Maria Callas: what made her Opera’s Greatest Diva – H

It’s been many years since Maria Callas died, yet the fascination she exerts is as great today as it was during her career. It’s really like she’s reaching out from the grave to grab hold of our imagination. She won’t let go of it. Her records today are outselling those of other artists. There have been over 30 books written about her, which is a great deal more than famous figures such as Nijinsky or Laurence Olivier.

And the question is, why? It’s a difficult question, but it has to do, of course, with that enormous theatrical personality of hers, as reflected by her voice. But it also has to do with another facet, because there was not only Callas, the artist, but Maria, the woman. And the story of Maria, the woman, is really just as fascinating.

Fascinating, it’s really one of the great, tragic love stories of our time. I mean, I’m undefended. I’ve been undefended all my life.

You might be, as I have found out, frequently misunderstood, hated, attacked. And I have not been able to fight back and you’ve had to sit back and take it in absolute silence. It hurts, you hate it because it is unjust, the world is full of unjust. I’m going to have a little bit of a story. Hi,

I’m Katie, and this is the video that we’re going to be talking about. This is the last one. This is the last one. We have to finish this video today. All right. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one.

This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. This is the last one. Thank you. And she was there, waiting to go on stage for the last big aria. And I saw it was not the premiere, it was one of the performances.

And I saw she was in a state of nervous that I went and said, Maria, for God’s sake, I mean, it’s now, I mean, the glory and you have performed. And he grabbed my arm, you know, like… I said, you know that every time I go out there, they are there waiting to get me. Maria was actually born in Manhattan on 2nd December 1923 in a hospital in Washington, H.

On the upper west side and christened Maria Cecilia Sophia Anna Kaloyeropoulou. The father had a pharmacy here in Greece. But I think he had not much success at the end and then he took his wife and his daughter. The first daughter he had, and went to the States. And he made the name from Kaloyeropoulos, who is extremely difficult to pronounce, into Kallas.

And the mother was then pregnant, and Maria Kallas came one year later. Because of increasing tensions at home, school, at public school number 189, was not especially happy. Though, her American upbringing was always a very strong influence. She played popular music constantly, and she’d sing along with whoever would sing.

Frank Sinatra, Cole Porter. Hernando’s Hideaway was the big, important song. I mean, she really liked that. And she liked Mexican songs, and she would harmonize to these rather sort of, you know, heart-rendering Mexican love songs. She loved going to the movies. And what she liked best were cowboy films, westerns.

I think she just loved to get lost in the kind of the stories in the movies. And she talked out loud all the time while we went to, you know, in the film. She’d say, Oh my God, oh look, look, what’s going to happen. All these comments out loud, and people behind her would say, shh, shh. But when Maria was 13, her mother decided she had had enough of her father.

They were later divorced and in 1937 removed both daughters back to Athens. There they lived in some poverty at No. 61 Patision Street. When dropped off her father, the effect on the already shy and introverted Maria was profound. For years, she wore baggy, drab clothes. And she says her mother always made these dark little dresses with white collars.

That was her obsession. She said, oh, my mother’s always making these little dresses with white collars. And when I met Maria’s sister, Jackie, I said, How is it that you were always so beautifully dressed and so elegant? And your sister always looked not like a ragbag, but I mean, she was just very poorly put together.

Well, Jackie said that, you know, a lot of the clothes were made by their mother, but Maria didn’t have the figure. To wear them. And so she looked dumpy. A mother must be a good mother to her children, yes or no? There is no going away from that. It is a responsibility. She’s not doing anything special. It is her duty.

Not responsibility. It’s her duty. There’s where I’m stiff as a German, if it can be called German. A mother, there is nothing extraordinary about, oh, how wonderful a mother she is. She’s got to be wonderful. Otherwise, don’t have children. If you don’t even trust your mother, who do you trust? The program was that, of course, sir.

I should become a singer, I should become an artist, in any case. Usually, what parents say is, well, I sacrificed myself for you, but you will do what I was supposed to do in life. But the mother did have the good sense to send her to the Music Conservatory here in Athens, where she attended the classes of a famous teacher, Elvira de Hidalgo, with her best friend and fellow student at that time, Zoe Vlachopoulou.

When she came to Madame Hidalgo’s class in 1939, she was a tall, fat, dark-haired girl with beautiful eyes and great self-assurance. Judging by her appearance, I didn’t think she would be able to sing. But when she opened her mouth, my own mouth fell right open. And Hidalgo? She was transfixed. Maria seemed to learn everything so quickly.

By the end of her first term, she was speaking fluent Italian and French. She was very clever. She was very musical. She played the piano well. She was always the first to arrive in class and the last to leave. She listened to all my students. Often for five hours at a time. She was fascinated by the idea of reaching the top notes.

She asked me about her future. I said that if she continued like this, she would be able to achieve everything, everything. Training with Deidalgo. I was immediately taken, engaged, shall we say, by the then six months old opera in Greece on an agreement that I would not sing anywhere else. And Deidalgo had seen to that contract.

So I would have a sum of money and that would give me the possibility of studying patient without having the necessity of going around to work. Because it was during the war. It was a terrible time. Hunger and seeing people dying in the streets, walking everywhere because there was no transport whatsoever.

Maria used to go four times a day to the Conservatoire, quite a distance, backwards and forwards, on foot. And if you had the money to get some sort of food, you got it, you didn’t. Then you had to sell things. All your valuables had to be sold to the black marketeers and buy food. She was pushed in a way, but Maria had to do what she did.

Although she had been singing since she was 14, her professional operatic debut was actually in a cinema, The Palace, Because the National Theatre had no air raid shelter. She sang In boccaccio by Franz von Zuppe. One year later, incredibly enough, she sang Tosca. But her first big public success was in the opera by D’Albert, called Tiefland, conducted by Maestro Zoras.

She was only 21. There was no electricity. So we used to sit at night with oil lamps. But every ten minutes, the lamps would go out. But Maria would insist on cleaning them and lighting them again. We must rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, she would say. I think the secret was her willpower. Kallas was born with all sorts of disadvantages.

Maria was not. Born a beautiful woman, Maria was fat, obese, ungraceful when you realize the type of body she started out with in life, which was like that of a pachyderm. 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 of all of the singers of her day.

We’d sit down at the table and we’d have something in front of us and she’d say, Oh, Nadja, what is that? Mmm, it looks absolutely delicious. Is that some Greek or Turkish specialty, or whatever it was? I mean Turkish, because we were in Turkey at the time. I’d say, well, I don’t know. And she’d say, well, can I have a tiny taste? And so she’d pick a little out of your plate, and then she’d pick a little bit more, and then she’d pick out of the…

Thing that was absolutely next to that. And finally, she’d eaten practically everything you had in your plate, and she tried everything out of everyone’s plate. Drove me mad. She loved ice cream. The minute we’d finish a meal, she’d turn to the waiter and say, Would you like to have any ice cream? And if the waiter said yes, we have vanilla and chocolate.

Well, that wasn’t good enough. She wanted all kinds of different flavors. The more, the merrier. I went to one of these gatherings, and here came this extraordinary, ballsy lady. It was big. Everything was immense. Big eyes, big mouth, big teeth, I mean, beautiful. Big nose and rather hairy, rather big. Big bust. I was impressed by that.

She looked like the statue of Liberty. Because of her success in Greece, it was inevitable that sooner or later, we would lose her. And in 1947, she was invited to Verona, in Italy, to sing in La Gioconda under the most… Influential opera conductor of his time, Tullio Serafin. I had the opportunity to recommend her because I was invited to open that season with Faust.

And the director of the arena, Verona, was in New York at the time and I went to pay a visit to him. Thanking him for the contract and so on. And he told me, But I would like very much to open the season with Gioconda. But it doesn’t exist any Gioconda in the world, he said to me. And I told him right away, you know, I think I have a Gioconda in my pocket.

It was so important that she met there Tullio Serafin, who understood her potential, understood her musicality, her talent and her voice. He used to call her una grande vociaccia. Vociaccia is a little bit pejorative, I mean, it means an ugly voice, but grande means a big voice, a great voice, a great, ugly voice in a way.

Maria, the woman. But if the voice of Callas, the artist, was being transformed, the body of Maria, the woman, was not. And it just so happened at this time that Audrey Hepburn was filming Roman Holiday in Italy. Maria suddenly announced that she wished to become as thin as Audrey Hepburn. It was utterly amazing, But in a year, she lost 37 kilos, which is about 80 pounds.

She was still a very young woman, however, so her flesh hung off her like an empty bag. So she went to tremendous efforts. gymnastics, massages, and so on, in order to reabsorb all this loose flesh. She never managed with the ankles. In fact, one of the reasons she never wanted to perform Carmen was because she would have to show her feet and ankles in the dance.

And she just didn’t want to do that. Maria, the woman, was now wanting to be the equal of Kallus, the artist. I think I was lucky in that. I heard about number four of perhaps five performances of Joconda in the open air and of the biggest stage, perhaps, in the world. And the things that were wonderful was the scale of the singing, the scale of the whole voice, the edge, the way in which she dominated everything.

The battle was twofold. First of all, with the voice, to make the voice do her bidding. In other words, if she was a military commander, how would you get the of troops to do what you plan to do. And the other one, of course, was always with the public. One seen it when she had an easy public, so to speak, in England, but one saw it with a very difficult public in Italy.

I mean, a public that was full of excitement, full of reaction, was worth enthusing. Worth getting into that state of excitement which an Italian public can get into, but which was occasionally hostile. And I’ve seen her have a battle with the public and win it. What I learned from Seraphine was that you must serve music because music is so enormous and can envelop you into such a state of perpetual anxiety and torture, but it is our first and main duty.

He always found a reason for something. What he said impressed me was… When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already sort of seen to that. If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears, and I say soul and ears, because the mind must work, but not too much.

also, you will find every gesture there. Immediately after my debut in Italy, no agent would give me a job because I was not loved that much. I was something new to listen to, and they disliked anything that took them away from tradition. Every four or five months that I would have a role. Many people that used to say, well, her high notes are beautiful, but her middle notes are not.

And the other ones say, all the middle notes are beautiful, but the top are no good. In other words, they wouldn’t agree. What impressed me was they used to say that, well, she does know how to move on stage. She lived in total fantasy always, because, first of all, she was absolutely blind, you know. When she was on stage, she lived in a kind of haze.

