The night Maria Callas made an audience weep

La Scala witnesses a stunning performance

Maria Callas's interpretation of Violetta was
seen as the finest performance of her stage career

Maria Callas gave a stunning performance that has gone down in history as her greatest ever portrayal of Violetta in La traviata on this day in 1955 at Teatro alla Scala opera house in Milan.

After the opening night of the production on May 28, it was reported in the press that Callas had driven the audience into a frenzy with her wonderful singing and powerful acting as she played the part of Giuseppe Verdi’s doomed heroine, who was a beautiful courtesan.

The character of Violetta is considered by opera experts to be one of the three finest roles ever portrayed by Callas and it is ranked alongside her performances in Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma and Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.  

The staging by director Luchino Visconti for the 1955 production of La traviata provided the perfect setting for Callas with its ornate décor and costumes.

The conductor, Carlo Maria Giulini, later confessed that he had wept in the orchestra pit as she had sung.

At the end members of the audience cried out Callas’s name, sobbed uncontrollably and showered the stage with red roses, which the tearful singer picked up as she took a solo bow.

Callas shone in Visconti's lavish
Belle Époque stage settings

This gesture proved too much for tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, who felt she was monopolising the attention of the audience. He stormed off the stage at the end of the performance and left the show for good that night.

Callas had moved the audience to tears in the scene where Violetta agrees to renounce Alfredo, the man she loves, to avoid spoiling the wedding prospects of his sister.

Sadly, Callas had only a few years of her career left ahead of her. After she left her husband for shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1959, she hardly ever performed on stage again. Onassis subsequently left her to marry Jackie Kennedy and Callas died in 1977, aged just 53. 

Thankfully, her performance on that memorable night was recorded and the complete May 28 production can still be listened to on CD, MP3 and streaming platforms.

Verdi’s opera La traviata had premiered at La Fenice opera house in Venice about 100 years earlier. It was based on the 1852 novel by Alexander Dumas, La dame aux camelias.

La traviata means ‘fallen woman’ and refers to the main character, Violetta, who is a courtesan. The opera featured some of the most challenging and revered music in the entire soprano repertoire.

Milan's Teatro alla Scala, opened in 1778, is the
most famous opera house in the world

Travel tip:

Teatro alla Scala in Milan is Italy’s most famous opera house and Maria Callas made her debut there in 1950 as Aida.  The theatre, known to Italians simply as La Scala, is the leading opera house in the world. It opened in 1778 after fire had destroyed the Teatro Regio Ducale, which had previously been the home of opera in Milan. A new theatre for the city was built on the site of the former Church of Santa Maria alla Scala, which is how the theatre got its name. It was designed by neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini. The world’s finest singers have appeared at La Scala during the last 240 years and the theatre has hosted the premieres of operas by Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini. La Scala’s original 18th century structure was renovated in 1907 and, after bomb damage during World War II, it was rebuilt and reopened in 1946.

The mediaeval Rocca Scaligera castle is the
dominant feature of the Sirmione skyline

Travel tip:

Maria Callas spent some happy years living in Sirmione, a resort on Lake Garda in Italy, after she married her first husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, an Italian businessman.  Villa Callas, which is still privately owned today, looks the same as it did when it was first purchased by Meneghini in the 1950s as a holiday home for the couple. There is a plaque outside the villa recording the dates when Maria Callas lived there. Sirmione, the historic centre of which is on a peninsula that divides the southern part of Lake Garda, is known for its thermal baths and Rocca Scaligera, a mediaeval castle overlooking the lake. Visitors can look round a museum dedicated to the life and performances of Maria Callas. At the the tip of the peninsula is the archaeological site of Grotte di Catullo, which encompasses a Roman villa, a museum and olive trees. 

