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Callas
John Ardoin
Gerald Fitzgerald
其他書名
The Art and the Life
出版
Holt, Rinehart and Winston
, 1974
主題
Biography & Autobiography / Music
Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts
ISBN
0030114861
9780030114861
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=BFQZAQAAIAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋
It is 1939 and a shy, awkward American girl of sixteen nervously waits her turn to audition before the renowned soprano Elvira de Hidalgo at the Athens Conservatory. To de Hidalgo, 'The very idea of that girl wanting to be a singer was laughable! She was tall, very fat, and wore heavy glasses. When she removed them, she would look at you with huge but vague, almost unseeing, eyes. Her whole being was awkward and her dress was too large, buttoned in front and quite formless. Not knowing what to do with her hands, she sat there quietly biting her nails while waiting her turn to sing.' Moments later, de Hidalgo was to close her eyes and experience 'violent cascades of sound, not yet fully controlled but full of drama and emotion.' It is 1974 on the stage of Carnegie Hall and an elegant and vibrant woman, returning after eight years of self-imposed retirement, has just completed a gala concert--part of an international tour. In the balconies, the audience stands rooted as wave after wave of applause rocks the hall. In the orchestra section, a frenzied mass of men and women rush to the footlights to cheer and weep and reach out to touch. 'You are opera!' someone shouts from the rear, and a full house is convulsed with emotion. She is Maria Callas. Perhaps no performer in this century has generated such adulation, stirred such controversy, and had so great an impact on the world of opera and the arts as Callas. The unrivaled singing actress of our time, she is the standard against which all others must measure themselves. She brought back a style of singing forgotten for more than a century, revived a repertory all but lost, and restored to the musical stage the dramatic power that is opera at its grandest. En route, she created a legend. For many, that legend lives only in her recordings. Others witnessed the great years and the great roles--Norma, Tosca, Medea, Violetta. Now, in eloquent and moving text, in hundreds of stunning photographs taken during performance, and in the words of those who worked with Callas--Gobbi, Vickers, Corelli, Visconti, Zeffirelli, Bernstein, and a host of others--her art comes alive again for all to see. Here are the triumphs at La Scala, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan, in Chicago, Dallas, Paris. And here are the dramatic stagings created especially for her by such theatrical giants as Visconti and Zeffirelli. Here, too, are the battles that made headlines, the personalities who made news. Tracing her career from her student days in Athens through her decades as the world's reigning prima donna, this book illuminates her power and offers insights into the phenomenon of her art. But this book also explores with rare sensitivity the personal needs and fears that led this woman to abandon her art for the playgrounds of the rich, the yachts of the famous. Drawing on her own words, this book creates a remarkable picture of a woman driven by the demands of her art--and an artist buffeted by the urgings of the woman. Here, then, is the tragedy and the glory, the frailty and the strength. Here is Callas. --Adapted from dust jacket.