She couldn’t see anything. So in her fantasies, she was dreaming, dreaming, dreaming on stage, absolutely dreaming. That’s why she changed completely personality. She brought out what the character was supposed to be. It happened something magic. It’s easy to say Callas was magic, but there was something superhuman that happened.

You know, I don’t know how to describe it, find the right words for it, But she was possessed. She literally changed the face of Opel. It was a recurrent joke among us to divide the history of opera into eras, BC and AC, before and after Callas. Callas came with something at the time totally new, and that she brought finally.

Drama to the opera and what it meant, what it was meant by the origin of the opera. When Monteverdi and all the camerata Fiorentina, let’s say, invented this new expression. It was a melodrama. It was a recitar cantando, which means that you were performing. It was a singing actor. And Then, with the evolution of the singing, the 19th century, the new composers all went into the bel canto. And little by little, then lost in the performers the strength of the drama.

It became some sort of beautiful sound exhibition. And it was a betrayal as a matter of fact. Callas, with her strength of drama, brought back to the origin of opera, what it means. So, after her great success in Verona, it was inevitable that sooner or later, she would be invited to Italy’s most important opera house, La Scala, in Milan.

Serafine was there, so was Toscanini and Giulini, and, of course, Antonio Giringhelli, the superintendent of La Scala, sort of general manager. He was a rich businessman with a big personality. Who felt married to La Scala, I would say, and didn’t take kindly to demanding prima donnas disrupting his marriage.

He wanted Maria, but only on his terms. She wanted, she demanded, to be acknowledged as the star she was. Impasse. But after another triumph at La Fenice in Venice, where, among other things, she learned and sang the lead in Ippolitano in just four days, because… And that is Singer, het volle Eel. And also, after some pressure from his old friend Meneghini, Ghiringhelli could not ignore her anymore.

In December 1951, she made her debut in I Vespri, Siciliani. These were perhaps her greatest years. And here it was that she fell under the spell of the great director, Lucchino Visconti. Lucchino entered on the scene of Maria around 1954 with a big splash. Of all these authorities, glamour, and all this bull, and everything was there to make her the most glamorous lady of the stage.

And it certainly succeeded, inspired her a lot. She never fully acknowledged that. She didn’t like to acknowledge it. But as Serafine molded the musician in Maria, so Visconti shaped the actress. Lucchino could do anything with Maria, dramatic. She was like a schoolgirl around him, one with a terrible crush. One evening, some people tried to disrupt Maria.

There was an anti-Maria group in the top balcony. They started to make a terrible noise during the most difficult part of the aria. But, as usual, at the end of the first act, the fans threw flowers. But some sounded rather heavy as they landed on the stage. Were they plastic? Marble? No, they were vegetables, radishes, celery.

Quick, I said, pick them up and leave the flowers. But Maria, although she can’t see very well, has the ears of Dionysus. She already knew that more than mere flowers were being thrown, so she picked up some radishes and showed them to the audience. Then she made a sweeping bow. Naturally, it was a great triumph.

They were found kissing in her dressing room, you know, passionately. But he played a bit this kind of games with his big ladies because he was a very attractive man. Women loved him very much, and he had a past history of having had great, stormy love affairs with great ladies. So every now and then there was this situation in which he found himself deliberately.

In order to conquer his women, he just had to… Give them once the full treatment. I was thoroughly spoiled by him before we even started working together. Because he was, the grand Seigneur, was treating the primadonna so lavishly, and I felt that. He made a point of pointing it out, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I don’t know whether I’m really always on that pedestal for him or for others, but he’s going to make me discover how to act. He taught me something without my his knowing it, that the less I move without evident reason or profound reason, the more it is my own personality. I’d seem corny, but it’s really hard not to see. The life of Maria Callas is a sort of fairy

story, after all, she was the classic ugly duckling that became the swan. I mean, look how she began her life. It was with a voice that nobody really wanted or understood, and it was in a body that certainly no one wanted. And there were also tremendous psychological blocks she had to overcome from earliest childhood.

A pushy mother whose love she wanted and never really had, and jealousy of a sister. These were all things which left a vivid imprint on her, and which she exercised throughout her life, primarily on the stage. And the fascinating thing is really the emergence of this artist, this swan, shall we say, and the great cost.

That Maria, the woman, paid for it. The reason of my life, in fact, and the woman, Maria, a special grace. That is being a happy wife and having made a success of my marriage. I’m very proud of it. That’s the main thing in the life of a woman. I feel it. Giovanni Battista Meneghini, who was a middle-aged industrialist who, like her mother, saw in Maria a chance for the destiny of his own.

They were soon married, and Meneghini’s money provided the support and bought the time Maria needed to build her career. Battista Meneghini had the intelligence to understand that his work would only be complete when this woman had become elegant, with style and flair. He was the one who said, make her lots of clothes, make her look good.

She, being rather tight-fisted, would probably not have bothered. He understood that from this transformation, a new CaLAs would emerge. I’ve always thought… The later view of Meneghini as a pest and somebody who latched onto her and all that, I’ve always thought that was a false and unfair view. I think he made a vast contribution to her.

