Maria Callas

Maria Callas (December 2, 1923 September 16, 1977), was a Greek-

American soprano and one of the most influential opera singers of the 20th
century. Critics praised her wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations.
Her musical and dramatic talent led to her being hailed as La Divina.

Born in New York City and raised by an overbearing mother, she received her
musical education in Greece and established her career in Italy. Forced to
deal with the exigencies of wartime poverty and with myopia, she endured
struggles and scandal over the course of her career. She turned herself from
a heavy woman into a glamorous one after a mid-career weight loss, which
might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her
career.

Although her dramatic life has often overshadowed Callas the artist in the
popular press, her artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein
called her "the Bible of opera". Her influence was so enduring that, in 2006,
Opera News wrote of her: "Nearly thirty years after her death, she's still the
definition of the diva as artistand still one of classical music's best-selling
vocalists."

Family life, childhood and move to Greece

Maria Callas was born on December 2, 1923, in Manhattan, to Greek parents
George Kalogeropoulos and Evangelia Dimitriadou. She was christened Anna
Maria Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou ( -
). Callas's father had shortened the surname Kalogeropoulos

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first to "Kalos" and subsequently to "Callas", in order to make it more
manageable.
Her parents were an ill-matched couple from the beginning; he was
unambitious, with no interest in the arts, while his wife had held dreams of a
life in the arts for herself. The situation wasnt improved, neither by the birth
of a daughter, named Yakinthi in 1917, nor the birth of a son, named Vassilis,
in 1920. In 1923, after realizing that Evangelia was pregnant again, George
made the decision to move his family to America. Evangelia was convinced
that her third child would be a boy; her disappointment at the birth of
another daughter was so great that she refused to even look at her new baby
for four days.

At the age of three, Maria's musical talent began to manifest itself. Evangelia
discovered that her youngest daughter had a voice and she began pressing
Maria to sing. Callas later recalled, "I was made to sing when I was only five,
and I hated it." George was unhappy with his wife favoring their elder
daughter, as well as the pressure put upon young Mary to sing and perform.
The marriage continued to deteriorate and, in 1937, Evangelia returned to
Athens with her two daughters.

Callas's relationship with her mother continued to erode during the years in
Greece. In public, Callas blamed the strained relationship with Evangelia on
her unhappy childhood spent singing and working at her mother's insistence.
In an attempt to patch things up with her mother, Callas took Evangelia along
on her first visit to Mexico in 1950, but this only reawakened the old frictions
and resentments, and after leaving Mexico, the two never met again.

Education
In the summer of 1937, her mother visited Maria Trivella at the younger
Greek National Conservatoire, asking her to take Mary, as she was then
called, as a student for a modest fee. In 1957, Trivella recalled her impression
of "Mary, a very plump young girl, wearing big glasses for her myopia".
Trivella agreed to tutor Callas and they began working on her voice.

Callas studied with Trivella for two years before her mother secured another
audition at the Athens Conservatoire with de Hidalgo. She agreed to take her

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as a pupil immediately, but Callas's mother asked de Hidalgo to wait for a
year, as Callas would be graduating from the National Conservatoire and
could begin working. On April 2, 1939, Callas undertook the part of Santuzza
in a student production of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana at the Olympia
Theatre, and in the fall of the same year she enrolled at the Athens
Conservatoire in Elvira de Hidalgo's class.

Early operatic career in Greece

After several appearances as a student, Callas began appearing in secondary
roles at the Greek National Opera. De Hidalgo was secured roles for her,
allowing Callas to earn a small salary, which helped her and her family get
through the difficult war years.

Callas made her professional debut in February 1941, in the small role of
Beatrice in Franz von Supp's Boccaccio. Soprano Galatea Amaxopoulou, who
sang in the chorus, later recalled, "Even in rehearsal, Maria's fantastic
performing ability had been obvious, and from then on, the others started
trying ways of preventing her from appearing." Despite these hostilities,
Callas managed to continue and made her debut in a leading role in August
1942 as Tosca, going on to sing the role of Marta in Eugen d'Albert's Tiefland
at the Olympia Theatre. Callas's performance as Marta received glowing
reviews.

After the liberation of Greece, de Hidalgo advised Callas to establish herself

in Italy. Callas proceeded to give a series of concerts around Greece, and
then, against her teacher's advice, she returned to America to see her father
and to further pursue her career. When she left Greece on September 14,
1945, two months short of her 22nd birthday, Callas had given 56
performances in seven operas and had appeared in around 20 recitals. Callas
considered her Greek career as the foundation of her musical and dramatic
upbringing, saying, "When I got to the big career, there were no surprises for
me."

Upon her arrival in Verona, Callas met Giovanni Battista Meneghini , an older,
wealthy industrialist, who began courting her. They married in 1949, and he
assumed control of her career until 1959, when the marriage dissolved. It

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was Meneghini's love and support that gave Callas the time needed to
establish herself in Italy and throughout the prime of her career, she went by
the name of Maria Meneghini Callas.

Important debuts
Although by 1951, Callas had sung at all the major theatres in Italy, she had
not yet made her official debut at Italy's most prestigious opera house, Teatro
alla Scala in Milan. According to composer Gian Carlo Menotti, Callas had
substituted for Renata Tebaldi in the role of Aida in 1950, and La Scala's
general manager, Antonio Ghiringhelli, had taken an immediate dislike to
Callas. Her debut in America was five years later in Chicago in 1954, and
"with the Callas Norma, Lyric Opera of Chicago was born."

In 1952, she made her London debut at the Royal Opera House in Norma.
Callas and the London public had what she herself called "a love affair" and
she returned to the Royal Opera House in 1953, 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1964
to 1965. It was at the Royal Opera House where, on July 5, 1965, Callas
ended her stage career in the role of Tosca.

The last residence of Maria Callas in Paris

Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris and died of a
heart attack at age 53 on September 16, 1977. During a 1978 interview,
upon being asked "Was it worth it to Maria Callas? She was a lonely,
unhappy, often difficult woman," music critic and Callas's friend John Ardoin
replied:

That is such a difficult question. There are times when certain people are
blessedand cursedwith an extraordinary gift, in which the gift is almost
greater than the human being. Callas was one of these people. It was as if
her own wishes, her life, her own happiness were all subservient to this
incredible, incredible gift that she was given, this gift that reached out and
taught us things about music that we knew very well, but showed us new
things, things we never thought about, new possibilities. I think that is why
singers admire her so. I think that's why conductors admire her so. I know it's
why I admire her so. And she paid a tremendously difficult and expensive
price for this career. I don't think she always understood what she did or why

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she did it. She usually had a tremendous effect on audiences and on people.
But it was not something she could always live with gracefully or happily. I
once said to her "It must be a very enviable thing to be Maria Callas." And
she said, "No, it's a very terrible thing to be Maria Callas, because it's a
question of trying to understand something you can never really
understand." She couldn't really explain what she did. It was all done by
instinct. It was something embedded deep within her.