Also on this day:

1369: The bith of condottiero Muzio Attendolo Sforza

1606: Caravaggio attacks and kills a man in Rome

1692: The birth of opera composer Geminiano Giacomelli

1839: The birth of author and journalist Luigi Capuana

1987: The birth of cricketer Leandro Jayarajah

1999: Da Vinci’s Last Supper goes back on display in Milan after 20 years of restoration

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Anita Cerquetti – soprano

Performer with a powerful voice had brief moment in the spotlight

Anita Cerquetti commuted between Naples and Rome
to perform on alternate nights

Anita Cerquetti, the singer whose remarkable voice received widespread praise when she stood in for a temperamental Maria Callas in Rome, died on this day in 2014 in Perugia.

Cerquetti had been singing the title role in Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma at Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1958 when Callas, who had been singing the same part in Rome, walked out after the first act on the opening night.

Despite Callas claiming that her voice was troubling her, the incident, in front of Italian President Giovanni Gronchi, created a major scandal.

Fortunately the performances in Rome and Naples were on alternate days and so for several weeks Cerquetti travelled back and forth between the two opera houses, which were 225km (140 miles) apart. The achievement left her exhausted and three years later she retired from singing and her magnificent voice was heard no more.

Cerquetti was born in Montecosaro near Macerata in the Marche. She studied the violin, but after a music professor heard her singing at a wedding she was persuaded to switch to vocal studies. After just one year she made her debut singing Aida in Spoleto in 1951.

A publicity shot of Anita Cerquetti
taken in the 1950s

She sang all over Italy and made her debut at La Scala in 1958 as Abigaille in Nabucco. She also sang on RAI in a variety of roles.  She had sung in the United States at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1955, as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera opposite Jussi Björling, under Tullio Serafin, but returned infrequently.

When she replaced Callas at the Rome Opera House, it meant she had to commute between the two cities for several weeks. It was thought the effort affected her health because shortly afterwards she started withdrawing from stage appearances until she retired completely in 1961 at just 30 years of age.

Cerquetti was due to have made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London in the title role of Aida in July 1958, but withdrew following an appendectomy the month before and was replaced by Leontyne Price, so she was never heard at Covent Garden.

Her final appearance was in a concert in Amsterdam in 1961.

She made two recordings for Decca, including a complete version of Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda with Mario Del Monaco, and many of her live performances were recorded and have now been issued on CD.

Cerquetti was married to the baritone Edo Feretti with whom she had one daughter. After her retirement she went to live in Rome. Her husband predeceased her and the soprano died in Perugia from cardiovascular disease at the age of 83.

The hilltop town of Montecosaro in Marche

Travel tip:

Montecosaro, where Anita Cerquetti was born in 1931, is a hilltop town in Marche, about 35km (22 miles) southeast of Ancona and about 15km (9 miles)east of Macerata. Just outside the town is the Abbazia di Santa Maria a Pie’ di Chienti, also known as the Santissima Annunziata. Documents refer to an abbey being there in 936 but the Romanesque stone building that can be seen on the site today was built in 1125.

The Teatro San Carlo is close to the centre of
Naples, near Piazza Plebiscito

Travel tip:

Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, where Cerquetti was singing when she got the call asking her to replace Callas, is in Via San Carlo close to Piazza Plebiscito, the main square in Naples. The theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and opened in 1737, some 41 years before La Scala and 55 years before La Fenice. San Carlo is now believed to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, remaining opera houses in the world. Both Gaetano Donizetti and Gioachino Rossini served as artistic directors at San Carlo and the world premieres of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini’s Mosè were performed there.

More reading:

The mezzo-soprano at the centre of an on-stage spat with Maria Callas

The short but eventful career of Norma composer Vincenzo Bellini

When fire engulfed the Teatro San Carlo

Also on this day:

1815: The birth of controversial Prince Pierre-Napoleon Bonaparte

1896: The birth of Neapolitan songwriter Cesare Andrea Bixio


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Antonino Votto – conductor

Outstanding operatic conductor made recordings with Callas

Antonino Votto was regarded as one of the finest
conductors of his era

Operatic conductor Antonino Votto was born on this day in 1896 in Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.