I think he gave her confidence, I think he gave her background, I think he gave her advice, I think he was a very shrewd Italian businessman, Latin businessman, and I think that she needed that. And I don’t know to what degree she was involved with him, but I think she was pretty involved. I think she was… I think it was a…

What you’d call a good relationship for several years. These are all the Maria Callas letters, thousands. I have thousands of letters, letters, documents of all kinds. Would you like to hear one? Let’s see. At last, I have got to my destination after a journey. And on the top it says My dear adored one, Adorato, adorato.

These are love letters, letters… Overflowing with love, which contained love and very little else. The other things are only incidental. The main part of all these letters is love. It was when we left for Buenos Aires and she was crying like a child, leaving Meneghini in Genoa. And I remember this. It was maybe the only one moment when I saw Maria Callas really moved, really sincere, really caring for somebody.

She was crying and she was desperate leaving Meneghini because Meneghini represented for her. Not only the husband, he was her father, her brother, the security that she found in life. It’s me, the young, old, little, I want to thank everyone for participating in the event. I’m going to go ahead and start.

He was a very loving husband. He adored her. And probably, like all adoration, suffocated a lot in her. And what it is worse, because of this love, he made her make so many mistakes. Some lawsuits. Unnecessary to newspapers and things. And he excited her, sometimes backstage against a colleague. And you know, when you are under pressure of a performance, when your nerves are under an enormous strain and demand.

When somebody comes near and says, you know, we did this, has done this, and this other one has said that this person explodes, there is no other way. And sometimes he became absolutely vituperative. About singers whom she did not respect, who were late, who did not give, who did not try, and who were less professional than she was.

It was very difficult to be as professional as she was, but I think people… Who were less so she did not like. I remember her fury about a singer whom she had suggested, but greatly less senior than Maria, who sang wonderfully as Nereus the maid. In Medea, who on the first night sang the aria, which she has.

Maria was kind of reclined, and did an aria to try and comfort her, and she sang it to this reclining body, then sort of collapsed towards the body at the end. There was tremendous applause after the aria, and she turned to the audience and smiled and acknowledged with a bow the applause, and Maria was furious about it.

Afterwards, because she’d moved out of character at that moment. I had to remind her that this was a singer, I had to defend her, this is a singer you suggested, that’s why we got her. Yes, but I could have behaved like that. But she’s not very experienced. Second year or something like that. And she did sing very well.

I don’t care if she sang well. Rome Opera makes headlines with a performance that didn’t happen. Or at least, soprano Maria Karas refused to carry on after the first act. Arriving before the overture, here’s Maria looking fine. And to listen to her sing Bellini is Norma, a glittering audience had gathered.

The stars of the Italian screen, like Anna Magnani, quite a fiery character herself when she wants to be, and Silvana Pampanini. American Society hostess Elsa Maxwell must be thinking that this almost equals one of her own fabulous parties. A fashion parade straight out of Who’s Who, with enough material to keep the glossy magazines happy for weeks.

You don’t know whether to look at dresses or faces, though some faces you can’t miss, of course. 3,000 people, from artists to aristocrats, from dancers to diplomats. As brilliant a first-night audience as the Eternal City has ever seen. All here to listen to Maria Manghini, cara soprano, to crown the occasion, the President of the Italian Republic himself.

Senior Giovanni Gronchi. But even the president has to be content with one act only. Then Maria Cara says she doesn’t feel well. So, as not to disappoint you two, our cameraman dropped in on a rehearsal. Perhaps he had a premonition what would happen on the night. I took me down, his voice was perfect. Has been known to walk out before.

So if you want to be sure of hearing her, don’t get all dressed up. Just go to a rehearsal. She usually stays to the end of those. Miss Kellis, why have you come over so suddenly? I don’t think I’ve come over suddenly at all. I came here for this concert. Which will take place at the St. James Palace for the Mountbatten Trust.

Quite sudden. In which you’re singing me? Well, I don’t think many people did. Why? You seem to have arrived very quietly this time. I usually try to arrive quietly. Well, you’re singing with Sir Malcolm Sargent, aren’t you? He’s accompanied. Yes, and with Yehudi Menoudine. So I assume that Sir Malcolm is one conductor with whom you are on very good terms.

I am. I’m always on best terms with all conductors. I wouldn’t like this to go ahead. In fact, a lot of unfair things have been said about Maria. Her cancellation record was not as the world believed it to be at all. She cancelled relatively rarely. She was too much of a professional to be cancelling. But equally, it was this whole question with her of whether or not she actually felt the chemistry was right. To enable her to give the standard of performance.

That she thought she ought to be giving because she had no desire to shortchange the public, and she had no desire to shortchange herself. And she was always determined, when she got out on that stage, to give the public, stated, crudely, value for money. She was going to say, here I am, and this is how I perform and how I sing.

And if she felt she was going to be a notch or two below what she regarded as her high standards, then… You could be in difficulties with her. I’m a born fighter, not out of necessity, or rather, not out of love of fight, because I loathe fighting. I’m sick to the stomach after. But if I have to defend myself, I have that much pride to say, well,

there’s no way out. Go ahead and defend yourself. I thought I would become great to be able to have freedom of movement. In other words, stability, happiness, to be able to perform better under the best circumstances, under the best mental frame of mind, all that. Well, it was a lie. It’s not true. The more famous you become.

