Maria Callas, a great voice!

Interesting indeed the chapter www.wikipedia.org dedicate to Maria Callas.

Maria Callas "big" or "small" voice?

Richard Bonynge, Joan Sutherland's husband, so said in 1982:
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In the years prior to her weight loss, Callas's voice was a dramatic soprano, the sheer size of which was much commented upon, and there were no complaints about unsteadiness even in the most exposed passages. In a 1982 Opera News interview with Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, Bonynge stated, "But before she slimmed down, I mean this was such a colossal voice. It just poured out of her, the way Flagstad's did... Callas had a HUGE voice! When she and Stignani sang Norma, at the bottom of the range you could barely tell who was who... Oh it was colossal. And she took the big sound right up to the top." In his book, Michael Scott makes the distinction that whereas Callas's pre-1954 voice was a "dramatic soprano with an exceptional top", after the weight loss, it became, as one Chicago critic described the voice
in Lucia, a "huge suprano leggiero". In performance, Callas's range was just short of three octaves, from F-sharp (F#3) below middle C (C4) heard in "Arrigo! Ah parli ad un core" from I Vespri Siciliani to E-natural (E6) above high C (C6), heard in the same opera as well as Rossini's Armida and Lakmé's Bell Song. After her June 11, 1951 concert in Florence, Rock Ferris of Musical Courier said, "Her high E's and F's are taken full voice." In a French TV interview, Callas's teacher Elvira de Hidalgo spoke of her voice soaring to a high E, but did not mention the high F. Although no definite recording of Callas singing high F's have surfaced, the presumed E-natural in her performance of Rossini's Armida—a poor-quality bootleg recording of uncertain pitch—has been referred to as a high F. The aria in question is 'Per me propizio il fato', a 1952 live recording and though the quality is poor, the high F can be hear rising above the orchestra as Callas holds it for 3 seconds.
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Belcantismo/Callasiano

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Maria Callas su OperaClick?
Proibito esprimere giudizi che non siano strettamente in sintonia con la "direzione artistica".

Maria Callas on OperaClick? It is forbidden to write there about her, when the criticism is not tuned with that "artistic management".

Franco Soprano su Maria Callas (1977):
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=LskcV6ah8nk
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Rnw0nIr8s

Maria Callas/Sonnambula Bellini: "Ah, non giunge..." 1955, Bernstein, Scala
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDDDRyYMkKc