A single note can be a mere mistake, a passing imbalance uncharacteristic of an artist’s work. But that “mi-e-e-to” was not uncharacteristic. If we go back to our Mexico City fragment—this very recitative from the summer of 1950—we find the phrase beautifully done, launched at a fresh, unforced forte and diminished without a trace of unsteadiness. The preceding pronouncements are marked by repeated glottal attacks, which can indicate a perceived lack of sufficient strength, and a couple of not perfectly finished phrases, but the lower register stays where it belongs and the upper notes sound free of the grip. And after all, this recit is tough—she’s out there cold, measuring the house, on the occasion of her introduction to Mexico City. A little over two years on, she made her London debut in this same role, now with Gui conducting. The treatment of the recitative is quite different, the voice mobilized for immediate surrender. The upper phrases pour forth with cold, steady command, the grip in force, and she slams down into chest on Gs and A-flats (“Voci di guerra,” etc.) A messa di voce in the mp-mf range is executed on “io mieto,” and it does not wobble, but is not quite centered and stable, either—she wrestles it through. The studio recording of 1954 (the sessions attended by Martin Mayer, as the diet campaign was reaching its goal) presents a compromise between ’50 and ’52, with “hooded” vowels coming on the scene (especially on the “e“—”ei non dipende,” “e infranta cada,” etc.); “mieto” wavers. The La Scala Norma of Dec., 1955, Votto conducting, shows the most finished shaping of the recitative overall, but the wobble still intrudes on this pesky A-flat. On the 1960 EMI stereo remake, the voice bleached out and the chest delaying its polite entrance till the E-flat and D-flat of “qual consunta morrà,” Callas hangs on to the note at a single middling loudness.

The sustained A-flat of “io mieto” is convenient because it isolates the difficulty of centering and balancing at less than full volume in the upper range, once the singer finds herself gripping the position. The problem would seem to be obviated by Callas’ many, and often spectacular, diminuendi, which she could execute on pitches up into the high extension when the voice was not set in its heaviest calibration, and the grip could be loosened. In these instances, though, she attacks the note strongly, thus establishing a supported position, then works on the diminish from there. What we don’t hear her do is waft through high dolce phrases (e. g., “Deh, pietosa,” etc., leading into the “D’amor sull’ali” in Trovatore) without first doing that. She maintains the line, but at a louder volume, and with that gripped quality. In her dramatic soprano mode, she usually avoids trying to “float” tone above the upper-middle transition point. The most obvious examples are in the Mexico City Aïda, with the “O patria mia” and the Tomb Scene, both of which require several ascents toward the top of the spinto/dramatic range (including the notorious graded one to the C in “O patria mia“). Callas manages it all, of course, with reasonable security. But the aria has a stopped, uneasy quality to it, and the Tomb Scene can’t find the easy touch for “Vedi?—di morte l’angelo” or the gentle loft to a dolcissimo B-flat for “si schiude il ciel.” In his book, Michael Scott detects a deterioration in the Callas Aïda from her 1950 performances, and observes that for the first time, the intervening year has been occupied by excursions into higher, lighter, more agile roles, replete with optional sopracuti, and that “Inevitably the equalization of her scale had suffered.” Well, I have not heard the ’50 performance, and that’s a surmise—but not a wild one, and if we couple it with the impression of her 1952 Gilda, where in the long stretch of the Act 1, Scene 2 duets with Rigoletto and the Duke through the “Caro nome” she disengages from her usual support connection in an effort to sound adolescent and delicate (“Doesn’t sound very virginal!” my wife called from the next room), it feels like a premonition of things soon to come.