The more difficult things are. It’s freedom of the press and none of our freedom. Do I have freedom? I can’t justify myself. I cannot live a normal life. It’s a long, lonely life. I me, Oh, Oh,

At the height of her career, everything was going great for her. She was one of the most famous women in the world. But there was this, what would you call it, failing flaw that you find in classic Greek tragedy. Up until this time, it had been all work and no play. She’d had… Love from many Guinea, her husband, are, you might better say, security. But with her great weight loss, she had turned herself into a very glamorous, sexy woman.

And for the first time, Maria, the woman, wanted real fulfillment. It was just at this crucial moment in her life that she fell in love, but the man she fell in love with was a shady character. He was a man who collected famous women. It’s rumored that he had paid $10,000 for one night with Eva Peron, and he wanted to collect Callas.

She was willing to be collected. After all, this was the period in which Maria, the woman, wanted to be on an equal footing with Callas, the artist. Oh, it’s very easy that newspapers say, oh, that terrible Callas, I gained so much money in one evening. Oh, she is a capricious so-so-so-so. But it’s not so. What am I supposed to say? The general manager that was supposed to, that I had warned him and I told him I would be sick, and if there is a double, and if there is not, what will happen? And that these people say,

for instance, something like the role. I told him, I’m not well. Now, something might come wrong. What is the person who is my double? Nobody can double Callas. My work is alone. It is creation. So you have to be alone to do that. But on the other hand, when you work, it would be so nice to be able to come home and have a nice, honest shoulder to lean on.

I told that to my husband. I’m going to sing a song today, a song that I’ve been missing the most. So I’m going to sing a song today, a song that I’ve been missing the most. Her life was dedicated to the music,

to the theatre, like a priest in the religion. And this was continued to the moment in which the door of the high society became open for her. In this moment, of course, the temptation for her was very hard, because, sure, it was a sentimental problem, but also the possibility for, in a moment of her life, to live a human life.

She was very prim, she was very… You know, very strange, sometimes very moralistic. But the reason was because she was shy. And in the end, she never had really confrontation with a man, never had a clash. I mean, big bang with a man that ends up in a in a great sexual or emotional relationship.

Never happened, never happened, until on us as a people. Was considered a very, very notable figure. And he had this beautiful Christina, which became a kind of showcase for him, and he had this window display of a celebrity. Churchill was there all the time, but Generally, the big, important people were not going there.

When Churchill was old and retired, and he was a memory, he didn’t have anything to lose. Going on a cruise with Onassis. Other people were really nervous. I remember that Grace Kelly, Princess Grace and the Ranieri family were not at all in good terms with Onassis. When he made the big splashy thing with Maria, then it was a tremendous…

Cool publicity, publicity, cool for him. There’s no way, no way to deny it really. She made him more famous and more respectable than he was, she gave him a lot of position. In fact, he ended up being accepted in Monte Carlo fully and all of that. I mean, he could live without that because he had enough money and enough power, but he wanted more, he wanted to be accepted.

Please for us, I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you. When are you going to be going in? Huh? When will you be going in, Miss Callister? Maybe in the spring of the day. You don’t see me. It’s afternoon. Tell me. How do you feel about the court litigation that’s coming up? I’m giving no interviews. You’ll find it. It is. Miss Callister, you’ll have evidence tonight.

You’ll see. What’s in there? Did you have any trouble in Dallas? Dallas is a real one. Give me that. The only reason you’re not going to leave is because George is red. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Stop it. Tell us this. All of us are going to disturb you. Take one. I’m sorry. Give me an interview, please. Did you have any argument at all with Dallas? Is that why you cut through? What do you expect? Stop it.

What do you expect to accomplish? You go to. Please stop it. You expect to save me. You’re not saving me in Dallas. I said, please. Oh, good. Talk to me, it’s just been a lot longer then. Talk to me. Hey, take it easy, man. Why not? It’s nice to be smiling. We try to voice our opinions. We can voice our own, I don’t like it.

We don’t mean to speak our own. It’s being silly, so it wouldn’t happen. It’s a lot better. It’s much harder for my cameraman than this video. Well, just stop. You’re a little hysterical. Watch this trip. And hopefully we’ll see these romantic squabs left on ones every night. Is it no romantic struggle for separation? I’m sorry.

What is it? When is it going to end? Have you talked to Mr. Onassis? I’ve talked to all my friends. I am answering no more questions. That’s all, gentlemen. No! You must. Before you do something, realize there might be consequences. If you’re honest, it’s a big price to pay for it. You’re going to really pay and pay and pay.

But if you’re going to meet a lot of dishonest people, a lot of weak people who are going to try to pull you down. So fast, so much, being honest, is a hell of a price to pay. Glory goes to people’s head, not my head. Glory terrifies me. You’re quite uncomfortable up there. But other people around you, they get drunk.

It’s a wine that goes to the head. Because I have unfortunately seen them nearly always betray me. Everybody does that. You have given up your citizenship, that’s correct? That’s correct. And you’re taking your Greek citizenship back? I’ve already taken my Greek citizenship. What is the reason behind this, Madame Callas? The real reason I can even say it is that I am a free woman, you see.

Because, uh… during, um, with the Greek law, who is not married after 1946 in church, is not married. So you understand? I understand completely. Now, do you have any intention to marry Mr. Onassis? Oh, those are not questions to ask. No, right now, I’m a free woman. I’m very happy to be so. That is why I had to give up this American citizenship, unfortunately.

