Maria Callas

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Maria Callas by Cecil Beaton, London, 1957

Maria Callas (Greek: Μαρία Κάλλας) (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 impressive bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts, making her one of the most famous opera singers of that or any era. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria, to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, to Verdi, Puccini, and in her early career, the music dramas of Wagner. The phenomenal scale of her musical and dramatic talents earned her the title of La Divina.

Biography

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Evangelia, Mary Anna, Jackie, and George Callas, Circa 1925

She was born Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou--the female form of Kalogeropoulos--(Greek: Μαρία Άννα Σοφία Καικιλία Καλογεροπούλου) to Greek parent--George Kalogeropoulos and Evangelia Dimitridou--in New York City, on 2nd December, 1923. In order to make the name Kalogeropoulos more manageable, it was shortened first to "Kalos" and subsequently to "Callas." Callas' birth certificate--long thought to have been lost--reads "Sophia Anna Kalos." Callas' parents had moved to New York while Evangelia was pregnant with Maria. Some have said that they moved for a fresh start after the death of their second child, a son named Vasili. It's been written that Evangelia was so disappointed that her third child was not a boy that she refused to hold the newborn baby or even to look at her for several days. This was only the start of a very difficult relationship.

George and Evangelia had a difficult marriage. Evangelia felt that she had moved down in social status through her marriage and her move to New York. George was unhappy with his wife favoring the older daughter, and he disapproved of Evangelia's pressuring of "Mary Anna" to sing. In 1937, Evangelia moved back to Athens, Greece with her two daughters, primarily to pursue 13-year-old Maria's singing career. It's likely that without Evangelia's ambition for her daughter, Callas might never have pursued music and singing. This pressure to sing and perform from a very young age, in addition to what Maria perceived as her mother's preference for her beautiful older daughter, caused Callas to hold a life-long resentment towards her mother and sister. Callas would later recall being the fat ugly sister and having to constantly work and sing as a child, adding, "I should have had a wonderful childhood. I didn't." Sadly, Maria and Evangelia parted ways in 1950, after Callas received a harsh and accusatory letter from Evangelia, and Callas never saw her mother and sister again. She remained close to her father until his death.

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. On April 11 1938 Maria ended the recital of Trivella's class at the Parnassos music hall with a duet from Tosca. This was her first official public appearance. Callas' 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. On 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.

Early Operatic Career in Greece

After a few appearances as a student, she began appearing in secondary roles at the Greek National Opera. Elvira de Hidalgo was very instrumental in this, mainly to allow "Mary" to earn a small salary which would help her and her family get through the difficult war years. From the beginning, she bagan encountering jealousy and hostility from the older female colleagues who did their utmost to sabbotage and demoralize her, sometimes even standing in the wings, pointing and laughing as she performed. In about a year, Callas made her debut in a leading role in August of 1942 as Tosca, which was a triumph. After a few well received concerts, she went on to sing the role of Marta in Eugen d'Albert's Tiefland at the Olympia Theater. This was a huge success and received rave reviews:

"The singer who took the part of Marta, that new star in the Greek firmament, with a matchelss depth of feeling, gave a theatrical interpretation well up to the standard of a tragic actress, About her exceptional voice with its astonishing natural fluency, I do not wish to add anything to the words of Alexandra Lalouni: 'Kaloyeropoulou is one of those God-given talents that one can only marvel at.'"

Realizing that they were dealing with a genuine vocal and dramatic phenomenon, even Callas' biggest detractors began to refer to her as "The God-Given, " foreshadowing the moniker of La Divina by which she would be known within a decade.

Callas' biggest triumph in Athens was in Fidelio, performed in the ancient outdoor theater at the foot of the Acropolis.

Throughout her life, Callas referred to her Greek career as a very important part of her musical and dramatic upbringing. She would say that since she had learned and performed so many big roles in Greece, once she started her main or "big" career in Italy, there were no surprises for her. She had left Greece as a seasoned professional.

Main Operatic Career

After returning to the United States and reuniting with her father, she was soon engaged to re-open the opera house in Chicago as Turandot, but the company folded before opening. The renowned basso Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, who also was to star in this opera, was aware that Tullio Serafin was looking for a dramatic soprano to cast as La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona. He would later recall the young Callas as being "Amazing--so strong physically and spiritually; so certain of her future. I knew in a big outdoor theater like Verona's, this girl, with her courage and huge voice, would make a tremendous impact." Subsequently he recommended Callas to impresario and retired tenor Giovanni Zenatello. During the audition, Zenatello became so excited that he jumped up and joined Callas in the Act 4 duet. It was in this role that Callas made her Italian debut.

Upon her arrival in Verona, Callas met Giovanni Battista Meneghini, an older, wealthy industrialist. He was quite taken with Callas and began courting her. They married in 1949, and he assumed control of her career until 1959, when the marriage dissolved. It was Meneghini's love and support that gave Callas the time she needed to establish herself in Italy. Even after the divorce, he remained dedicated to his ex-wife. Shortly before his death, he wrote his memoirs in a book entitled, My Wife, Maria Callas, in which he said her happiness was all he ever wanted.

After La Gioconda, Callas had no further offers. However, Serafin was looking for someone to sing Tristan und Isolde, and he remembered his Gioconda from Verona. He called on Callas, who out of desperation, told him that she already knew the score, even though she had looked at only the first act out of curiosity while at the conservatory. She sight-read the first two acts of the opera for Serafin, who was very impressed and praised her for knowing the role so well. She then admitted that she had bluffed and had sight-read the music. Serafin was even more impressed and immediately cast her in the role.. Serafin proceeded to become Callas' greatest mentor and supporter, and she performed and recorded many of her greatest triumphs with him.

