Diva's Return

When Maria Meneghini Callas, in a gleaming white hoopskirt gown, stepped demurely before the Metropolitan Opera's golden curtain after the first act of Verdi's La Traviata last week, plainclothesmen planted themselves at the head of the aisles near the stage. Nobody was sure who was supposed to be protected from what, but the cops' presence was clearly unnecessary. On her first Met appearance this season, Soprano Callas carried the house from the moment she lifted her first note across the orchestra pit.

Forgotten was Callas' walkout from the Rome Opera last month (TIME, Jan. 13) when she lost her voice during a performance of Norma. At the final curtain she took ten solo bows. The true measure of how totally Callas dominated last week's Traviata was the credibility she brought to the younger Dumas' tears-and-champagne tale of the consumptive courtesan--with scant help from a minor-league cast. As Alfredo, Tenor Daniele Barioni sang powerfully but uncertainly and sometimes off-key, acted in an emotional monotone that made his rages indistinguishable from his passions. In his U.S. debut, Italian Baritone Mario Zanasi displayed a smooth, ample voice but made his Germont pompous and wooden where he should have been dignified, faintly sentimental where he should have been compassionate.

Callas' own performance had the familiar virtues and faults: warmth and purity in the lower and middle registers, edginess and wobble in the upper ones. But she infused the character of Violetta with ardency, hectic gaiety and a dampened passion that flickered through the role like a wayward fever. Her deathbed agonies had the quiet poignancy and the ring of truth that so often evade lesser artists. All in all, Callas gave the Met its most exciting Traviata in years, and demonstrated again that she has lost none of the turbulent appeal that can magnetize an audience at the flick of an arm or a twist of the head. Diva Callas' next Met roles: Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Puccini's Tosca.

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