You understand. She didn’t want to talk to people. She hated journalists, photographers. I remember… In 1952, after Mexico, she was my guest in my villa in Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast. And the villa was surrounded by journalists, photographers from Life Magazine from New York. She didn’t want to give an interview.

I thought she was faking. So I thought, she should be flattered that they come from America to take her picture for Life magazine. In those years, it was the most important magazine. No, she would not see him. She hated to give interviews. She wanted privacy. And she did it. The only thing that she got was a full sex affair.

She didn’t need the glamour, she had enough glamour. She didn’t need the high society, because she had… Whenever she wanted to go, she was welcome. People were laying their fur coats on their feet. She could have all that luxury, except for this emotional and really physical relationship that Onassis provided.

But he was the first man that gave her that, she told me. Absolutely, I met his mercy because… It’s like a virgin who’s suddenly, you know, she goes to that incredible planet of revelations, of physical life. But she wanted to work. There’s no profession, perhaps like music or singing, where you really have to work every day, 12 hours a day, a singer has to practice.

So it becomes a mental habit that you have to work. So she got bored with all this cafe society. Nonsense and began to think back of singing again. And we found her right in that moment in 63 in Paris, that she held my hand as we came down the big staircase. She said, We’ve got to work again together. Then, finally, with David, not only one thing, but a double bill.

It was, the idea was Tosca and Covington and Norma in Paris and switched them. When she came down from the old dressing, standing, stowed, and she was in this incredibly pale pink chiffon with the white lace hanging from her head. And it was somehow everything that you’d always thought Tosca should be and never had been.

There was no funny bonnet and a lot of old velvet, something rather heavy and stick and all that rubbish. And she was absolutely vulnerable. My heart leapt. You know, it sounds silly, but it did. I just went, this is it. I remember Maria calling me in the morning sometimes. Tito, I’m sorry, but I am not 100% okay today.

I don’t feel very well, and I’m a little bit occupied. I have to change. Please be ready to follow me, because I’m sure I will change everything on stage, move in the other direction. Then she was there near the table, and I was singing near my little desk. And she bent a little too much against the… Real Candle and her beautiful wig with all the curl went in fire.

I’m short-sighted, too, but I saw fortunately some little smoke because she was against the light, little smoke coming up from her wig. She didn’t move. Then I walked toward her, always singing. It was a duetto. And when I, I came close to her and I realized that it was just beginning to get fire here, the smoke, and maybe three seconds, four seconds later, it was something terrible.

So I went there, I put my hand on the wig, like Scorpio, trying to touch Tosca, and she slipped out of my hand. With a sense of disgust that Scorpio tried to put the hand on her. And she turned. Keeping singing, and then she turned to me and said, Grazie, Tito. But she was waiting for me there. Scarpia is a man of shouts.

I’m a monster, I’m Hitler, I’m Goebbels. But in the end, he had a real deep wound to heal, and it never healed. The fact that he could not be loved. A night with Scarpia could be, for a woman, a little more exciting than the usual routine with the beautiful Roman stud. And little by little, I was conveying to her the idea that Scarpia was a bit like Onassis.

I suddenly found myself a little short from saying, it’s a kind of a risto, you know, kind of… I didn’t say that, but she read my mind and she understood where her Scarpia was. So the whole idea that when she kills him, she kills her… The possibility of loving. What do you think? She’s all going to be very sexy and all of that.

And she prepares herself. For this outrageous but very attractive experience. And while she drinks a glass of water to comfort her, she sees the blade sparkling, the blade of the knife on the table. She remains absolutely transfixed, looking at this blade for what seemed to be a century. And when he arrives to kiss her, she grabs the…

The blade and the knife and kills. One stroke, right at the heart. That was the leading idea of hysterical, I mean, eruption of killing. I have to kill this man on asses. The success of these Oscars led Maria to accept two performances of the same role and be met. She returned to New York in triumph and was met at Kennedy Airport by cheering and adoring fans.

The lines for standing room tickets formed four days before they went on sale. Over 1,000 people slept outside the Met box office. Only for her would I do this. Nobody else. What’s so great about her? She’s the only star in Opera Today who had, you know, real glamour. She’s a real star in every sense of the word.

She’s a great actor. She’s a great singer. She’s a fabulous personality, you know. I think it’s a shame that she hasn’t been here, and now that she has agreed to come back, I think to miss her would be really a crime. This woman is undoubtedly the greatest singer of this century. The problem… Collis faced during her years with Onasis was a loss of identity, which was tantamount to a loss of her voice. Although Maria the woman was blooming, Collis the artist was really fighting for her life. And gradually, this wonderful machinery she had built up to produce what she did was coming apart. On

top of this, so many old nightmares returned to plague her. In particular her greatly unjustified reputation for cancellations like the infamous Rome walkout, or her being fired from the Metropolitan Opera. What happened in all this? Was that a sort of, you might say, schizophrenia? Set in, went out of control, and Callas versus Maria became a raging interior battle.

It even led to an abortion of a child by Onassis and an attempted suicide. No jewels, nothing. Maria was treated like a poor servant in his own. Of course she had. She paid all the bills herself. Her dream, the dream of a poor Greek child, the very moment that her career was declining, to step out a la Grande by marrying the richest man on earth, who happened to be also Greek.