In 1949, Callas created a sensation in Venice, by stepping in for an indisposed Margherita Carosio, learning and singing the role of Elvira in I Puritani in five days while still singing Brunnhilde in Die Walkure. Her performance in I Puritani immediately became the talk of Italy and passed into legend. The critics were amazed and ecstatic that a huge dramatic soprano voice so well suited to Brunnhilde could handle Elvira's coloratura with such ease and grace. Her performance also awakened the public's mind to the dramatic possibilities of the bel canto repertoire, which had become the property of canary-type singers such as Lily Pons. Franco Zeffirelli likened the scale of Callas' achievement in Venice to asking Birgit Nilsson to substitute overnight for Beverly Sills. An even more apt description would be asking a champion heavyweight wrestler to enter a gymnastics competition on five days' notice and then for him to win the gold medal.

Callas repeated this amazing test of her learning ability and memory by learning and performing Cherubini's Medea and Rossini's Armida at very short notice. Throughout most of her career, Callas enjoyed displaying her vocal versatility in recitals which combined dramatic soprano arias alongside coloratura pieces. One of the most impressive instances was a 1952 RAI recital in which she opened with Lady Macbeth's "letter scene", followed by the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor, then by Abigaile's treacherous recitative and aria from Nabucco, and she finished with the "Bell Song" from Lakme capped by a ringing high E in alt.

Callas made her official debut at La Scala in I Vespri Siciliani in December of 1951, and this theater became her artistic home and the site of her greatest triumphs. La Scala mounted many exciting new productions by directors such as Herbert Von Karajan, Margherita Wallmann, Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli. Many of these productions – Lucia di Lammermoor, Medea, La Traviata, La Sonnambula, Il Turco in Italia, Anna Bolena, Norma, and Il Pirata -- have assumed historical and legendary status and contributed to the reawakened interest in the bel canto repertoire.

Throughout the 1950s, Callas made numerous appearances at the world's great houses: La Scala, the Opera Garnier, the Metropolitan Opera, the Dallas Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, Mexico's Palacio de las Bellas Artes, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

In the early years of her career, Callas was a full-figured and statuesque woman. In an interview with Edward Downes, she admitted to having weighed "no more than 200 pounds," though several sources have mentioned 220 pounds. Despite her zaftig figure, there were many--including Meneghini--who considered her beautiful. During her initial performances in Cherubini's Medea in May 1953, Callas decided that she needed a leaner face and figure to do dramatic justice to this as well as the other roles she was undertaking. In the same interview, Callas added,

"I was getting so heavy that even my vocalizing was getting heavy. I was tiring myself, I was perspiring too much, and I was really working too hard. And I wasn't really well, as in health; I couldn't move freely. And then I was tired of playing a game, for instance playing this beautiful young woman, and I was heavy and uncomfortable to move around. In any case, it was uncomfortable and I didn't like it. So I felt now if I'm going to do things right--I've studied all my life to put things right musically, so why don't I diet and put myself into a certain condition where I'm presentable."

During 1953 and early 1954, she lost almost 80 pounds and transformed herself into the glamorous figure most remember. It is thought by some (see Vocal Decline, below) that the loss of body mass made it more difficult for her to support her voice, triggering the vocal strain which became apparent later in the decade.

Callas' 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 in a new production at La Scala in a new production of a Donizetti's Poliuto, a role chosen to accommodate her vocal capacities. Her final performances at La Scala were as Medea, in the legendary 1958 Dallas production.

Voice

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Callas as Violetta in La Traviata, 1958

Callas' voice was and remains controversial; it bothered and disturbed as many people as it thrilled and enthralled. Walter Legge stated that Callas possessed that most essential ingredient for a great singer: an instantly recognizable voice. Most people agree that hers was not a classically beautiful sound, and there were physiological "flaws" or idiosyncrasies in the voice which no amount of training could overcome. Parts of the voice were rather metallic in sound, especially in the passagio between the middle and the upper register. The high register could also become hard and strident at times, and later in her career, it could wobble uncontrollably. There were also notes such as the high C which lay oddly in her voice, though a C-sharp or D-natural didn't pose a problem in her prime. In compensation for the lack of evenness, Callas was able to change the timbre of the voice and her vocal color and weight at will and according to the role she was singing, essentially giving each character her own individual voice. In her prime, she could even vary the rate of her vibrato and the speed of her trills according to the musical and emotional needs of the music. Conductor Nicola Rescigno was once asked if it was true that Callas had three voices; he replied, "No, she has three hundred voices!"

There has been a great deal of debate about Callas' natural voice. Some have argued that, like Maria Malibran and Giuditta Pasta, she was a mezzo-soprano whose range was extended by training and will power. Others have argued that she was a natural soprano. In her early years in Italy, Callas' voice was a dramatic soprano of prodigious power and range. In performance, the range was just short of three octaves, from F-sharp below middle C heard in "Arrigo! Ah parli ad un core" from I Vespri Siciliani to E-natural above high C, heard in the same opera as well as Rossini's Armida and Lakme's Bell Song. After her June 11, 1951 concert in Florence, Rock Ferris of Musical Courier stated that "Her high E's and F's are taken full voice," although no definite recording of the high F's have surfaced. In a French TV interview, Callas' teacher de Hidalgo speaks of her voice soaring to a high E but does not mention the F. However, the presumed E-natural in her performance of Rossini's Armida--recorded in poor sound--is thought by some to be a high F.

Callas' voice was always noted by many experts--including Walter Legge-- for its three distinct registers. Her low or chest register could be extremely dark and almost baritone-like in power. She used this part of her voice for dramatic effect, often going into this register much higher than most sopranos. Her middle register had a peculiar and highly personal sound--part oboe, part clarinet, as Claudia Cassidy described it--and was noted for its veiled or "bottled" sound, as if she were singing into a jug. Some listeners were reminded of a traditional Greek aulos. Walter Legge attributed this sound to the "extraordinary formation of her upper palate, shaped like a Gothic arch, not the Romansque arch of the normal mouth." The upper register was very ample and bright, with an impressive extension above high C, which she sang with the same full sound as her lower registers (in contrast to the light flute-like sound of the typical coloratura soprano).

