The Most Exciting

The curtains closed on Chicago's Civic Opera House stage, and the scene's two principal singers stepped out to acknowledge the applause. First came Baritone Robert Weede, looking vaguely troubled, although he had sung well. Then, her hand in his, appeared Soprano Maria Meneghini Callas. She seemed overcome with gratitude as she curtsied, threw Weede a sidelong glance out of her dark almond eyes, blew a shy kiss to the audience, and grinned a triumphant little grin at the second balcony. Suddenly, Baritone Weede snatched his hand from hers and dashed for the wings, to let her reap her harvest of applause alone. No doubt about it--New York City-born, Greek-raised Soprano Callas, 31, indeed stands alone on today's operatic stage.

To the Solar Plexus. Soprano Callas had just sung Leonora in Verdi's // Trovatore and once more affirmed her position as the world's most exciting opera singer. With the exception of one high note in her last big aria that degenerated into a sickly wobble, the whole performance gave off an incomparable glow. Perhaps the glow was brighter than ever, for Soprano Callas had just signed a contract as leading soprano next fall with Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera. Il Trovatore's first notes, when she stood in slender profile in her crimson robe and sang of her love for an unknown troubadour (Tenor Jussi Bjoerling), until she took poison and died in Act IV, her voice contained some of the bite and much of the richness of a clarinet. But its quality was warmed and softened with womanliness. It floated with effortless grace, swelled until it filled the whole block-long auditorium, tapered off sensuously into a decorative vocal arabesque. Whether she was making the most of one of her meaty arias or balancing her tones in ensemble with another singer's, the Callas voice went straight to the listener's solar plexus.

For Art's Sake? But Callas' singing, remarkable as it is, accounts for only part of her impact. To the unregenerate art of operatic acting, she brings a powerful personality. It shows in the expressive toss of her head as she trills some word less coloratura, in the dramatic contrast of her long white fingers spread against a jet-black robe, in the sudden change in her face as, in mid-song, a new thought crosses her mind. She listens with a special intentness while others sing to her--although it is a question whether the pain that sometimes touches her brow is called for by the plot or caused by a fellow singer's strained note.

Obviously, the Callas talent would be an asset to any opera company, and the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager Rudolf Bing has coveted it for years. But Soprano Callas--who insists that she must be the highest-paid member of any company in which she sings--indignantly refused the Met's ceiling of $1,000 per performance. Instead she accepted a reported $2,000 from Chicago's fledgling Lyric Theater company (TIME, Nov. 15, 1954). Said she at the time: "Who is the Met, my father or something? The Met can't afford me? I'm sorry, the Met will have to do without me."

Since then, the Met has decided that it cannot afford not to afford Callas. "In May, Mr. Bing came to Italy," she explained last week. "He saw me. We spoke. We were all right together." Both Manager Bing and Soprano Callas steadfastly refused to disclose her salary, but educated guesses put it at $2,000 per performance. Manager Bing announced that Callas would open the Met's 1956 season in her famed role, Norma, and chivalrously kissed her hand in her Chicago dressing room for the benefit of photographers. As to salary, he only remarked: "Our singers work for art's sake--and maybe a few flowers. Perhaps she will have a few more flowers."

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