All her life, Maria Callas tried to earn someone's love. First - her mother, who was indifferent to her from birth. Then - an influential husband who idolized the artist Callas, but not the woman. And this chain was closed by Aristotle Onassis , who betrayed the singer for the sake of his own selfish interests. She died at 53 in an empty apartment, never truly happy. For the anniversary of the opera diva, AiF.ru talks about the main events and people in the life of Maria Callas.
Unloved daughter
No one was happy about Mary’s birth. The parents dreamed of a son and were sure that for all nine months of the Gospel, Dimitriad was carrying a boy. But on December 2, 1923, an unpleasant surprise awaited them. For the first four days, the mother even refused to look at the newborn. It is not surprising that the girl grew up unloved and terribly complex. All the attention and care went to her older sister, against whom the future star looked like a gray mouse. When people saw the plump and shy Maria next to the spectacular Jackie, they could hardly believe in their relationship.
Queen of Italian divas. The life of Maria Callas in photographs
Maria Callas (born Sofia Cecelia Carlos) was born into a family of Greek immigrants in New York. As a child, her mother took her to the New York Public Library, where Maria acquired a taste for classical music and took piano lessons from the age of five. © Maria Callas with her sister and mother in Greece, 1937. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Having made his debut at the age of 18 on the stage of the Athens Opera, Callas and his family moved again to New York. Here the singer faced several disappointments, but in 1947, under the baton of Tullio Serafina, she performed at the Arena di Verona in the opera La Gioconda. © Tullio Serafin, 1941. Photo by Global Look Press
Serafin introduced Callas to the world of grand opera. From that moment on, she sang parts in Verdi's Aida and Bellini's Norma, and at the beginning of 1949 she sang the parts of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Die Walküre and Elvira in Bellini's Puritans. Maria Callas was gaining more and more authority. © Maria Callas at the La Scala theater during a performance of Verdi’s opera “Sicilian Vespers”, 1951. Photo from Wikimedia.org
In 1953, EMI released complete recordings of operas featuring Maria Callas. A year later, she appeared on stage in an updated image, having lost 30 kilograms. Audiences and critics in Europe and America enthusiastically received her performances in operas. © Maria Callas during Vincenzo Bellini's opera La Sonnambula, 1957. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Maria Callas has become a star of the first magnitude, but at the same time, discord begins in her personal life. In 1957, in Venice, Callas met the Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis, with whom she began to regularly appear in public. © American Marshal Stanley Pringle and Maria Callas, 1956
By 1959, Maria Callas's career began to collapse. She loses her voice, breaks off relations with the Metropolitan Opera, and due to regular scandalous publications in the media, she is forced to leave La Scala. In addition, the singer became depressed. © Maria Callas as Violetta before the opera La Traviata at the Royal Theater Covent Garden, 1958. Photo from Wikimedia.org
In 1964, Callas made an attempt to return to the big stage, but it turned out to be a failure. Five years later, the famous Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini invited Maria to star in the role of Medea in the film of the same name. © Still from the film “Medea”, 1969
In the early seventies, Maria Callas again tried to regain her big name in the world of opera and gave several concerts in Europe, but these performances were not awarded much success or public attention. © Maria Callas performing in Amsterdam, 1973. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Around this period, doctors diagnosed the singer with dermatomyositis, which also explained the sharp deterioration of Callas's voice - in a short time her range changed from soprano to mezzo-soprano. In many ways, it was the illness that prevented Maria from achieving success later. © Maria Callas, December 1973. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Maria Callas died on September 16, 1977 at the age of 53. The cause of death was cardiac arrest caused by complications of dermatomyositis. However, there are other versions of the singer’s death - according to some reports, Callas could have been poisoned. © Memorial plate in honor of Maria Callas at the Père Lachaise cemetery. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Youth
Maria Anna Sophie Cecilia Kalogeropoulos
was born on
December 2, 1923
in New York, in a family of emigrants who had only recently moved from Greece,
George Kalogeropoulos
and
Evangelina Dimitriadis
.
In addition to Maria, the couple had two more children - the eldest daughter Jackie
and son
Vasily
, who died of typhus shortly before the birth of the future diva.
When the girl was 6, her father changed his last name to Callas
.
Since 1932, Maria, following Jackie, began learning to play the piano and already in 1934 she took 2nd place in a radio singing competition. And big changes awaited the family ahead.