Callas' voice was also amazingly agile, especially considering its size and weight. This allowed her to sing the most fiendishly difficult ornate music with astonishing ease and technical polish. In the words of Walter Legge, even in the most difficult florid music, there were no musical or technical difficulties "which she could not execute with astonishing, unostentatious ease. Her chromatic runs, particularly downwards, were beautifully smooth and staccatos almost unfailingly accurate, even in the trickiest intervals. There is hardly a bar in the whole range of nineteenth century music for high soprano that seriously tested her powers." Callas' scale-work--especially descending scales--were remarkable in their beauty and perfection and were often described as "pearls falling off a string." She also had a beautiful and dependable trill in every register of the voice, which she used as an expressive tool rather than mere ornament.

This combination of size, weight, range and agility was a source of amazement to her own contemporaries. One of the choristers present at her La Scala debut in I Vespri Siciliani recalled, "My God! She came on stage sounding like our deepest contralto, Cloe Elmo. And before the evening was over, she took a high E-flat. And it was twice as strong as Toti Dal Monte's!" For Renata Tebaldi "the most fantastic thing was the possibility for her to sing the soprano coloratura with this BIG voice! This was something really special. Fantastic absolutely!"

Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini has described the unique magic of the Callas voice:

"It is very difficult to speak of the voice of Callas. Her voice was a very special instrument. Something happens sometimes with string instruments--violin, viola, cello--where the first moment you listen to the sound of this instrument, the first feeling is a bit strange sometimes. But after just a few minutes, when you get used to, when you becomes friends with this kind of sound, then the sound becomes a magical quality. This was Callas".

Artistry

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Callas as Bellini's Norma, 1956

Though adored by many opera enthusiasts, Callas was a controversial artist. Her supporters called her La Divina and raved about the expressive intensity she brought to her singing. However, her vocal instrument was perhaps not conventionally beautiful in the manner of Milanov, Tebaldi, Caballé, or Sutherland, a subjective element which causes many to underestimate the totality of her interpretative art.

Callas was nearly always praised for her musicality as well as her dramatic prowess. Though often described as a "singing actress," she was first and foremost a phenomenal musician, and her artistry was solidly rooted in this supreme musicianship. Maestro de Sabata once told Walter Legge, "If the public could understand, as we do, how deeply and utterly musical Callas is, they would be stunned." Callas possessed an innate architectural sense of line-proportion and an uncanny feel for timing and for the rhythm of the written music. In recitatives, Callas always knew which word to emphasize and which syllable in that word to bring out. Besides having the technical ability to perform the most difficult florid music, she had the ability to use each ornament as an expressive device rather than for mere fireworks.

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Callas as Medea on cover of live recording, Dallas, 1958

Callas' most distinguishing quality was her expressiveness and her ability to breathe life into the characters she portrayed. She made these roles come to life not as generic stereotypes, but as living, breathing individuals. She achieved this by purely musical means and within the stylistic framework set by the composer, never resorting to melodramatic extramusical excesses prevalent in verismo. She used her many voices to create a different voice for each role, and to make each sentiment pertinent to that particular role. Each character had her own joy, sorrow, hope, despair, love, and disappointment. Furthermore, Callas was able to portray—in no uncertain terms—unvarnished, burning hatred. This also added another revealing--albeit uncomfortable--truth to her portrayals, especially of Norma and Medea.

Although Callas was always praised for her acting ability, she was not a naturalistic or a verismo-style actress. The great verismo soprano Augusta Oltrabella explained, "Despite what everyone says, [Callas] was an actress in the expression of the music, and not vice versa." Her acting style and gestures were antique to the point of being novel and were always wed to the music. She was also blessed with a physique which was well-suited for the stage. At nearly 5' 9", she was quite tall, and she had facial features--eyes, nose, ears--which were somewhat exaggerated. These, especially the beautiful large eyes, allowed her face to speak clearly even to the last rows of the theater. She also had extremely beautiful, expressive hands. Concerning her acting style, in several interviews Callas stated that if a singer wishes to know how to act on stage, how to find a movement or gesture, all he or she has to do is to "listen" to the music with their soul and ears, as the composer has already put everything one needs to know in the music itself. She then added, "I say 'soul and ears', because the mind must work, but not too much. Videos of her performances in concert and opera, albeit few, show this quite clearly. Her acting is more a slow ballet, with every gesture, every movement, and every facial expression stemming from and timed to the music.

Above all else, Callas' genius lay in her ability to convince the listener that what he or she heard and saw was the only way those thoughts and feelings could ever be expressed: artifice became reality. Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini has spoken of Callas performances where he was convinced that what was on stage was reality and that his own world was artifice. Sir Rudolf Bing expressed similar sentiments,

"Once one heard and saw Maria Callas – one can’t really distinguish it – in a part, it was very hard to enjoy any other artist, no matter how great, afterwards. Because she imbued every part she sang and acted with such incredible personality and life. One move of her hand was more than another artist could do in a whole act".

To Maestro Antonino Votto, "She was not just a singer, but a complete artist. It's foolish to discuss her as a voice. She must be viewed totally--as a complex of music, drama, movement. There is no one like her today. She was an esthetic phenomenon".

Callas' art has perhaps been most eloquently described by the great Italian critic, Eugenio Gara:

"Her secret is in her ability to transfer to the musical plane the suffering of the character she plays, the nostalgic longing for lost happiness, the anxious fluctuation between hope and despair, between pride and supplication, between irony and generosity, which in the end dissolve into a superhuman inner pain. The most diverse and opposite of sentiments, cruel deceptions, ambitious desires, burning tenderness, grievous sacrifices, all the torments of the heart, acquire in her singing that mysterious truth, I would like to say, that psychological sonority, which is the primary attraction of opera.".

Callas—Tebaldi controversy

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Maria Callas in the title role of Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena, La Scala, Milan (1957)

During the early 50s, a great deal of controversy arose regarding a supposed rivalry between Callas and Renata Tebaldi. Tebaldi, an Italian lyrico spinto soprano, had a voice of incredible beauty and lushness. The contrast between Callas' often unconventional vocal qualities and Tebaldi's classically beautiful sound resurrected the age-old conflict between the beauty of a voice versus its expressive use. It should be noted that Tebaldi was a highly musical and expressive singer and committed artist.

