Cathy Berberian
Beatles Arias

OH, CATHY…
You are an American of Armenian descent, you've studied singing and acting at Columbia before venturing to the conservatory in Milan.
And you have become, thanks to a vocal range capable of easily covering three octaves, a well-known performer not only of the classical repertoire but especially of the twentieth-century avant-garde (you even married one, Luciano Berio, in 1950).
In you, composers have found exuberance and rigor, flexible predisposition, and irony, the avid desire for research and discovery which made you the most "natural" voice for the works, to most people difficult and incomprehensible, of the authors of that indecipherable nebula that is contemporary music.
And you are also a mother.
Your daughter brings home the records that, in those years, are causing a real earthquake: topping the charts and at the center of a phenomenon never seen before.
These Beatles are really interesting.
Certainly, your audience, the select, cultured, and refined bourgeoisie that appreciate your talent and its multifaceted versatility, denies any dignity to that certain "noise," even if they will all end up humming it in the shower, away from prying ears.
But you are Cathy, the curious and indomitable Cathy.
Cristina, your daughter, will recount that in your home in Milan, in the sprawling record collection (ranging from West Side Story to Callas, from Schoenberg to Peggy Lee, from jazz to folk music from around the world) all the records of the four lads from Liverpool will start to flow in.
Because when you decide to get serious, there's no stopping you, it seems.

1966, BEATLES ARIAS: LIVE!
So, at the height of the English quartet's fame, amidst hits and young fans' mass hysteria, and in the midst of your brilliant career, you, a mezzo-soprano elevated to icon status by the "high" culture world, record your version of some songs of these sonic beetles.
Your move is considered at least inappropriate in certain circles.
After all, these are years in which terms like square, nonconformist, and rebel are used with a certain importance….
You will declare that the intent was to make those songs listenable to the parents, generally outraged, of the youngsters who were crazy about the Beatles.
But I believe the reason was even more noble and evident, and you yourself confirmed it: you were simply a fan of the fab four, too.
And you can tell, by golly, if you can tell.

LYRICAL, BAROQUE, AND PLAYFUL: YOUNGER THAN THE BEATLES.
Exactly 40 years have passed.
And as soon as I insert the cd into the player, the baroque arrangement of "Ticket to Ride" welcomes your voice: the delight of your irony, those warbles and high notes, the rhythm, so extraordinarily transformed from that old song, are as fresh as a newborn game.
And that change of timbre and accent that surprises me at the end like a sly joke, and fades away immediately to close with a high note, is a pearl among the jewels.
I would really like everyone still today, after so much time, who bickers about the supposed or real greatness and immortality of the four English beetles to listen to you.
Or on the rivalry with the Rolling Stones, holy water and devil. Or on the belonging of the song form to a limbo far from the empyrean of true music. Or still the supporters of "musical research" as a barricade at all costs, who see in the Beatles only the image of planned success, the beginning of an era of "rock" commodification and its more sincerely "revolutionary" instances.
I wish they could hear you: an alien suggesting another musical universe, because you know, and well, many. And know the light strength unfolded by such a delightful union of elegance, technique, and irony.
Certainly, some tracks seem almost naturally adapted to the treatment you reserved for them, with those string arrangements and the vaguely "classical" setting with which they were conceived.
Certainly, I first put "Eleanor Rigby" on loop, and you were even "psychedelic" for me.
But it's in the others that I like you the most, if you allow me to choose, dear Cathy.
I am listening to "A Hard's Day Night," and you are fantastic: baroque and light, with a "youth" of spirit and interpretation that remains intact, probably more than what happens to the originals.
And even in "Girl," where you abandon lyrical semblances and unleash the low tones, you capture me.
As soon as I bought the cd I put it in the player and as soon as I listened again I wrote these lines, because I want other curious souls like me to be, or be again, on your trail.
In the end, you understand me well. You know what happens sometimes, right?
You simply fall in love or re/fall in love with something, someone. And you don't care if it seems inappropriate: all you want is for others to see in the same light what you found sublime.
Now I will also attach numerous samples of all the tracks, which every passerby can taste and of which many, I hope, will not be satisfied.
And I greet you, Dear Cathy.
A kiss from your little fan, who would like to be as young as you.

In the 2004 cd edition published by Telescopic, after many years of unavailability, there are some tracks arranged by Louis Andriessen, and the recordings of a short interview conducted for French radio and a recital held, always in France, at the beginning of the '80s, with Bruno Canino’s accompaniment.
The object is a very carefully crafted cardboard: the booklet, whose exhaustive notes are written in French (the '66 recording took place in Paris) and English, also includes the reproduction of the original covers of the old editions.

Of course, a recommended purchase.
For a taste of Berberian's (1925-1983) versatility and her vast repertoire, which also includes her own compositions, I suggest a cd edited by Ermitage in 1993 entitled "IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE VOICE" with recordings made by the Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana. The disc collects performances of works by: Henry Purcell, Kurt Weill, Luciano Berio, Jacques Offenbach, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, William Walton, and "Stripsody" for solo voice, by Berberian herself.
On the current availability of the product, however, I am not able to provide news.