He became famous in the 1950s because he conducted the orchestra for the acclaimed recordings made by soprano Maria Callas for EMI.

Votto was also considered one of the leading operatic conductors of his time on account of his performances at La Scala in Milan, where he worked regularly for nearly 20 years.

After Votto had attended the Naples conservatory for his music studies he went to work at La Scala, where he became an assistant conductor to Arturo Toscanini.

He made his official debut there in 1923, leading a performance of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut.

Votto went on to build a reputation as one of the most outstanding conductors of Italian opera, appearing at many other operatic venues in Italy and abroad.

Votto taught at the Giuseppe Verdi
conservatory in Milan

In 1941 he began teaching at the Giuseppe Verdi conservatory in Milan as the war limited operatic activity in Italy and in most parts of Europe.

One of his students was the present day Italian orchestra conductor, Riccardo Muti.

Recordings of Votto conducting opera live in the theatre were a great success. He conducted Bellini’s Norma in 1955 with Callas at La Scala and La Sonnambula in 1957 with Callas in Cologne. These are both considered to be great performances.

Votto also made a series of highly successful studio recordings in the 1950s with Callas, based on productions that had been staged at La Scala. Their collaborations for EMI on Puccini’s La Bohème and Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera in 1956 and Bellini’s La Sonnambula in 1957 were enthusiastically received by both the critics and the public.

Votto made his debut at Covent Garden in 1924 with performances of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci.

His American debut came in 1960 when he appeared at the Chicago Opera House conducting Verdi’s Aida and Don Carlo.

Votto continued conducting at La Scala until 1967 and died in Milan in 1985.

The bronze statue of Ranuccio II Farnese by Francesco
Mochi is a feature of Piazza Cavalli in Piacenza

Travel tip:

Piacenza, where Votto was born, is a city in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy. The main square is named Piazza Cavalli because of its two bronze equestrian monuments featuring Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and his son Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma, who succeeded him. The statues are masterpieces by the sculptor Francesco Mochi.

Teatro alla Scala is Italy's most prestigious opera house

Travel tip:

Teatro alla Scala, where Votto conducted for 20 years, is in Piazza della Scala in the centre of Milan across the road from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an elegant arcade lined with cafes, shops and restaurants. It was built to link Piazza della Scala with Piazza del Duomo, Milan’s cathedral square. La Scala has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza della Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and the days when it is closed in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30 pm.

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Giuditta Pasta – soprano

The first singer to perform the roles of Anna Bolena and Norma

Giuditta Pasta was a mezzo-soprano much in
demand among 19th century composers

Singer Giuditta Pasta, whose voice was so beautiful Gaetano Donizetti wrote the role of Anna Bolena especially for her, was born on this day in 1797 in Saronno in Lombardy.

Her mezzo-soprano voice was much written about by 19th century opera reviewers and in modern times her performance style has been compared with that of Maria Callas.

Indeed, Vincenzo Bellini’s opera Norma, which Callas would turn into her signature role, was actually written for Pasta in 1831.

Pasta was born Giuditta Negri, the daughter of a Jewish soldier. She studied singing in Milan and made her operatic debut there in 1816.

Later that year she performed at the Theatre Italien in Paris as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, but it was not until 1821 that her talent was fully recognised when she appeared in Paris as Desdemona in Gioachino Rossini’s Otello.

Giuditta married another singer, Giuseppe Pasta, in 1816 and as well as being her regular leading man he handled her business affairs and identified likely roles and composers who might wish to work with her.

An illustration of Giuditta Pasta in the
premiere of La Sonnambula

She sang regularly in Milan, Naples, Paris and London and her unique voice attracted a lot of attention.

The French writer Stendhal wrote about her: ‘She can achieve perfect resonance on a note as low as bottom A and can rise as high as C sharp or even to a slightly sharpened D, and she possesses the rare ability to be able to sing contralto as easily as she can sing soprano.’