Queen of Italian divas. The life of Maria Callas in photographs
Maria Callas (born Sofia Cecelia Carlos) was born into a family of Greek immigrants in New York. As a child, her mother took her to the New York Public Library, where Maria acquired a taste for classical music and took piano lessons from the age of five. © Maria Callas with her sister and mother in Greece, 1937. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Having made his debut at the age of 18 on the stage of the Athens Opera, Callas and his family moved again to New York. Here the singer faced several disappointments, but in 1947, under the baton of Tullio Serafina, she performed at the Arena di Verona in the opera La Gioconda. © Tullio Serafin, 1941. Photo by Global Look Press
Serafin introduced Callas to the world of grand opera. From that moment on, she sang parts in Verdi's Aida and Bellini's Norma, and at the beginning of 1949 she sang the parts of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Die Walküre and Elvira in Bellini's Puritans. Maria Callas was gaining more and more authority. © Maria Callas at the La Scala theater during a performance of Verdi’s opera “Sicilian Vespers”, 1951. Photo from Wikimedia.org
In 1953, EMI released complete recordings of operas featuring Maria Callas. A year later, she appeared on stage in an updated image, having lost 30 kilograms. Audiences and critics in Europe and America enthusiastically received her performances in operas. © Maria Callas during Vincenzo Bellini's opera La Sonnambula, 1957. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Maria Callas has become a star of the first magnitude, but at the same time, discord begins in her personal life. In 1957, in Venice, Callas met the Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis, with whom she began to regularly appear in public. © American Marshal Stanley Pringle and Maria Callas, 1956
By 1959, Maria Callas's career began to collapse. She loses her voice, breaks off relations with the Metropolitan Opera, and due to regular scandalous publications in the media, she is forced to leave La Scala. In addition, the singer became depressed. © Maria Callas as Violetta before the opera La Traviata at the Royal Theater Covent Garden, 1958. Photo from Wikimedia.org
In 1964, Callas made an attempt to return to the big stage, but it turned out to be a failure. Five years later, the famous Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini invited Maria to star in the role of Medea in the film of the same name. © Still from the film “Medea”, 1969
In the early seventies, Maria Callas again tried to regain her big name in the world of opera and gave several concerts in Europe, but these performances were not awarded much success or public attention. © Maria Callas performing in Amsterdam, 1973. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Around this period, doctors diagnosed the singer with dermatomyositis, which also explained the sharp deterioration of Callas's voice - in a short time her range changed from soprano to mezzo-soprano. In many ways, it was the illness that prevented Maria from achieving success later. © Maria Callas, December 1973. Photo from Wikimedia.org
Maria Callas died on September 16, 1977 at the age of 53. The cause of death was cardiac arrest caused by complications of dermatomyositis. However, there are other versions of the singer’s death - according to some reports, Callas could have been poisoned. © Memorial plate in honor of Maria Callas at the Père Lachaise cemetery. Photo from Wikimedia.org
The singer's parents divorced when she was 13 years old. The father of the family remained to live in America, and the mother and two daughters returned to their historical homeland: Greece. They lived poorly, but it was not so much that upset little Maria as the separation from her dad, whom she missed terribly. Despite the fact that Evangelia could hardly be called a sensitive and caring mother, the opera diva owes her career to her. The woman insisted that her youngest daughter enter the conservatory. From the first days of her studies, Callas impressed her teachers; she grasped everything on the fly. She was always the first to arrive in class and the last to leave. By the end of the third trimester, she could speak Italian and French fluently. In 1941, the girl made her debut on the stage of the Athens Opera as Tosca in Puccini's opera of the same name, but the world learned about her a little later: six years later. At the age of 24, the singer performed on the stage of the Arena di Verona in the opera La Gioconda. Here in Italy she met Giovanni Battista Meneghini , a famous industrialist and passionate opera fan. It is not surprising that from the first minutes he was fascinated by Callas and was ready to throw the whole world at her feet.
Death and mystery
Maria died in Paris on September 16, 1977
.
In the spring of 1979, her ashes, previously kept in the Père Lachaise cemetery, were scattered over the Aegean Sea
.
The cause of death was given as a heart attack. However, some believed that Maria was poisoned by her companion and friend, pianist Vasso Devetzi, out of envy. There is no evidence.
But, there is a study of doctors specializing in ligament diseases. According to their analysis of Maria’s records, the cause of death could have been dermatomyositis, a rare disease of connective tissues and smooth muscles, which resulted in a heart attack.
Husband and producer
Giovanni Battista Meneghini was 27 years older than Maria, but this did not stop him from marrying the young singer. The couple walked down the aisle less than a year after they met. The businessman became Callas’s husband and manager rolled into one. For the next ten years, the opera diva and the wealthy industrialist walked through life hand in hand. Of course, Meneghini provided his wife with strong financial support, which contributed to Maria’s already brilliant career. But the main secret of her demand was not her husband’s money, but her impeccable command of technology. Our famous opera singer Elena Obraztsova once said about this: “Callas did not have a beautiful voice. She had a fantastic singing technique and, most importantly, sang with her heart and soul. She was like a guide from God.” After Verona, the doors of all famous opera houses gradually began to open for the girl. In 1953, the artist signed a contract with the major record company EMI. It was this company that released recordings of operas performed by the singer.