This "rivalry" reached a fever pitch in the mid-50s, at times even engulfing the two ladies themselves, who were said by their more fanatical followers to have engaged in verbal barbs in each other's direction. Tebaldi was quoted as saying, "I have one thing that Callas doesn't have: a heart" while Callas was quoted as saying that comparing her with Tebaldi was like "comparing champagne with cognac", to which a bystander added, "No, with Coca Cola" - the latter comment being mistakenly attributed to Callas ever since.

In actuality, the two singers ought never to have been compared. Tebaldi was trained by Carmen Melis, a noted verismo specialist, and she was as rooted in the early Twentieth Century school of Italian singing just as firmly as Callas was rooted in Nineteenth Century bel canto. Callas lacked the gleaming, seamless beauty and steadiness of voice that Tebaldi possessed, and Tebaldi lacked Callas' range, agility and versatility. Moreover, Callas was a dramatic soprano, whereas, despite the power of her voice, Tebaldi considered herself essentially a lyric. Most of all, Callas and Tebaldi generally sang a different repertoire: in the early years of her career, Callas concentrated on the heavy dramatic soprano roles and later in her career on the bel canto repertoire; meanwhile, Tebaldi concentrated on late Verdi and verismo roles, in which she excelled and where her lack of a florid technique was not an issue. They shared a few roles, and both were celebrated as Tosca in Puccini's opera and as La Gioconda, which Tebaldi performed only late in her career. In interviews, Callas herself was quick to point out that Tebaldi could not sing many of the roles Callas did, and hence, they should never be considered as rivals.

Despite everything, the two women seem to have had a full appreciation of each other's greatness. Even at the height of this brouhaha, during a radio interview in Chicago, Callas said, "I admire Tebaldi's tone; it's beautiful--also some beautiful phrasing. Sometimes, I actually wish I had her voice." Francis Robinson of the Met wrote of an incident, which sheds light on Tebaldi's feelings about Callas, when Tebaldi asked him to recommend a recording of La Gioconda in order to help her learn the role. Being fully aware of the "rivalry", he recommended Zinka Milanov's version. A few days later, he went to visit Tebaldi, only to find her sitting by the speakers, listening intently to Callas' recording. She then looked up at him and asked, "Why didn't you tell me Maria's was the best?"

Callas visited Tebaldi after a performance of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Met in the late 1960's, and the two embraced and made up. In 1978, Tebaldi spoke warmly of her late colleague and summerized this rivalry in her lovably imperfect English:

"This rivality was really building from the people of the newspapers and the fans. But I think it was very good for both of us, because the publicity was so big and it created a very big interest about me and Maria and was very good in the end. But I don’t know why they put this kind of rivality, because the voice was very different. She was really something unusual. And I remember that I was very young artist too, and I stayed near the radio every time that I know that there was something on radio by Maria."

Vocal decline

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Maria Callas, 1923-1977, Photograph from 1958

There has been much discussion of Maria Callas' vocal decline and its cause. Some have said that the heavy roles undertaken in her early years damaged her voice. The great mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato, Callas' close friend and frequent colleague, has stated that she told Callas that she felt that the early heavy roles led to a weakness in the diaphragm and subsequent difficulty in controlling the upper register.

Louise Caselotti, who worked with Callas prior to her Italian debut, felt that it was not the heavy roles that hurt the voice, but the lighter ones. Some have suggested that the heavy use of the chest voice led to problems with the high notes. In his book, Callas' husband Meneghini has written about an unusually early onset of menopause, which could have affected her voice. Soprano Carol Neblett once said, "A woman sings with her ovaries--you're only as good as your hormones."

Others argue that the weight loss itself brought changes in Callas' body which made it progressively more difficult for her to support her heavy voice properly. There is no filmed footage of Callas during her heavy era, but photos from those years show a very upright postures with the shoulders relaxed and held back. All videos of Callas are from the period after the weight loss, and they show a progressively forward placement of the shoulders and a forward-slumping posture, which by the early 1960s had become very noticeable. Some (see below) have cited this as visual proof of a progressive loss of breath support.

Commercial and pirated recordings of Callas from the late 1940s to 1953--the period during which she sang the heaviest dramatic soprano roles--show no decline in the fabric of the voice, no loss in volume and no unsteadiness or shrinkage in the upper register. To the contrary, there is an improvement in the beauty and steadiness of the voice during this time.

Recordings made in 1954—immediately after her 80-pound weight loss—and later, demonstrate a voice which was suddenly lighter and thinner in timbre, smaller in volume and with an increasing tendency towards stridency in the upper notes. The highest notes in the voice also did not have the same ease and freedom of 1953 or before. It is also at this time that unsteady top notes first begin to appear. These changes gradually worsened during the 1950s, but the slimming of her voice did not affect her scenic portrayals or, at least not until about 1960, degrade the overall quality of her singing.

At her performance of Norma in London in 1957 (her first performance at Covent Garden after the weight loss), critics would even claim her voice had changed for the better, that it had now supposedly become a more precise instrument, with a new focus. It is probably the years 1955 to 1958 that are remembered by many as her greatest. Many of her most outstanding live-recordings (that is, critically acclaimed appearances) are from the period 1954–1957 (Anna Bolena of 1957, Norma, La Traviata, Sonnambula and Lucia of 1955 to name a few). Even as late as 1959, she could still deliver vocally astounding performances.

Callas' close friend and colleague Tito Gobbi thought that her vocal problems all stemmed from her state of mind: "I don’t think anything happened to her voice. I think she only lost confidence. She was at the top of a career that a human being could desire, and she felt enormous responsibility. She was obliged to give her best every night, and maybe she felt she wasn’t [able] any more, and she lost confidence. I think this was the beginning of the end of this career." In support of Gobbi's assertion, a pirated recording of Callas rehearsing Beethoven's aria "Ah! Perfido" and parts of Verdi's La Traviata shortly before her death shows her voice to be in much better shape than much of her 1960s recordings and far healthier than the 1970s concerts with Giuseppe di Stefano.