He argued for a score to be composed expressly for Pasta. Donizetti responded with the role of Anna Bolena in the opera of the same name and Pasta performed it at Milan’s Teatro Carcano in 1830, giving the composer the greatest success of his career to that point.

Bellini wrote for her the part of Amina in La Sonnambula and the protagonist’s part in Norma and these were also major successes for Pasta in 1831. She retired from the stage in 1835 when her voice began to deteriorate.

After her husband’s death, she taught singing and among her pupils were contralto Emma Albertazzi, soprano Marianna Barbieri-Nini, and the English soprano Adelaide Kemble. Another pupil, Carolina Fermi, who also became a noted Norma, taught the soprano Eugenia Burzio, whose recordings are known for their passionate expression.

Pasta died in Blevio in the province of Como at the age of 67.

The Sanctuario della Madonna dei Miracoli in Saronno

Travel tip:

Saronno, where Giuditta Pasta was born, is a large town in Lombardy in the province of Varese. It is well known for the production of amaretti di Saronno, small almond-flavoured biscuits, and the liqueur, amaretto. One of the town’s most beautiful buildings is the Santuario della Madonna dei Miracoli, built in 1498, which has a stunning fresco, The Concert of Angels, by Gaudenzio Ferrari.

The Teatro Carcano is in Corso di Porta Romana on the
south-east side of Milan city centre

Travel tip:

The Teatro Carcano in Milan, where Giuditta sang the role of Anna Bolena for the first time in 1830, is still a working theatre and can be found in Corso di Porta Romana. Although it now presents mainly plays and ballets, it was an opera house for most of the 19th century. It was built in 1803 on the site of a former convent for Milanese aristocrat and theatre-lover Giuseppe Carcano. The world premiere of Anna Bolena took place at the theatre on December 26, 1830 and the world premiere of La Sonnambula on March 6, 1831.

Also on this day: Trieste becomes part of Italy

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Giuseppe Di Stefano – tenor

Singer from Sicily who made sweet music with Callas

Giuseppe Di Stefano was one of
Italy's greatest tenors

The opera singer Giuseppe Di Stefano, whose beautiful voice led people to refer to him as ‘the true successor to Beniamino Gigli’, was born on this day in 1921 in Motta Sant’Anastasia, a town near Catania in Sicily.

Di Stefano also became known for his many performances and recordings with the soprano, Maria Callas, with whom he had a brief romance.

The only son of a carabinieri officer, who later became a cobbler, and his dressmaker wife, Di Stefano was educated at a Jesuit seminary and for a short while contemplated becoming a priest.

But after serving in the Italian army he took singing lessons from the Swiss tenor, Hugues Cuenod. Di Stefano made his operatic debut in Reggio Emilia in 1946 when he was in his mid-20s, singing the role of Des Grieux in Massenet’s Manon. The following year he made his debut at La Scala in Milan in the same role.

Di Stefano made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1948 as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto. After his performance in Manon a month later, a journalist wrote in Musical America that Di Stefano had ‘the rich velvety sound we have seldom heard since the days of Gigli.’

Maria Callas and Giuseppe Di Stefano on stage in Tokyo,
at around the time they had a brief affair

He made his Royal Opera House debut in 1961 as Cavaradossi in Tosca.

He was admired for his excellent diction, passionate delivery and the sweetness of his soft singing.

In his Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast of Faust he attacked the high C forte and then softened the sound to a pianissimo. Sir Rudolf Bing, the Met's general manager wrote in his memoirs: ‘I shall never as long as I live forget the beauty of that sound.’

Di Stefano was chosen by EMI to record all the popular Italian operas with Maria Callas. Their 1953 studio recording of Tosca is considered one of the greatest performances in the history of the gramophone.

The two also performed well together on stage from 1951 onwards. He sang with Callas in the famous Visconti production of La Traviata in 1955 at La Scala and the last time they sang together in an opera was in Un ballo in maschera at La Scala in 1957.

In 1973 Di Stefano accompanied Callas on her final recital tour. Critics said they were both losing their voices but they were enthusiastically received everywhere. It was during this tour that the two had a brief romance.