From the very beginning of her career, Maria was quite large. Some ill-wishers and envious people called her fat. Weight problems arose due to a great love for food. The artist’s secretary, Nadya Stanshaft, talked about her: “We were setting the table, she came up and innocently asked: “Nadya, what is this?” Can I try a small piece?’ This was followed by another and another. So she practically ate everything that was on the plate. And then I tried it from every plate of everyone sitting at the table. It drove me crazy." Maria's favorite treat was ice cream. It was this dessert that should have ended absolutely every meal of the singer. With such an appetite, Callas had every chance not only to become famous as an opera performer, but also to become the fattest woman in the world, but, fortunately, she stopped in time. While working on the role of Violetta in her favorite La Traviata, the girl lost a lot of weight and became a real beauty, whom the famous womanizer Aristotle Onassis could not ignore .
Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas. Photo: Frame youtube.com
Traitor
Maria first met the billionaire in the late fifties in Italy, at a party after the performance of Norma. Six months later, the billionaire invited the singer and her husband to ride on his famous yacht “Christina”. By the end of this journey, Callas's marriage with Meneghini was at an end. And this despite the fact that Onassis himself at that time was also in a relationship with Tina Levanos . It was she who caught the newly-made lovers and made their romance public. To get a divorce, the singer renounced her American citizenship and adopted Greek citizenship. “I did this for one reason: I want to be a free woman. According to Greek law, anyone who, after 1946, got married outside of a church is not considered a married person,” Maria told one of the journalists, who during that period of her life became more active than ever.
Article on the topic
From Callas to Kennedy.
Billionaire Onassis and his women Unlike the singer’s ex-husband, Onassis was indifferent to opera. He did not understand Maria’s desire to sing and more than once suggested that she stop her career. One day she actually stopped going on stage, but not for the sake of Aristotle. This is how the circumstances developed: voice problems, general fatigue, a break in relations with the Metropolitan Opera and leaving La Scala. A new period in her life began: bohemian. But he did not make the artist happy. Neither did Aristotle. The businessman needed Callas for his image. The billionaire had no intention of marrying her and even forced her to have an abortion when she became pregnant. Having taken everything he needed from the singer, Onassis successfully found himself a new object of desire: Jacqueline Kennedy .
He married the widow of the 35th President of the United States in 1968. Maria learned about what happened from the newspapers. Of course, she was in despair, because she herself dreamed of being in Jacqueline’s place. By the way, after the wedding, the businessman did not stop his meetings with Maria, only now they were secret. And during his honeymoon in London, he called the singer every morning, giving hope for the continuation of the relationship. The only medicine that could save the diva from depression was work. But by that time, the artist’s voice was no longer the same, so she began to look for new ways of self-realization. First, Maria starred in Pasolini's film Medea, although it was not a box office success. Then she directed an opera production in Turin, and also taught at the Juilliard School in New York. Unfortunately, the singer did not receive satisfaction from all this. Then Callas tried to return to the stage with the famous tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano. The public greeted the creative tandem very warmly, but during the tour Maria was dissatisfied with herself, her voice betrayed her, and critics wrote unpleasant things. As a result, the attempt to resume her career also did not make her happier and could not help her forget the betrayal of Aristotle.
At the end of her life, the legendary diva turned into a real recluse and practically never left her Parisian apartment.
The circle of those with whom she communicated was sharply reduced. According to one of Callas’s close friends, at that time it was impossible to reach her by phone, as well as arrange a meeting, and this repelled even the most devoted people. On September 16, 1977, the famous opera singer died at about two o'clock in the afternoon from cardiac arrest in her apartment. According to Mary's last will, her body was cremated. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Personal life
Maria met Giovanni Battista Meneghini on June 30, 1947. Despite a significant age difference and resistance from the family of a wealthy industrialist, Maria and Giovanni got married on April 21, 1949
. He was her mentor, friend, companion. He extorted fees that shocked even the Metropolitan, which refused to pay until the spouses’ requests became more modest.
In 1959, the number of engagements fell, and Maria met the Greek millionaire Aristotle Onassis. This meeting determined her life for the next decade. Having learned about the relationship that began between the millionaire and the singer, Onassis’s wife left him. Maria announced a divorce from Meneghini. And in 1966 she renounced her Greek citizenship, which annulled the marriage.
She hoped that family happiness lay ahead. It turned out differently. In 1968, Onassis chose to marry Jacqueline Kennedy. This was a blow for Callas.
Regarding children, the marriage with Giovanni Meneghini was childless, and Onassis, according to Maria, twice forced her to have an abortion. There is, however, an unverified version from biographer Nicola Gage, confirmed by Maria’s maid, that around 1960 Maria gave birth to Onassis, but the child lived for only a few hours.
