Maria Callas
“Sediziose voci, voci di guerra avvi che alzar si attenta presso all’ara del Dio?” (Are there those who dare to raise seditious voices, warlike voices, before the altar of God?) These words may not communicate much when written on a page, but when Maria Callas sang them audiences around the world understood the meaning of an opera diva. “La Divina” had a relatively brief career from 1948 to 1965, when she sang her signature role in Bellini’s Norma for the 92nd and last time. Born in New York in 1923 as Maria Anne Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulos, her father later shortened their last name to Callas. Her mother moved Maria to her parents' homeland of Greece to further her music studies when Callas was fourteen. Callas then stopped going to a regular school to concentrate solely on her singing. In 1947 at the Verona Festival, the conductor Tullio Serafin heard her sing in La Gioconda. From that moment through most of her career he would be her coach and conductor. The same year, Callas met Giovanni Battista Meneghini, a successful business man. The two married in 1949. He left his business to manage her career. 1949 was also the year of Callas’ breakthrough on the international opera scene. Because of another singer’s illness, Callas began to alternate in the same week between Brünnhilde in Die Walküre and the role she had prepared, Elvira in Bellini’s I Puritani. She debuted at La Scala in 1950, Covent Garden in 1952, and New York’s Met in 1956. As her fame grew, so did her personal demands, becoming a larger than life figure onstage and off. After separating from her husband in 1959, Callas was associated with a number of men, including Aristotle Onassis. Her voice began to decline as did her relationships with some of the opera houses, including the Met which fired her in 1958. The inspiration for Terence McNally’s Broadway play, Master Class, Callas’ performances were remarkable not only for her wide vocal range, but for a visceral acting style she brought to the roles. In addition to the recordings, many of which are collected as much as they are debated, Callas’ acting can still be seen in Pasolini’s 1970 film, Medea. Callas died in 1977 in Paris and was cremated before an autopsy could be performed. In a twist of fate, or perhaps of operatic drama, just as a birth certificate has never been found for her, neither has a death certificate.