Phyllis Curtin stated that videos of Callas in the late 1950s and early 1960s reveal a posture that betrays breath-support problems. Soprano Renee Fleming stated a similar opinion:

"I have a theory about what caused her vocal decline, but it’s more from watching her sing than from listening. I really think it was her weight loss that was so dramatic and so quick. It’s not the weight loss per se ... But if one uses the weight for support, and then it’s suddenly gone and one doesn’t develop another musculature for support, it can be very hard on the voice. And you can’t estimate the toll that emotional turmoil will take as well. I was told, by somebody who knew her well, that the way Callas held her arms to her solar plexus [allowed her] to push and create some kind of support. If she were a soubrette, it would never have been an issue. But she was singing the most difficult repertoire, the stuff that requires the most stamina, the most strength":

Dramatic soprano Deborah Voigt, who lost over 100 pounds after gastric bypass surgery, expressed similar thoughts concerning her own voice and body:

"Much of what I did with my weight was very natural, vocally. Now I’ve got a different body — there’s not as much of me around. My diaphragm function, the way my throat feels, is not compromised in any way. But I do have to think about it more now. I have to remind myself to keep my ribs open. I have to remind myself, if my breath starts to stack. When I took a breath before, the weight would kick in and give it that extra Whhoomf! Now it doesn’t do that. If I don’t remember to get rid of the old air and re-engage the muscles, the breath starts stacking, and that’s when you can’t get your phrase, you crack high notes.".

In an interview with Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, Bonynge stated:

"But before she slimmed down, I mean this was such a colossal voice. It just poured out of her, the way Flagstad's did ... Callas had a huge voice. When she and Stignani sang Norma, at the bottom of the range you could barely tell who was who ... Oh it was colossal. And she took the big sound right up to the top." .

Whether Callas' vocal decline was due to ill health, early menopause, over-use and abuse of her voice, or weight loss will continue to be debated. Whatever the cause may have been, her singing career was effectively over by age 40, at an age when she should have been in her vocal prime.

Scandals and Later career

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Callas and Franco Zeffirelli in the historic production of Tosca at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1964

The latter half of Callas' career was marked by a number of scandals. During performances of Madama Butterfly in Chicago, Callas was confronted by a process server who handed her papers about a lawsuit brought by Eddy Bagarozi who claimed he was her agent. Understandably angry, Callas was photographed with her mouth turned in a furious snarl. The photo was sent around the world and gave rise to the myth of Callas as a temperamental prima donna and a "Tigress." Then in 1956, just before her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, Time Magazine ran a damaging cover story about Callas, with special attention paid to her difficult relationship with her mother and some unpleasant exchanges between the two.

In 1957, Callas was starring as Amina in La Sonnambula at the Edinburgh International Festival with the forces of La Scala. Her contract was for four performances, but due to the great success of the series, La Scala decided to put on a fifth performance. Callas told the La Scala officials that she was physically exhausted and that she had already committed to a previous engagement, a party thrown for her by her friend Elsa Maxwell in Venice. Despite this, La Scala announced a fifth performance, with Callas billed as Amina. Callas refused to stay and went on to Venice. Despite the fact that she had fulfilled her contract, she was accused of walking out on La Scala and the festival. The Scala officials did not defend Callas or inform the press that the additional performance was not approved by Callas. Renata Scotto took over the part, which was the start of her international career.

In January of 1958, Callas was to open the Rome Opera House season with Norma, with Italy's president in attendance. Several days before the opening night, Callas alerted the management that she was not well and that they should have a standby ready. She was told "No one can double Callas." Foolishly, she decided to go ahead with the performance, but as pirated recordings attest, she sounded ill and could barely get through the first act. Knowing she could not complete the performance, she cancelled after the first act. She was accused of walking out on the president of Italy in a fit of temperament, and pandemonium broke out. In its typical fashion of dealing with Callas, the press coverage aggravated the situation, with news-reels showing footage of Callas from 1955 sounding well and passing it off as rehearsals for the Rome Norma, saying, "If you want to hear Callas, don't get all dressed up. Just go to a rehearsal; she usually stays to the end of those." This was the biggest scandal of her career and became notorious as the "Rome Walkout". This time, Callas brought a lawsuit against the Rome Opera House, and many years later, the Rome Opera was found to be at fault and Callas was cleared of all wrongdoing, but sadly this was after her career was over.

Callas' relationship with La Scala had also started to become strained after the Edinburgh incident, and this effectively severed her major ties with her artistic home. Later in 1958, Callas and Rudolf Bing were in discussion about her season at the Met. She was scheduled to perform in Verdi's La Traviata and in Macbeth, two very different operas which almost require totally different singers. Callas and the Met could not reach an agreement, and before the opening of Medea in Dallas, Bing sent a telegram to Callas terminating her contract. Headlines of "Bing Fires Callas" were flashed around the world. Despite this, Callas proceeded to give two performances of Medea which have passed into the annals of legendary performances. Bing would later say that Callas was the most difficult artist he ever worked with, "because she was so much more intelligent. Other artists, you could get around. But Callas you could not get around. She knew exactly what she wanted, and why she wanted it." Despite this, Bing's admiration for Callas never wavered, and in September of 1959, he sneaked into La Scala in order to listen to Callas record La Gioconda for EMI. Callas and Bing patched up their differences in the mid 1960s, and Callas returned to the Met for two performances of Tosca with her friend Tito Gobbi.

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Callas leaving an Olympic Airways aircraft in Athens

In her final years as a singer, there were performances of Medea, Norma, and Tosca, most notably her Paris, New York, and London Toscas of January–February 1964 (where, at one of the performances, she reportedly received 27 curtain calls taking over 40 minutes) 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 9 February of that year, giving a rare view of Callas in performance and, specifically, of her on-stage collaboration with Tito Gobbi.

In 1969, the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini cast Callas in her only non-operatic acting role, as the Greek mythological character of Medea, in his film by that name. The production was grueling 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 but remains of great 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' performance in the film reveals an economy of gesture and movement that sets her apart from other operatic divas. It is also a fascinating photographic record of her great, unusual and utterly unique physical beauty.

