Maria Callas

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Image:Maria Callas (1923-1977).jpg

Maria Callas (Greek name: Μαρία Καλογεροπούλου; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano and perhaps the best-known opera singer of the post-World War II period. She combined an impeccable bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts, making her the most famous singing actress of the era. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria, such as Spontini's La Vestale to late Verdi and the verismo operas of Puccini.

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Biography

Born Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulos to Greek parents in New York City, in 1937 she moved with her mother Evangelia to Athens, Greece, at the age of 13.

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Education

Maria received her musical education in Athens. Initially her mother tried to enroll her at the prestigious Athens Conservatoire, without success. At the audition her voice, still untrained, failed to impress, while the conservatoire’s director Filoktitis Oikonomidis refused to accept her without her satisfying the theoretic prerequisites (solfege). Therefore, in the summer of 1937, her mother visited Maria Trivella at the younger Greek National Conservatoire, asking her to take Maria as a student for a modest fee. After listening to her voice Trivella agreed to tutor her completely, waiving her tuition fees. In April 11 1938 Maria ended the show of Trivella's class at the Parnassos music hall with a duet from Tosca. This was her first official public appearance. Callas's progress in the first six months was impressive, and this allowed her mother to secure another audition at the Athens Conservatoire with the well-known soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who immediately agreed to take her as a pupil. However, because Maria would be graduating in a year from the National Conservatoire and could begin working, her mother asked de Hidalgo to wait for a year. In April 2 1939 Maria made her debut at the Olympia theater, as Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, and in the fall of the same year she enrolled at the Athens Conservatoire in Elvira de Hidalgo's class. Naturally, Trivella was embittered by Evangelia's and Maria's conduct and Maria also felt guilty. One of the first things Maria did in 1957 when she returned to Greece was to call her old teacher, and set up a moving reunion with her.

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Professional life

After a few appearances as a student and in secondary roles, Callas made her professional debut at the Athens Opera on July 4, 1941, as Tosca, going on to sing Santuzza and Leonora during the next three years. In 1947, Callas made her Italian debut at the Verona Arena in La Gioconda under the baton of Tullio Serafin. Together with Serafin, Callas subsequently recorded and performed many bel canto operas, contributing greatly to the bel canto revival of the 1950s.

Throughout the 1950s, Callas made numerous appearances at the world's great houses: La Scala in Milan, Opera Garnier in Paris, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Dallas Opera (Dallas, Texas), Royal Opera House in London, Mexico's Palacio de las Bellas Artes, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. For a production of Cherubini's Médée in 1954, Callas lost a substantial amount of weight and suprised her public with her newfound glamorous appearance. However, it is thought by some the loss of body mass made it more difficult for her to support her voice and triggered the vocal strain which became apparent later in the decade. Her later stereo recordings evidence masterly musical interpretations with an increasingly unstable higher register that wobbled uncontrollably at times. In 1960, she made her final appearance at La Scala in a new production of a lesser-known work by Donizetti, Poliuto, a role that was well chosen for her vocal capacities.

In her final years as a singer, there were performances of Medea, Norma, and Tosca , most notably her Paris, New York, and Royal Opera House Covent Garden Toscas of January–February 1964 and, her last performance on stage, on 5 July 1965 at Covent Garden. A television film of Act 2 of the famous Covent Garden Tosca of 1964 was broadcast in Britain on 9th February of that year. It gives a rare view of Callas in performance and, specifically, the extraordinary on-stage relationship which Callas had with Tito Gobbi. The videotape was subsequently published on DVD.

In 1969, the Italian filmaker Pasolini cast Callas in her only non-operatic acting role, playing the Greek mythological figure Medea in his film of the same name. The production was gruelling, and Callas is said to have fainted after a day of strenuous running back and forth on a mudflat in the sun. The film was not a commercial success remains of artistic interest; as Callas' only film appearance, it documents her powerful stage presence in such details as her ability to hold an audience's attention while standing still. Callas's performance in the film reveal an economy of gesture and movement that makes her stand apart from most other opera performers.

