It’s always someone’s centennial. Maria Callas was born on December 2, 1923 — meaning that this coming Saturday is the big day. (There is also the Big Ten football championship, Michigan vs. Iowa.) Callas died in 1977, at 53. I have a piece on her today, here. There is so much to say about this woman. I’ve said a little — the necessary and essential, I think.

Here on the Corner, I’d like to add a few things — mainly links.

Because our world today is so different — I have the place of high culture particularly in mind — it’s hard to fathom how famous Callas was. As I mention in my piece, Time magazine put her on its cover in late October 1956: in the middle of the Hungarian Revolution, the Suez Crisis, and the climax of an American presidential campaign.

I’d like to show you kind of an interesting picture: here. It’s of Callas with Churchill (on Onassis’s yacht, in Monaco Harbor, 1959). There’s a picture of the 20th century.

Let me jump to something else. “About language,” I say in my piece, “she was impeccable.” Continuing:

She sang in Italian, French, and English (and Greek). She did not sing in German. When she sang the Liebestod — Isolde’s Love-Death — it was not “Mild und leise” but “Dolce e calmo.” Few have treated this transcendent music so well.

Here is her recording in 1949. It is very weird, the Liebestod in Italian. But so . . . right, and very Wagner. Callas made it that way.

Callas herself was controversial, and her voice especially so. There are a thousand articles, and I have contributed a thousand and first, I guess. “I will give you an example of how she used her voice,” I say in my piece.

Many sopranos, when they sing “Vissi d’arte” (Tosca’s aria), sing it as a beautiful prayer, or love song. It is really beautiful. When Callas sang it, however, every word meant something. She sang with the “dramatic truth.” God, what the hell? Why are you doing this to me? Why do you repay me thus? There were tones of accusation, and plangency, and anger, and bewilderment, in her voice.

Hers was not the most beautiful “Vissi d’arte.” (I would award that prize to Leontyne Price.) But it was perhaps the truest.

Hear it for yourself in a 1953 recording.

Also controversial about Callas? Also the subject of a thousand articles? Her great weight loss (80 pounds), which she achieved — I think that’s the right word — in 1953 and ’54. Many think that this affected her singing for the worse; many think it made no difference at all (vocally); some think it helped her, overall.

I am not weighing in (so to speak). But, in my piece, I note this:

In videos of Callas, after the weight loss, you can see her singing in concert with her arms crossed — with her arms folded across her abdomen — as if seeking something to push off of, as if asking, “Where is the previous substance?”

An example of this would be here — Callas in 1962 singing the Habanera: a relatively simple thing (as well as an everlasting thing). Do you think she is in search of something to push off of? Do you think this thin, glamorous woman is asking, “Where the hell is my body?”

(Again, this is controversial, and probably unresolvable.)

A final subject: recordings. That is a big, big subject, and we’re not going to do it justice today. Let me quote from my piece:

Some musicians record “true.” They sound like themselves, on recordings. They are faithfully represented. Others are not so lucky. I think of Olga Borodina, the Russian mezzo-soprano. She is one of the greatest singers of our time. I’m not sure you can tell, on recordings.

In another paragraph, I speak of “pirates” — pirate recordings, i.e., illicit ones, taken by attendees (on crude equipment, in decades past).

I will quote some more:

Five years ago, a pirate of Alicia de Larrocha, the pianist, turned up on YouTube. It was from 1974, at the 92nd Street Y in New York. The great Spaniard was playing L’isle joyeuse (Debussy). Excitedly, I e-mailed a young pianist friend of mine, saying, “This lets you know what it was like. It tells you why we all went nuts. You can sense the electricity. You can understand why the hair on our arms stood up.”

Uh-huh. Here.

Sergiu Celibidache, the conductor, said, “Listening to a record is like kissing a photograph of Brigitte Bardot.” (He did not say “kissing,” but his comment is cleaned up for posterity.) Maybe, maybe — but, oh, they are better than nothing.