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 Metropolitan Opera board of directors, is said to have offered her the job of Artistic Director. She allegedly turned this down to stage a series of joint recitals in Europe in 1973 and in the US, South Korea and Japan in 1974 with the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano. This was a musical disaster owing to both performers' worn-out voices. However, the tour was an enormous popular success. Audiences thronged to hear these performers who had so often appeared together in their prime. Her final public performance was on 11th November' 1974, in Sapporo, Japan.

Final years

Callas was romantically involved for some years with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis and their affair received much publicity in the popular press. She was introduced to him in 1957, after a performance in Donizetti's Anna Bolena, at a party given in her honour by Elsa Maxwell. In November 1959 she left her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, for Onassis. According to one of her biographers, Callas and Onassis had a child, a boy, who died hours after he was born on 30th March 1960, as explained by Nicholas Gage in his biography of Callas . But Meneghini in his anguished book about his wife states categorically that Maria Callas was unable to bear children As well, various sources dismiss Gage's claim, as they note that the birth certificates Gage used to prove of this 'secret child' were issued in 1998, twenty-one years after Callas's death . The relationship ended nine years later, when Onassis dropped Callas in favour of Jacqueline Kennedy.

Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris and died on September 16, 1977, of a heart attack, at the age of 53. A funerary liturgy was held at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Rue Georges-Bizet, Paris, on 20th September 1977, and her ashes were interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered over the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece, according to her wish.

As they saw her

Many singers, conductors, and critics have also spoken or written about Callas' artistry:

Maestro Leonard Bernstein:

"Callas? She was pure electricity."

Maestro Antonino Votto :

"[She was] the last great artist. When you think this woman was nearly blind, and often sang standing a good 150 feet from the podium. But her sensitivity! Even if she could not see, she sensed the music and always came in exactly with my downbeat. When we rehearsed, she was so precise, already note-perfect. . . For over thirty years, I was Arturo Toscanini's assistant, and from the very first rehearsal, he demanded every nuance from the orchestra, just as if it were a full performance. The piano, the forte, the staccato, the legato--all from the start. And Callas did this too. . . She was not just a singer, but a complete artist. It's foolish to discuss her as a voice. She must be viewed totally--as a complex of music, drama, movement. There is no one like her today. She was an esthetic phenomenon."

Luchino Visconti commenting on his historic productions at La Scala:

"I did it to serve Callas, for one must serve a Callas."

Franco Zeffirelli:

"The magic of a Callas is a quality few artists have, something special, something different. There are many very good artist, but very few who have that sixth sense, the additional, the plus quality. It is something which lifts them from the ground: they become like semi-gods. She had it. Nureyev has it, [Laurence] Olivier. But Olivier is also a case of an extremely rich knowledge of everything. He is completely coherent in his life, onstage. Whatever he does is part of a complete personality. Maria is a common girl behind the wings, but when she goes onstage, or even when she talks about her work or begins to hum a tune, she immediately assumes this additional quality. For me, Maria is always a miracle. you cannot understand or explain her. You can explain everything Olivier does because it is all part of a professional genius. But Maria can switch from nothing to everything, from earth to heaven. What is it this woman has? I don't know, but when that miracle happens, she is a new soul, a new entity."

Teodoro Celli (Italian music critic):

"Perhaps, listening to all there is of sadness and terrible nostalgia, of aggression and desperation in Callas' voice, we should be able to conclude not only that it is admirably apt for realizing drama in music, but also that it contains a drama within itself, that it is an indication of an unquiet, troubled spiritual state expressing and purifying itself in sounds."

Francesco Siciliani (head of Teatro Comunale and later Artistic Director of La Scala and music director for Radio Italiana):

"In October of 1948, just after I moved to Florence to head the Teatro Comunale, Serafin called me from Rome. 'Come at once,' he begged. 'You must hear this girl. She is discouraged and has bought a ticket to return to America. Help me convince her to stay.' So, at his home, I met Maria Callas. She was tall and heavy, but had an interesting face, real presence, expression, intelligence.

"With Serafin at the piano, she did her usual repertory for me--Gioconda, Turandot, Aida, Tristan. Parts of the voice were beautiful, other empty, and she used strange portamenti. During a pause, she said she had studied with Elvira de Hidalgo, which struck me as curious, for de Hidalgo had been a coloratura. 'I know coloratura pieces too,' Callas explained, 'but I'm a dramatic soprano. ' 'Well,' I asked, 'can we hear something of a different nature?' So she sang the aria from I Puritani, with the cabaletta. I was overwhelmed, and tears streamed down Serafin's cheeks. This was the kind of singer one read about in books from the nineteenth century--a real dramatic coloratura."

Ethan Mordden:

"[She is] an outstanding historical figure, ranking with Malibran, Viardot, Toscanini, and Mahler. She is somewhat like Viardot, Chorley's 'tones of an engaging tenderness' mingled with those 'of a less winning quality.' It was a flawed voice. But then Callas sought to capture in her singing not just beauty but a whole humanity, and within her system, the flaws feed the feeling, the sour plangency and the strident defiance becoming aspect of the canto. They were literally defects of her voice; she bent them into advantages of her singing. [Her voice] is what she had. What she made was a musical information of what was happening to her characters, a searching virtuosity. Suffering, delight, humility, hubris, despair, rhapsody--all this was musically appointed, through her use of the voice flying the text upon the notes.

"Yes, the woman could act. At the very moment she entered, you saw in full Aida, Anna Bolena, Gioconda, felt their eyes on you even before they uttered a sound. . . The gestures--so authentically antique, yet strangely devised entirely on her own--were completely equalized into her stylistics, with one set for the Greeks and Romans, another for post-Renaissance royalty, a third for more contemporary characters. Yet, all this was subsidiary to the heavy Kunst of developing the psychology of the roles under the supervision of the music, of singing the acting. . .

"She sang as if she had the most beautiful voice in the world--and sang so beautifully that she might as well have had such a voice. Thus she moved opera back a century to the age of Viardot, the acting singer.".

Montserrat Caballe:

"She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only great music but great idea of interpretation. She has given us the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly possible before her. That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream. It is not right. I am much smaller than Callas."

