Opera Wednesday

ED SULLIVAN WITH MARIA CALLAS AND GEORGE LONDON, NOVEMBER  25, 1956

Ed Sullivan was a man who liked to think he had his finger on the pulse of the American entertainment scene. “If he understood and liked an act,” biographer James Maguire wrote, “[the public] would; if he didn’t, his audience probably wouldn’t either.” That instinct didn’t often fail him, as the appearances by Elvis and The Beatles will attest.

He also realized that there was a great middlebrow audience out there, viewers who enjoyed seeing the latest Broadway plays and New York operas but didn’t have much of a chance to see them in person, and he was dedicated to giving them that opportunity through his show. Recreations of scenes from plays, musicals, and operas were common, with the singers and actors appearing in costume on a reproduced set. It wasn’t enough, thought Sullivan, to recreate the performance; he wanted to recreate the experience as well.

And that’s how, in November of 1956, the great Maria Callas came to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. Callas had made her Met debut on opening night of the 1956-57 season in Bellini’s Norma. On November 19, she would premiere perhaps her most famous role, that of Puccini’s Tosca. Sullivan knew the headlines that would be generated by Callas’ debut on American television, and booked Callas to appear on the show.

Maguire recounts some of the behind-the-scenes tension; Callas, a diva to the last, refused to do Tosca, preferring to save it for the paying customers at the Met. Sullivan, in turn, threatened to boot her off the show if she didn’t fulfill her half of the bargain. The result, of course, was this performance, from November 25, 1956. The first person you’ll see is Rudolf Bing, the general manager of the Metropolitan, followed by scenes from Act II of Tosca, featuring the Canadian bass-baritone George London as the villainous Count Scarpia. The orchestra is under the baton of Dimitri Mitropoulos.


In 1956, opera and theater were not uncommon on television. Aside from an occasional appearnce on PBS, where are the outlets for such programming today? 

Cross-posted at It's About TV!

Opera Wednesday

Short and sweet - Maria Callas (above) and Tito Gobbi perform the spectacular finale to Act 2 of Tosca in a special television broadcast from the Royal Opera House in London. This never gets old.

Opera Wednesday

It's one of our favorites here, and I don't think I ever get tired of seeing it - the spectacular Act Two of Puccini's Tosca, featuring Maria Callas as Tosca and Tito Gobbi as Baron Scarpia, from Covent Garden in London. This was a special performance of Act Two, staged for ITV and broadcast in February, 1964. The television audience was twice that of the Winter Olympics on BBC.

Opera Wednesday

Short and sweet - Maria Callas (above) and Tito Gobbi perform the spectacular finale to Act 2 of Tosca in a special television broadcast from the Royal Opera House in London. This never gets old.

Opera Wednesday: The death of Butterfly

The way an opera ends is as important as the way it begins. Verdi got this, and his operas often ended with a dramatic crescendo; Mozart, for all his genius, did not, as the anticlimactic conclusion of Don Giovanni proves. Puccini got it as well; as the conclusion of Madama Butterfly proves. When the shattered and despondent Butterfly takes her own life, it packs an emotional wallop. If you need more evidence, listen to the immortal Maria Callas in this unforgettable performance. The recording is from 1957, with the great Herbert Von Karajan conducting.