Actually, she was. She found herself in a little trouble and that’s why she came back recording to get some money from royalties because she needed them. The only thing is invest invested her money. She bought half a boat with him, imagine cargo boat, which is sank. But he after used and use a squeeze the juice out of Maria.

He just dumped her is.

She was absolutely devastated because she had put all her trust in this man and she adored him. And and she really… Desperately wanted to be his wife. And she couldn’t understand how someone could deceive her like that. I mean, this is something that she never got over. She was never nasty about Jackie Kennedy.

Never. She just said that she had never met her and she did not know her. She couldn’t judge her. But she was furious with Onassis and really blamed him. She said, I cannot understand how, after so many years together. And after declaring his love and knowing that I loved him as much as I did, that he should do this to me.

And that he deceived me, that he let me think until the very end that he was going to be with me. And that’s something that I think hurt her enormously, more than she could ever express. Oh, Oh, The

antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske, the antiske. Interested him. I think he married Jacqueline Kennedy to annoy Maria Callas. After his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy, I think he married her primarily to annoy Maria Callas.

I remember she used to phone me in the middle of the night. She slept badly. And once, she said, What am I going to do? He is there again, outside the door. It was Onassis. He’s shouting at me through the window. Maria, open the door, or I’ll drive the rolls straight through it. Maria, open the door, or I’ll drive the rolls straight through it.

She was letting herself die, little by little. You see, even when he was on his honeymoon in London. Onassis would call her on the phone every morning, so she began hoping again. When he got ill, for example, it was she who went to visit him in the hospital, so as long as she was hoping to get him back, she had a reason to go on living.

An awful sadness about her, that she, she it was. There was something not right, you know, she was doing it all, and she was behaving impeccably and she was sitting there. But there was, I don’t know, there was something terribly wrong somewhere. And I think that, unlike some singers I know who escape into a character.

She used to work herself into the character, she used to work it all out and then become that. But I don’t think that she was ever lucky enough. The way I, I know lots of people who can actually become a character like that. Totally forget themselves, and I’m not sure that she was ever able to forget that sadness.

Hello, this is the special Encyclopedia of the World. Today, I will be talking about the history of the African American people in the Middle East and the African American people in the Middle East. I will be talking about the Hello.

She wanted everything to be perfection for those she loved. And she was that way about all her women, woman friends or her girlfriends, particularly the younger ones. She was always very worried about their love life and what was going to happen. And the telephone conversations when she called me from Paris, it was always, first of all, are you asleep? Well, of course, I always was.

It was three o’clock in the morning or two. The second question was, How was Mr. X, Who was in my life at the time? And the third mention was, I think you ought to get rid of him. I don’t like him at all. I mean, he’s no good. Get somebody else. It’s useless to try! If you want to talk to me, you can do it, but without any other reason! What have you done? What have you done? You, too, are very stupid like me now! As long as I don’t die, I don’t want to bury my children! Your own God will condemn you! Enough! Yes, I will!

Let me bury the children and cry! You? Come back soon to bury the dead! Yes, I will go! I will go! But only with my two children! It’s useless! It’s useless! Nothing is possible now! After her break with Onassis, Kallus desperately needed an identity, as much as Maria the woman needed an identity. But she was afraid.

You see, she had always sung for the approval of others, actually, and on the support of others. There was first her mother, then there was Minnighini, and after Onassis, there was no one. She was afraid to get back on the stage with her voice and the condition it was in, so she tried diversionary careers, you might say.

First, a film with Pasolini on Medea, then directing an opera production in Turin, and finally teaching at Juilliard. None of these really gave her any real satisfaction or this much needed identity. The only thing left to her was to try singing again. And the support she found there was with DiStefano. It was all really part of a game. She was playing with Onassis to show him that she wasn’t beaten.

With DiStefano, she had a new man in her life. And with her concerts with him, she was back before the public. The tragedy, this Greek tragedy, again. Was that? Both were a sham. They were a lie, and she knew it. And it was ultimately this lie that really destroyed her. Throughout my whole life, I always thought I should never sing because I was never good and all that.

I’m the first terrible critic of myself. But I’ve really never said I will not be singing again. I said that to myself 10,000 times. But I’ve really never officially declared that I would not sing anymore anymore. I’ve created some bad habits. As a matter of fact, I think that on the whole, I have improved. I had acquired a sort of a, as they called it, a wobble on the high notes, which is a pulsation, and I managed to improve that.

Now, during the concerts, I will improve even more the whole status of the voice, because there’s nothing like the stage that can make you work properly. I can understand why, emotionally, she needed the tour. She had not sung since 1965, her last performance was at Covent Garden as Tosca. And she longed to feel that she was still loved, that she was still respected.

And Giuseppe Di Stefano needed also that tour, I believe, and it was not really, it would never have happened without him. Because she simply did not have the confidence to do it on her own. It was an artistic disaster. Nobody can claim otherwise. The first concert that was meant to be given at the festival Hall was cancelled.

You’re implying that she was frightened and that Mr. Di Cefalo… Yes, of course. She was frightened. … Dissuaded her, almost against her will. On the question of the artistic value of the tour, let me quote one English critic who described Callister’s voice as a strained horse shadow of her former voice.

