more congenial ground, and, with Taddei a worthy partner, alternately stentorian, implacable, insinuating and relentless, runs the gamut of emotions in an exciting Nile Scene. Ritorna vincitor is absolutely thrilling, the duet with Dominguez’s Amneris also superb, but, as always with Callas, it is the Nile Scene that provokes her most moving singing. The power she was able to summon at this point in her career has to be heard to be believed, a power that goes right up to that unwritten, but absolutely stunning top Eb in alt in the Triumphal Scene, a phenomenal sound, that excites the Mexicans so much you can almost hear them rip the seats apart. But what a performance! And a memento of what was undoubtedly a thrilling evening in the theatre.Ĭallas is in superb voice throughout, and makes more of the somewhat placid character of Aida than any other singer I have come across.
The voices come through reasonably well, but you do have to listen through the sound, as it were. The sound is pretty atrocious it crumbles and distorts and the balances are all over the place. I started my journey with the famous live 1951 performance from Mexico, with Callas, Del Monaco, Dominguez and Taddei, conducted by Oliviero de Fabritiis. Two of the Callas recordings (the ones that find her in the best voice) are live, but the sound on both is, at best tolerable, so the studio one is also a necessity, though the 1955 mono sound on that can’t hope to compare with the fabulous sound accorded the new Pappano set that was recorded in 2015.Īida is of course the quintessential grand opera, famed throughout the world for extravagant stagings at the Arena di Verona, but actually, aside from the great Triumphal Scene, many of its scenes are played out in private, behind closed doors. Three of my recordings feature Callas, and, though I never think of Aida as a Callas role, she brings more meaning to it than most. Though it has magnificent music, the characters always seem more like human archetypes than flesh and blood people and I admire it rather than love it. It’s not my favourite Verdi opera by a long chalk.
I’m not quite sure how I’ve ended up with five different recordings of Verdi’s Aida.
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