Today, Callas is adored by opera fans across the globe.
This seems like a pretty uncontroversial statement; but, when it comes to the bright star that was Maria Callas, nothing is uncontroversial or straightforward.
As much as she received critical acclaim, she had passionate detractors; and as much as she had devoted fans, there were those who severely harassed her on stage.
This divided opinion extended from her professional career into her personal life.
A troubled early home life
Her relationship with her mother was never a happy one. As the story goes, her mother (Litsa) didn’t even want to see Maria for four days after she was born.
The reason simply being that she was hoping for a boy.
It didn’t stop there.
According to Callas, her mother exploited her gifts for money from a very early age, and during the lean Second World War years, she forced Callas to go on dates with Italian and German soldiers in the effort to bring in some money.
A friend has said that Callas did not offer favours to the soldiers.
The weight loss
Her mother’s preferential treatment of Callas’s beautiful, charming and slender sister didn’t help either.
This would certainly have contributed to the soprano’s dramatic loss of weight in 1953-54. She went from being a full bodied and heavy woman to a slender, almost too thin and “glamorous” celebrity.
There is speculation that the sudden weight loss was responsible for the premature deterioration of her soprano voice in the early 1960s.
Despite Callas claiming that she had many reasons for the rapid weight loss, the tragic implication remains quite clear: insecurities instilled by her mother at an early age had tremendously negative effects on the singer in later life.
Callas’s private life – a very public affair
Callas was also seen as a tempestuous diva, full of demands and drama. A TIME cover story in 1956, released shortly before her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, tainted her reputation.
Besides her notoriety for being difficult to deal with, the story presented her in an unflattering light with regards to her relationship with Litsa, and painted a portrait of a vicious rivallery with her adored contemporary, Renata Tebaldi.
On the opening night of the opera Norma, she met with an extremely hostile audience (well, one half of the audience). Some went as far as throwing vegetables.
Truly abhorrent behaviour.
A sensationalist press, in the early 1960s, were quick to seize on her alleged (at that stage) affair with the Greek shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis.
This was before he married Jackie Kennedy. To add yet another layer to the spectacle, Onassis was reported to have continued seeing Callas after he married the ex-first lady.
Despite the negative publicity from an ever eager press, her fans, both then and now, see her as a complex figure. Many would say that her passionate, imprudent nature is precisely what made her great.
Her God-given voice
Maria Callas sings L’amour est un oiseau rebelle (“Love is a rebellious bird”) from Bizet’s Carmen
Callas’s fabled voice was, perhaps, above all else, extraordinary for its ability to move between very different roles without even the slightest hint of difficulty.
Her repertoire ranged from the heaviest dramatic soprano to the lightest, highest and most agile of coloraturas.
Her teacher at the Athens Conservatoire, the famed Elvira de Hidalgo, said that her voice was, “tempestuous, extravagant… full of drama and emotion”. She also noted that Callas could do it all: soprano, mezzo, tenor.
Conductors, tutors and numerous colleagues have said much about her sheer musicality. She was renowned for her ability to “act” an operatic role with nothing but her voice if needed.
Impossible is nothing
Maria Callas sings Un bel dì vedremo (“One fine day we shall see”) from Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly
One of the famed stories about Callas’s expansive vocal range relates to her singing the role of both Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Die Walküre (requiring a dark, heavy and full timbre) and Elvira in I puritani (an instance of the light and supple style of bel canto) within just a few days of one another.
When she was chosen to sing I puritani, critics derided the idea, saying it would be a train smash. They were quickly proven wrong.
As an artist, her voice remains unique, instantly recognisable and is, without fail, deeply expressive .
The Callas legacy
Musicologists point to her contribution to the 1950s revival of the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini as the high point of her career.
Maria Callas was, however, so much more than a voice that enthralled opera lovers around the world. She was a flawed, flesh and blood human being, whose imperfections could well have been the source of her triumphs.
