Much has been written on recordings as trace, index, and representation; their role in creating new forms of reception; and their inability to capture the manifold facets of a live performance. The release of Warner’s Maria Callas: The Complete Studio Recordings, 1949-1969 (2015) provides a unique opportunity to revisit another important question that impinges on the role of recordings in musical culture, namely the oft-cited claim that live performances have at times become indistinguishable from their recorded counterparts. At stake in this process of convergence is not just the status of liveness in contemporary culture but also the very nature of performance as an event. For the studio recording of an opera is not simply an ideal performance from which the visual and scenic components have been subtracted. Comparisons with live recordings indicate that even when onstage, Callas sought to achieve a level of proficiency such that the performance was no longer the virtuosic realisation of a work but the striving toward an ideal associated with the practice of studio recording. This is indicated not only by the enormous breadth of her repertory but also the broadly admired projection of textual and dramatic values. Hence the significance of Callas’s idiosyncratic tone color or breathing, and even her mistakes—inevitable when pursuing a theoretical ideal dictated by the aesthetics of recording. It is by listening to her vocalizations in the recordings of her Juilliard School master classes that one fully regains a sense of Callas’s performances as situated events. They are the counterpart, in classical music terms, of the celebrated recording sessions of the Beatles in the Abbey Road studios.

CREDITS

Giorgio Biancorosso (The University of Hong Kong) - Speaker

PARKING

The City of Melbourne has recently changed the parking restrictions around the Southbank Campus. Parking control hours are now expanded to 7am–10pm, seven days per week, and are capped at three hours. A $2-per-hour fee after 7pm is also now in place. There is no change to the $4-per-hour peak rate between 7am–7pm. Parking inspectors are regularly in the area fining drivers who overstay their meter, so we encourage everyone to be aware and avoid an expensive fine.

ACCESSIBILITY

All venues at the Southbank campus are wheelchair accessible. To read more about access services available at our venues, please visit: https://finearts-music.unimelb.edu.au/access-our-events.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Please stay home if you feel unwell, even with mild symptoms. Face masks are welcome in all settings for community and personal safety.
In order to account for drop-off in attendance, we overbook a select number of free events at the Faculty. If you have not arrived by the start of the performance, your ticket may be released to any waiting patrons at the door. Please arrive at the venue at least 15 minutes before the performance to secure your seat.
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