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Revision as of 13:27, 16 April 2021 by Ohconfucius (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)In 1968, Callas told Lord Harewood,
De Hildalgo had the real great training, maybe even the last real training of the real bel canto. As a young girl—thirteen years old—I was immediately thrown into her arms, meaning that I learned the secrets, the ways of this bel canto, which of course as you well know, is not just beautiful singing. It is a very hard training; it is a sort of a strait-jacket that you're supposed to put on, whether you like it or not. You have to learn to read, to write, to form your sentences, how far you can go, fall, hurt yourself, put yourself back on your feet continuously. De Hidalgo had one method, which was the real bel canto way, where no matter how heavy a voice, it should always be kept light, it should always be worked on in a flexible way, never to weigh it down. It is a method of keeping the voice light and flexible and pushing the instrument into a certain zone where it might not be too large in sound, but penetrating. And teaching the scales, trills, all the bel canto embellishments, which is a whole vast language of its own.
De Hidalgo later recalled Callas as "a phenomenon... She would listen to all my students, sopranos, mezzos, tenors... She could do it all." Callas herself said that she would go to "the conservatoire at 10 in the morning and leave with the last pupil ... devouring music" for 10 hours a day. When asked by her teacher why she did this, her answer was that even "with the least talented pupil, he can teach you something that you, the most talented, might not be able to do."
- Cite error: The named reference
harewoodpariswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - John Ardoin (writer), Franco Zeffirelli (narrator) (1978). Callas: A Documentary (Plus Bonus) (TV documentary, DVD). The Bel Canto Society.
- Maria Callas in conversation with Lord Harewood for the BBC, Paris, April 1968. Maria Callas: The Callas Conversations (DVD). EMI Classics.