Image:Callas as Anna Bolena.jpg

From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes at the Juilliard School in New York. (These classes later formed the basis of Terrence McNally's 1995 play Master Class). In 1972, George Moore, president of the Met board, offered her the job of Artistic Director. She turned him down to stage a series of comeback recitals in Europe in 1973 and in the US, South Korea and Japan in 1974 with the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, but it was a musical disaster due to both performers' outworn voices. However, the tour was an enormous popular success as audiences thronged to hear the these performers who often appeared together in their vocal prime. Her final public performance was on 11th November 1974 in Sapporo, Japan.

Greatly admired by many opera fans, yet disliked by others, Callas was a controversial artist. Her supporters called her "La Divina" and raved about the dramatic intensity she brought to the opera stage. Her vocal instrument was not classically beautiful in the manner of Tebaldi, Scotto, Caballe, or Sutherland, a fact which her supporters say causes her detractors to miss the totality of her portrayals.

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Personal life

Callas was romantically involved for many years with the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, and their love affair received much publicity. She was introduced to him in 1957, after a performance in Donizetti's Anna Bolena, at a party given in her honor by Elsa Maxwell. In November 1959, she left her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, for Onassis. According to one of her biographers, Nicholas Gage, Callas and Onassis had a child, a boy, who died hours after he was born on 30th March 1960. The relationship ended nine years later, when Onassis left Callas for Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of assassinated US president John F. Kennedy.

Heartbroken ("First I lost my voice, then I lost my figure and then I lost Onassis," she once said), Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris, and died in 1977 from a heart attack at the age of 53. The funeral service was held at the Greek Orthodox Church on Rue Georges-Bizet on 20th September 1977, and her ashes were buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered into the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece.

In late 2004, opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli made what many consider to be a bizarre claim that Callas may have been murdered by her confidante, Greek pianist Vasso Devetzi, motivated by Callas' $9,000,000 USD estate. A more likely explanation is that Callas' death was due to heart failure brought on by overuse of Mandrax (methaqualone), which she took as a sleeping aid. According to biographer Stelios Galatopoulos, Devetzi insinuated herself into Callas' trust and acted virtually as her agent. This claim is corroborated by Lakintha (Jackie) Callas in her book Sisters, where she asserts that Devetzi conned the gullible sister out control of her half of the estate, while promising to establish the Maria Callas Foundation to provide scholarships for young singers. After hundreds of thousands of dollars vanished, Devetzi eventually established the foundation.[1]

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Notable recordings

All recordings are in mono unless otherwise indicated. Live performances are typically available on multiple labels: see the complete discography and list of currently available recordings for further information.

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Famous Quotes

On Tebaldi: "When she can sing a Walkure and Puritani back to back, then you can compare us. Until then it is like trying to compare Coca Cola to champagne."

"First I lost my voice, then I lost my figure and then I lost Onassis."

"Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddamn rules."

"I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must."

"You are born an artist or you are not. And you stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a fireworks. The artist is always there."

"Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me."

"My poor sight gives me an advantage. I can't see the people in the audience who are scratching their heads while I am lost in my role and giving everything I have to the drama."

"If I have stepped on some people at times because I am at the top, it couldn't be helped. What should I do if someone gets hurt ... retire?"

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Further reading

Ardoin, John, The Callas Legacy, Duckworth, London, 1977.

Edwards, Anne, Maria Callas, An Intimate Biography, St. Martin's Press, New York, 2001.

Gage, Nicholas, Greek Fire: The Story Of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis (ISBN 0446610763)

Galatopoulos, Stelios, Maria Callas, Sacred Monster, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998.

Lowe, David A. (ed.), Callas: As They Saw Her, New York, Ungar Publishing Company, 1986.

Stancioff, Nadia, Maria Callas Remembered: An Intimate Portrait of the Private Callas, E. P. Dutton, 1987.

Stassinopoulos, Arianna, Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1981.

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External links

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