Giuseppe Di Stefano:

"[My favorite colleague was] Callas, way above the rest. Tebaldi had a fantastic voice, like an angel's. But even when Callas' voice wasn't perfect, she had so much interpretation. Opera is storytelling. Feelings must be conveyed. Acting must be moving. And Callas had it all."

Maestro Walter Taussig (long time coach at the Met) on working with Callas:

"[It was] like nothing else. Compared to nothing. I would say singers are reproductive artists, but she was a creative artist. She was in the role so much, it was fabulous, fabulous. She was very modest, very easy. But I think she saw red when she saw a journalist. But I could discuss a breath or anything with her. She didn't really have an ego when it came to the work. Her curse was that she was so musical, so intelligent, that she could take on roles that her voice couldn't handle. But what she did was always wonderful. There's a good example of what I mean. Callas -- artist. [Renata] Tebaldi -- wonderful singer."

Ira Siff:

"When I saw the final two Toscas she did in the old [Met}, I felt like I was watching the actual story on which the opera had later been based."

Maestro Nicola Rescigno

"I think the secret of Maria Callas was her willpower. Maria Callas was born with all sorts of disadvantages. Her voice was not of the most beautiful quality, and still, she made this instrument the most expressive, the most telling, the most true to the music that she interpreted. Maria was not born a beautiful woman. Maria was fat, obese, ungraceful—when you realize the type of body she was born with, like that of a pachyderm--but she turned herself into possibly the most beautiful lady on the stage."

The October 2005 issue of Opera News featured James C. Whitson's article, "The Callas Legacy", in which he questioned several leading singers about Callas' lasting impact. The following singers shared their thoughts:.

Carlo Bergonzi:

"Callas studied the text, the meaning of the words, and as a result, she became a diva. She became the Great Callas. Because she studied the character, she entered the mind of the character, and she brought the character to life onstage. Today, young singers don’t have this mindset. They don’t have the kind of technique that Callas had. . . .Price, Milanov and Tebaldi had stupendous voices and great careers. [But] Callas, as a performer, as someone who expressed the real meaning of the words, was the best. The best. There is no doubt about this — not only for her sound, but because she studied so much. Callas is the diva. She is important to young singers, because she was a serious singer onstage, and she left a great legacy. I don’t know, though, if they can listen and learn from what she left on her recordings."

Aprile Millo:

"Listening to Callas is like reading Shakespeare: you’re always going to be knocked senseless by some incredible insight into humanity. She is a huge bonfire! The thread, the “inner serpent” that she would get in certain music was so complete — for example, in the Lucia recording, the phrase “Alfin, son tua.” Lucia, at her absolute happiest moment, would have said to Edgardo, “I am finally yours.” For me, the woman Lucia came to life in that moment, and I understood why she was out of her mind, you know? You’ve got it all in that one phrase."

Martina Arroyo:

"I adored this lady, and I respected her work ethic. She always wanted to improve her understanding of a piece. “Casta Diva,” [for instance] — what interested me most was how she gave the runs and the cadenzas words. That always floored me. I always felt I heard her saying something — it was never just singing notes. That alone is an art. It’s an art that you can try to achieve, but you can’t copy, because that’s just imitating without delving into [how she felt] about that particular fioritura. . . .how many other artists since Callas have you heard and thought, 'She sang gorgeously, but I never cried?'"

Catherine Malfitano:

"In all her recordings, one witnesses this incredible technique at work, whether it is Puritani, Sonnambula, Lucia, Norma or Abduction, [or] turning around to sing Gioconda and Kundry. This ability to devour all of vocal music history, and take it into herself and spew out such excellent examples of all these different styles — you just think, “How is a voice able to encompass all of this?” Well, it’s not the voice, it’s the woman behind the voice.

"No coloratura or fioritura was ever done for its own sake — it was always at the service of some expressive challenge. Her runs always gave the impression of being done so effortlessly. I liken it to the greatest ballerinas — they never made you aware of how painful it is to be en pointe. Callas transcended and transformed pain and difficulty into sheer weightlessness and ease and joy. It’s absolute perfection in itself, and then on top of that she overlays expression — that’s the thing I adored about this singer. She must have spent hours, days, weeks, years on this art, you know? The one I’m floored by is the Entführung that she did. [“Martern aller Arten”] is just beyond belief. I don’t think anyone has sung it better. . .

"There was some wonderful demonic thing that worked inside of her to fuse the elements of technique and expression and transcend the [roles she assayed.] . . . She’s an inspiration to everyone that follows her, but she’s also a kind of cautionary tale for artists, so they understand that you risk a great deal when you’re that hungry."

Jon Vickers:

"To work with her, you had to really understand how she saw your role, not how you saw it. She had a very clear-cut understanding of her role, and you had to fit into that interpretation. She was so great, [yet] she could not distance herself from a role. It was actually quite terrifying — she would at times actually cry while singing! You must only portray the emotions, not become personally involved. But Maria always became the role. She was such a servant of the text and the composer, she would tear her voice to ribbons to accomplish it!"

Evelyn Lear:

"The Chicago Lucia [1954], which I witnessed, absolutely blew everybody’s mind, because she stopped the show in the middle of the mad scene. She bowed, [while] the audience went wild, and kept that pose for fourteen minutes. Callas was our lesson, in those days, for how one performed. She had such complete… we say in German “souveränität” — being above everything. She had this aura of magic. People were always mystified by what she did.

"Tebaldi had a much more beautiful voice and didn’t have that hollow, breathy sound, which at times was just plain ugly. [But] Callas was unusual because despite the sound of her voice, the force of her personality just magnetized people. It was so present, it came across the footlights at you, that ferocity of hers. It was just all-encompassing. Callas brought the personality, the drama, the magic, the surreal quality to the bel canto roles that Sutherland never did."

Some bizarre post-mortems

In late 2004, opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli made what many consider a bizarre claim that Callas may have been murdered by her confidant--Greek pianist Vasso Devetzi--in order to gain control of Callas' US $9,000,000 estate. A more likely explanation is that Callas' death was due to heart failure brought on by [unintended?] overuse of Mandrax (methaqualone), 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 Iakintha (Jackie) Callas in her book Sisters, where she asserts that Devetzi conned Maria out of control of half of her estate, while promising to establish the Maria Callas Foundation to provide scholarships for young singers. After hundreds of thousands of dollars had allegedly vanished, Devetzi finally did establish the foundation.

