Callas, Vickers, Rescigno - Medea, Dallas 1958 - Vinyl Source

From the vinyl Melodram set, the complete incredible, amazing Dallas Medea, set in legend, featuring a fiery Callas as Medea. Simply fantastic. While not the most vocally incredible Medea (see the 1953 performances), this production humanises Medea, and Callas provides an amazing interpretation (perhaps driven by the fury of her firing by [stupid] Bing from The Met only hours before the performance!). Truly legendary has to be heard by any opera fan. Her expression in "Numi, venite a me" is truly incredible!
Maria Callas: Medea
Jon Vickers: Giasone
Elizabeth Carron: Glauce
Nicola Zaccaria: Creonte
Teresa Berganza: Neris
Judith Raskin: Prima ancella
Mary MacKenzie: Seconda ancella
Peter Bender: Un capo delle guardie
Nicola Rescigno conducts the Orchestra of the Civic Opera Company of Dallas.
Performed live, 11 June, 1958.

[@spyridonroumeliotis7831]

I would give the world in order to know how she was feeling every time a performance ended ...

[@jamesnickoloff6692]

This performance gives the lie to the notion that she had "lost her voice" or had lost her vocal resources by 1958 (because of weight loss or anything else). Here Callas is as powerful and sovereign as ever. I have always thought that, like an Olympic swimmer or runner, she was CAPABLE of surpassing performances well into the 1960s but the question of whether she actually reached those heights in performance or not had to do with the context, her health, her psychological state, and most of all her will power. How do you summon the WILL to perform like this, week after week, year after year? That is what is required to reach your best, or surpass it.
How fortunate that Dallas audience was to hear and see this! There would be very few performances in North America or elsewhere since then that reached this level. And WE are fortunate, indeed, to have this audio recording. I can only imagine her face in some of these scenes.

[@luanllluan]

the sound's soooo good!

[@papaki88]

wonderful!!!
i think that the date of the performance is wrong though....
11/08/58: Medea: Dallas, State Fair Music Hall (Dallas Civic Opera Company): maestro direttore Nicola Rescigno;
maestro del coro Jaime Leon
( www.frankhamilton.org/mc/c1.pdf )

[@512gontran]

george pangeo 6th, or 8th ? but November for sure.

[@spyridonroumeliotis7831]

I will confirm that. I also think that the second performance (8th of November) was the one recorded.

[@NLidar]

1:47:40

[@andyschnabel5225]

Her most vile and demonic Medea.

[@Shahrdad]

Also her most tortured and vulnerable Medea. It's a titanic battle of the tender wife and mother and the vengeful demigoddess.