Di Stefano also made recordings with a wealth of other opera stars.

Di Stefano's albums sold millions of copies

His final operatic role was as the aged emperor in Turandot in July 1992.

In 2004 Di Stefano suffered a brutal beating by unknown assailants near his home in Diani Beach in Kenya after he was ambushed in his car with his wife, Monika Curth.

The singer was still unconscious a week after the attack and had several operations.

He was flown to Milan and admitted to the San Raffaele clinic where he slipped into a coma.

Eventually he came out of his coma but his health never fully improved and he died at his home in Santa Maria Hoè, between Bergamo and Como, in 2008 at the age of 86.

Luciano Pavarotti said he modelled himself on Di Stefano, who was his idol. He said Di Stefano had ‘the most incredible, open voice you could hear.’ Di Stefano is also said to be the tenor who most inspired José Carreras.

Travel tip:

Motta Sant'Anastasia, with a snow-covered Mount
Etna in the background

Motta Sant’Anastasia, where Di Stefano was born, is a municipality nine kilometres (5.5 miles) west of Catania, built on a rocky outcrop not far from Mount Etna. It was inhabited by Greeks in the fifth century BC. Roman coins and a Roman mosaic have also been discovered there. The Tower of Motta was built in the 11th century as a defensive structure to protect the area from Saracen invasions.

Travel tip:

Di Stefano performed regularly on the stage of Teatro alla Scala in Milan from 1949 onwards. The theatre was officially inaugurated in 1778 after being built on the site of the former Church of Santa Maria alla Scala to the design of Giuseppe Piermarini. It is across the road from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an elegant arcade lined with shops, cafes and restaurants which links Piazza alla Scala with Piazza del Duomo, Milan’s cathedral square. La Scala’s museum displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza alla Scala and it is open every day except Bank Holidays.

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Tullio Serafin – opera conductor

Toscanini’s successor furthered the career of Callas

Tullio Serafin

The man who helped Maria Callas develop her singing talent, musician and conductor Tullio Serafin, was born on this day in 1878 in Rottanova near Cavarzere in the Veneto, on the Adige river just south of the Venetian Lagoon.

Serafin studied music in Milan and went on to play the viola in the orchestra at Teatro alla Scala under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.

He was later appointed assistant conductor and then took over as musical director at the theatre when Toscanini left to go to New York.

Serafin conducted at La Scala between 1909 and 1914, from 1917 to 1918 and then returned briefly at the end of the Second World War.

He became a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1924 and stayed with them for ten years before returning to Italy to become artistic director at the Teatro Reale in Rome.

During his career he helped the development of many singers, including Rosa Ponselle, Magda Olivero and Joan Sutherland.

Serafin’s most notable success was with Maria Callas, with whom he collaborated on many recordings. He is credited with helping the American-born singer achieve a major breakthrough in 1949 when he persuaded her to take over from the leading belcanto soprano Margeritha Carosio at the opening night of Bellini's I Puritani at La Fenice in Venice after Carosio was forced to withdraw through illness.

Callas protested that she was inadequately prepared but her performance received rave reviews, giving her the confidence to expand her repertoire.  Thereafter, success followed success.

The conductor was also responsible for reviving 19th century operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti and establishing them in the 20th century repertoire.

Serafin died in 1968 in Rome at the age of 89.

The bell tower of the Duomo and the
Palazzo Barbiani in Cavarzere

Travel tip:

Rottanova, where Serafin was born, is a small hamlet on the outskirts of Cavarzere, a comune situated about 35km south of Venice in the Veneto. Cavarzere dates back to before Roman times when it was a military outpost. It later became a refuge for people escaping from the barbarians after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Travel tip:

Teatro alla Scala, where Serafin conducted for so many years, is in Piazza della Scala in the centre of Milan across the road from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. La Scala has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza della Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days when it is closed in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30pm.

HomeHome.30 to 5.30 pm.