In 2004, Zeffirelli produced and directed a film in Callas' memory. Callas Forever was a highly fictionalised motion picture in which Callas was played by Fanny Ardant. It depicted the last months of Callas' life, when she was seduced into the making of a movie of Carmen, lip-synching to her 1964 recording of that opera.

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.

• Verdi, Nabucco, conducted by Vittorio Gui, live performance, Napoli, 1949
• Verdi, Il trovatore, conducted by Guido Picco, live performance, Mexico City, June 20 1950
• Verdi, Aida, conducted by Oliviero de Fabritiis, live performance, Mexico City, July 3 1951
• Bellini, Norma, conducted by Vittorio Gui, live performance, Covent Garden, London, November 18 1952
• Verdi, Macbeth, conducted by Victor de Sabata, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7 1952
• Bellini, I puritani, conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, March-April 1953
• Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana, conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, August 1953
• Puccini, Tosca, conducted by Victor de Sabata, studio recording for EMI, August 1953. Many, critics and listeners, find this the greatest recording of Tosca ever.
• Cherubini, Medea, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 10 1953
• Leoncavallo, Pagliacci, conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, June 1954
• Spontini, La vestale, conducted by Antonino Votto, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7, 1954
• Verdi, La traviata, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, live performance, La Scala, Milan, May 28 1955
• Verdi, Rigoletto, conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, September 1955
• Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, live performance, Berlin, September 29 1955
• Bellini, Norma, conducted by Antonino Votto, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7 1955
• Verdi, Il trovatore, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, studio recording for EMI, August 1956
• Puccini, La Boheme, conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI, August-September 1956. Like her later recording of Carmen, this was her only performance of the complete opera, as she never appeared onstage in it.
• Verdi, Un ballo in maschera, conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI, September 1956
• Rossini, Barber of Seville, conducted by Alceo Galliera, studio recording for EMI in stereo, February 1957
• Bellini, La sonnambula, conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI, March 1957
• Donizetti, Anna Bolena, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, live performance, La Scala, Milan, April 14 1957
• Bellini, La sonnambula, conducted by Antonino Votto, live performance, Cologne, July 4 1957
• Verdi, Un ballo in maschera, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7 1957
• Verdi, La traviata, conducted by Franco Ghione, live performance, Lisbon, March 27 1958
• Mad Scenes (excerpts from Anna Bolena, Bellini's Il pirata and Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet), conducted by Nicola Rescigno, studio recording for EMI in stereo, September 1958
• Ponchielli, La Gioconda, conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI in stereo, September 1959
• Puccini, Tosca, conducted by Carlo Felice Cillario, live performance, London, January 1964
• Bizet, Carmen, conducted by Georges Prêtre, studio recording for EMI in stereo, 1964. It is her only performance of the role, and her only performance of the complete opera; she never appeared in it onstage. The recording used the recitatives added after Bizet's death. Callas' performance caused critic Harold C. Schonberg to speculate in his book "The Glorious Ones" that Callas perhaps should have sung mezzo roles instead of simply soprano ones.
• Puccini, Tosca, conducted by Georges Prêtre, studio recording for EMI in stereo, December 1964. Although this is a brilliant recording, especially in dramatic sense, it is surely overshadowed by Callas's earlier, 1953 version.

Famous quotes

• On hearing a recording of Tebaldi's: "What a lovely voice, but who cares?"
• "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?"
• "If we do 10 Macbeths, we have 10 tenors, 10 baritones. No, I'm sorry, I can't do that, that is not art!." (In Regards to Mr. Bing's uncreative choices at the Met after he sent her the ultimatum telegram.)
• "When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I'm slipping."

Bibliography

• Ardoin, John, The Callas Legacy, Scribner and Son's, Old Tappan, New Jersey, U.S.A., 1991, ISBN 068419306X
• Ardoin, John and Fitzgerald, Gerald, Callas: The Art and the Life, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974, ISBN 0030114861
• Edwards, Anne, Maria Callas, An Intimate Biography, New Yor: St. Martin's Press, 2001, ISBN 0312269862
• Gage, Nicholas, Greek Fire: The Story Of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis ISBN 0-446-61076-3
• Galatopoulos, Stelios, Maria Callas, Sacred Monster, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998, ISBN 0684859858
• Lowe, David A. (ed.), Callas: As They Saw Her, New York: Ungar Publishing Company, 1986, ISBN 0804456364
• Meneghini, Giovanni Battista, My Wife Maria Callas, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1982, ISBN 0-374-21752-1
• Seletsky, Robert E., "The Performance Practice of Maria Callas: Interpretation and Instinct," The Opera Quarterly, Vol. 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2004), p. 587-602.
• Seletsky, Robert E.,"Callas at EMI: Remastering and Perception,", The Opera Quarterly, Vol. 16, no. 2 (Spring 2000), p. 240-255.
• Seletsky, Robert E., "A Callas Recording Update," The Opera Quarterly, Vol. 21, nos. 2 (Spring 2005), p. 387-391.
• Seltsky, Robert E., "A Callas Recording Update...updated," The Opera Quarterly, Vol. 21, no. 3 (Summer 2005), p. 545-546 (also available on www.Divinarecords.com)
• Stancioff, Nadia, Maria Callas Remembered: An Intimate Portrait of the Private Callas, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1987, ISBN 0525245650
• Stassinopoulos, Arianna, Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981, ISBN 0671255835

External links

• Divina, the official website
• Divina Records, Dedicated to providing the best and most accurate live recordings of Callas, as well as scholarly articles regarding Callas recordings
• Maria Callas on the Serendipity website
• Callas Forever at IMDb
• OperaCast blog discussion of Callas's recordings
• Recommended recordings for Callas newcomers
• Callas in Pasolini's film of Medea
• Narrative biography (in Greek)
• Maria Callas' gravesite in Paris
• Zeffirelli: "Callas Was Murdered" article reference