Callas at La Scala: The Defining Years

A Revision of Standards

When Maria Callas arrived at La Scala in 1951, the dominant soprano aesthetic was power: the Flagstad model of a voice so large and consistent it could fill an opera house without the drama of vulnerability. Callas changed this.

Callas's voice was not the largest. But it was the most dramatically expressive — capable of ugliness, of breaks, of timbral transformation that made every line communicative. She recovered, essentially from scratch, the art of bel canto singing as drama rather than vocal exhibition.

The Roles

At La Scala between 1951 and 1957, Callas performed Norma, Violetta (La Traviata), Lucia di Lammermoor, Medea, Alceste, and Anna Bolena. Each role she transformed: her Violetta established the psychological template that every s