His reaction was… We only talk about the critics. He’s a member of the public. She was the… He’s a member of the public. She never was so beautiful. The the public was enthusiastic. But what was her voice like? She made a lot of money when she still didn’t have the boat, the ship, you know, the cargo, making money.

Did you see her face? But I mean, I didn’t do all this. Did you see her face during that interview when she was trying to prove that she was improving? Her face was in such pain because she knew. Did you not think that she was in distress during the tour, that she was unhappy with her musical performance? That’s really the essence of it, isn’t it? Well, it’s a tragedy.

Was she happy to be back? That’s the point, isn’t it? Of course, she was happy. I got letters. This letter is the most beautiful thing because she’s, what better, after having everything in opera and in the social life, to be back to singing? And I said, last night I could not sleep. Wait a minute. I could not sleep.

And he said, Finally, I had the courage to listen to the tape of last night. Boy, what a progress. I’m so happy. I don’t read the criticisms because, you see, I know exactly what I do before anybody tells me. So I don’t want to read them and this way disturb my peace of mind and my nerves. So I feel that if I don’t read criticisms, it’s better.

Naturally, the voice is not what it used to be 20 years ago. Nobody pretends that. It’s natural. The audience knows that. I know it. They can’t just applaud the legend if you don’t give them something to… And after all, what is the legend the public made me? What is a legend? I think I’m a very human human being. If I wasn’t human, I probably would have sung better.

She did see herself as Maria, and there was this other being that was Kalas, and she talked about Kalas as L.a. Kalas. She spoke of this other part of herself. And there was Maria, who was a very charming, sometimes difficult, sometimes infuriating, sometimes coy, lovable, wonderful friend. And then there was Callas, who was the woman who was on stage, who was the artist.

And I remember, for instance, her listening to records, her own voice, when we were in Greece on an island. And she. At the end of the record, she looked very sad, very pensive, and she said Carlos will never sing that way again. At the end of her life, she became more and more of a recluse.

Many of her friends deserted, and those who did not kept their distance. It also became increasingly difficult to see her. You’d have to phone five times before you got through, And her maid would say, Madame is in the bath, or Madame is at the hairdressers, or Madame is having a manicure. And even when you got her at the fifth attempt, it would then prove difficult to find a time that suited both of us.

So, eventually, I’m afraid, one just didn’t bother. And I know one evening I had to leave her after about an hour, so I was going to hear something of a Paris opera. But Maria said, you can’t go. So I said, look, I’m terribly sorry, but I promise one or two that I will go. Well, who’s singing? So I told her, well, I’m going to waste your time going to listen to it.

Those and who’s going to go well, I mean, I’ve seen more of a waste of time. And she was determined to try and prevent me from getting out of the flat. And she wanted me to say I’d talk and have supper with her, and I mean, just talk to her. And you see, this loneliness was was really, quite, quite terrifying. Maria Carlos, through her life, showed that you can be the most successful person in your field.

But still, the most important thing is love, passion. So every woman who is a passionate woman feels sympathy for this, Maria, for Maria Carvas, because they realized that all this success means very little. Most important thing is love. After such immense success, she was crying. She said, ah, I was horrible, I was awful, I was no good.

The kind of artist who was never happy. People, they cannot open, and they suffer. Then they don’t want to show it, and they take pills. These pills, they were damaging the brain. She was taking three pills. Then later, she forgot she took three pills, and she took another three. She was falling on the floor like a…

She didn’t want to fight anymore. She was going to take these sleeping pills and waiting for death. The first word, when I met in 72, she said, caro Pippo, ogni giorno, per fortuna, un giorno di meno. Every day, thank God, is one day less. Thank you.

Thank you. She was a very, very tormented person. I mean, she was never, ever relaxed. One day she told me that what made her probably a great actress that she was, she was trying to keep an equilibrium between half of the brain completely lucid and half of the brain completely gone. And she died around

1.30 or 2 in the afternoon. I was there before 4. She was already on a death’s bath, very, very beautiful. Part of the face was slightly blue, which, by medical advice, is normal in such a heart condition failure. I had arranged her in such a beautiful way, dressed her in a very, very simple way. And she has a wonderful tress on the side.

And she was so beautiful and so magical that I understand the myth there again. I really began to cry like a child. I seldom cry that much. I really couldn’t stop. There was so much… I also regret because I realized that we had abandoned her. Perhaps if we had devoted more time as friends, instead of taking for granted that she should resolve her problems by herself, I realized that we had been unfair.

Perhaps if we had been more close to this woman, give her a sense of life around her, she wouldn’t have died. That was my deep, deep regret. I felt very guilty. In life, when you talk, you’re all dressed up, you know? You’re ready to meet people, to talk, but when you are on stage, as you say, you are nude. You have to open your soul, your people through your singing, get to know how you are made.

When you are born for something, you don’t worry about it. You even start to hate it. That’s why some artists cannot last forever. Because they get bored. Every night you have to repeat the same thing. You want to live, you want to enjoy life, you want to know. And a woman like Alice, she was born, she was more of, as I said before, a woman, a woman, a woman, A woman with a voice, but not a voice with a woman.

So her life was love, success as a woman. This was the fight that she lost. Thank you,

thank you.