A Night at the Lyric: Callas in Concert
Tonight, I had the privilege of experiencing “Maria Callas in Concert” at Lyric Opera of Chicago. For those not aware, Callas is a legendary diva—no, no, THE legendary diva, spoken of as “La Divina” (The Divine) in awed whispers the world over—an artist of such brilliance and skill and unparalleled grace that she single-handedly ushered in a new operatic era. Ms. Callas has also been dead for nearly 42 years so, as you can imagine, this was quite the opportunity.
The concert tour, directed by Julliard’s Stephen Wadsworth and brought to life through the technological wizardry of BASE Hologram (not the 2Pac folks), combines digitally remastered original recordings and contemporary stagecraft to give audiences a taste of Callas at the height of her magnificence. Lyric’s monstrous but thankfully hidden-in-the-dark speaker system carries her digitally remastered voice clear and clean as she interacts—vocally and physically—with a live orchestra led by Irish-born composer/conductor Eímear Noone.
Callas in hologram is rendered in impressive 3D, her gestures fluid and precise, her diva gown and signature scarves both substantial and weightless. Billowing happened. Hollywood has yet to render acceptable CGI fire, meanwhile, a hologram composited from disparate mid-20th-century video footage realistically depicted and billowed sheer fabrics. I have no idea how many thousands of hours it required to sculpt the existing performance footage and descriptions of Callas and recreate her interactions with her clothing-cum-props, but I hope someone, somewhere got a trophy. A very large one.
I pause here a moment to acknowledge that, yes, there are ethical concerns with such technicolour necromancy and, yes, there is an argument to be made that holographic technology undermines both yesterday’s artistic legacies and today’s living artists and, no, of course, “watching a hologram” is nothing like “the real thing”. The first two issues I consign to another day’s musings; to the latter I say, it’s a damned fine approximation.
If I just wanted to listen to Callas, I could’ve stayed in the convenient privacy of my home with a bottle of wine and my 69-CD deluxe box set of her studio recordings. Ditto just seeing her, via watching videos on YouTube. I attended this concert to pair Callas with the essence of why I attend live performances in the first place: there is nothing so visceral and immediate as hurtling through the Human experience in real-time, your body glued to its seat while your soul cleaves to those on stage. There is an alchemy that exists between performer and audience, participant and observer, that is nigh impossible to replicate with recordings alone. I am never more alive, more real to myself, than I am while ensconced within a theatre.
A hologram is not a person, but this concert was no mere simulacrum. To the extent the medium permits, I brushed against Maria Callas’s soul. To wit:
I am obsessed with Callas’s interpretation of Verdi’s Lady Macbeth. I have listened to both “Una macchia è qui tuttora” and her analysis of the scene at least 100 times. Lady M was not her most performed role—even given such an expansive repertoire—but I’ve always felt it to be a mini-SparkNotes on the Ways and Means of Maria Callas. Tonight, I saw her perform the famous Sleepwalking Scene, for the first—and probably only—time I ever will. It is the operatic analogue of the “Out, out damn spot” monologue in The Scottish Play and just as terrifyingly, bloodily gorgeous. To see Callas move and gesture, thrill and despair, ebb and flow, with my own eyes…
I will forever be able to picture her as Lady M in any opera house I wish. On the taxi home, I imagined her in the role at La Scala, Colón, Bolshoi, Vienna, Fenice, the Royal. Uniquely molded to every house, every orchestra, because I possessed a real, lived experience to transport. No, a hologram is not the same, but it’s the closest I can ever hope to be—and I am awed.
On a side-note: I sure hope the Lyric brings Noone back, or another Chicago company has her guest. I can’t recall the last time I enjoyed a conductor’s work quite this much, and extra props because I can only imagine the difficulties posed in working with a hologram. Callas wasn’t the easiest artist with whom to work, or even to admire as an audience member. In fact, she was booed at many of her performances, constantly disparaged by critics and patrons, and, truth be told, was a bloody awful colleague. Yet, she was also a devotee of her craft and a perfectionist, and this production made significant nods to that fact. Standing ovation to Noone for delivering a near-flawless evening with a long-dead persnickety diva that could be neither reasoned with nor given notes.
