Maria Callas

1923-1977

Opera singer Maria Callas made her professional debut with the Royal Opera of Athens in a 1941 production of Boccaccio and soon won her first major role with Tosca. Eventually garnering international acclaim, Callas made her Italian opera debut at the Verona Arena in 1947, later followed by her 1954 American debut in Norma. During the 1960s, the quality and frequency of her performances waned. Callas died in 1977 at age 56 at her home in Paris.

FULL NAME: Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria Callas
BORN: December 2, 1923
DIED: September 16, 1977
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
SPOUSE: Giovanni Meneghini (1949-1959)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Sagittarius

Maria Callas was born Maria Cecilia Sophia Anna Kalogeropoulos in New York City on December 2, 1923, a date confirmed by the attending physician for the delivery and what is believed to be her birth certificate. Over the years, discrepancies and confusion have arisen concerning Callas’s birth date. Callas, herself, along with school records, had stated she was born on the 3^rd while her mother had claimed the 4^th.

Her parents, George and Evangelia, were Greek immigrants who eventually shortened their last name to Callas by the time of Maria’s christening.

Callas began taking classical piano lessons when she was 7 years old. She was overshadowed by her older sister Jackie, who was seen as beautiful and charismatic, but Maria proved adept at singing music with dramatic flair, with her mother pushing her on to pursue a vocal career.

In 1937, when Maria was a teen, her parents separated, and she, her mother, and her sister moved back to Greece. In Athens, Callas studied voice under Elvira de Hidalgo at a famed conservatory.

As a student, Callas made her stage debut in 1939 in a school production of Cavalleria Rusticana. The conservatory honored her for her dazzling performance in the role of Santuzza.

Maria Callas, seen here in April 1974, dazzled audiences who saw her in operas like Tosca, Norma, and La Gioconda.

In 1941, Callas made her professional debut with the Royal Opera of Athens with a modest role in Franz von Suppé’s Boccaccio. Later in the year, she took on her first major role in Tosca.

During World War II, Callas struggled to find roles. In the mid-1940s, she moved back to New York to spend time with her father and look for work but experienced a number of rejections. She eventually moved to Verona, Italy, where she met rich industrialist Giovanni Meneghini. The two married in 1949.

Callas’s Italian opera debut took place at the Verona Arena in August 1947 in a performance of La Gioconda. Over the next few years, under the management of her husband, Callas continued to perform in Verona and Florence, Italy, to critical acclaim. Her voice captivated audiences, though as her fame increased, Callas developed a reputation as a temperamental, demanding diva and was nicknamed “The Tigress.” Fiercely resilient, Callas said of audience members’ jeers, “Hissing from the gallery is part of the scene. It is a hazard of the battlefield. Opera is a battlefield, and it must be accepted.”

In 1954, Callas made her American debut in Norma at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The performance was a triumph and was seen as a signature role. In 1956, she at last had the opportunity to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in her home city of New York. However, she was fired in 1958 by director Rudolf Bing.

Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas were romantically involved for a number of years following her marriage to Giovanni Meneghini.

Callas’s marriage had also begun to unravel. Callas and Meneghini split at the end of the decade, during which time she had begun an affair with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Their relationship continued for several years, though his 1968 marriage to former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy caused much sadness for Callas. Nonetheless, Onassis still tried to woo the singer after his nuptials.

During the 1960s, Callas’s formerly stellar singing voice was discernibly faltering. Her performances grew fewer and farther between, as a result of her frequent cancellations. Although she formally retired from the stage in the early 1960s, Callas made a brief return to performing with the Metropolitan Opera mid-decade. Her final operatic performance was in Tosca at Covent Garden in London on July 5, 1965, attended by Queen Mother Elizabeth. In 1969, she also appeared in the title role of the movie Medea.

In the early 1970s, Callas tried her hand at teaching. In ’71 and ’72, she conducted master classes at Juilliard in New York. Despite her failing health, Callas accompanied a friend on an international recital tour in 1973 to help him raise money for his ailing daughter. Following the tour, Callas moved to Paris and became a recluse.

On September 16, 1977, at the age of 53, Callas died suddenly and mysteriously in her Paris home in what was believed to have been a heart attack.

• I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not the devil either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like so to be judged.
• An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house.
• Hissing from the gallery is part of the scene. It is a hazard of the battlefield. Opera is a battlefield, and it must be accepted.
• I will always be as difficult as necessary to achieve the best.
• To me, the art of music is magnificent, and I cannot bear to see it treated in a shabby way. When it is respected and when the artists who serve it are respected, I will work hard and always give my best... I do not want to be associated with inferior staging, taste, conducting or singing.

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