Maria Callas | Artist
Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos "Callas" was an American-Greek soprano born 1923 in New York City. She was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century, and her popularity continues to the present day. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina "The Divine One". Raised in Astoria, Queens, to Greek immigrant parents, she was raised by her overbearing mother Litsa who had wanted a son. In 1937 as her parents' marriage deteriorated, Litsa returned to Athens with her two daughters. Maria received her musical education in Greece at age 13 and later established her career in Italy. Her vocal coach described her as a model student: "Fanatical, uncompromising, dedicated to her studies heart and soul. Her progress was phenomenal. She studied five or six hours a day. Within six months, she was singing the most difficult arias in the international opera repertoire with the utmost musicality". However Callas was also forced to deal with the privations of 1940s wartime poverty and with near-sightedness that left her nearly blind on stage. Throughout her career she endured struggles and scandal in her personal and professional life. She underwent a mid-career weight loss, which contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career. The well publicised enmity with her mother and constant harassment by papparazi, gave rise to the myth of Callas as a temperamental prima donna. By 1951, Callas had sung at all the major theatres in Italy except its most prestigious, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, due to a feud with General Manager, Antonio Ghiringhelli. She eventually debuted at La Scala in Verdi's I vespri siciliani in December 1951, and this theatre became her artistic home throughout the 1950s. La Scala mounted many new productions specially for Callas by directors including Herbert von Karajan, Margherita Wallmann, Franco Zeffirelli and, most importantly, Luchino Visconti. Visconti stated that he began directing opera only because of Callas. In 1952 she made her London debut at the Royal Opera House in Norma, a performance which survives on record and also features the young Joan Sutherland in a small role. Callas and the London public had what she called "a love affair" and she returned to the Royal Opera House in 1953, 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1964 to 1965. It was there on July 5, 1965, where Callas ended her stage career in the role of Tosca, in a production designed and mounted by Franco Zeffirelli and featuring her friend Tito Gobbi. Callas's repertoire included major roles in 49 fully staged opera productions, ranging from Arthur Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore, through to Richard Wagner's Die Walküre. On record, she left a vast catalogue of recordings together with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, many of which have become the benchmark for the particular work. A small selection of standout recordings includes La Traviatta w/Giulini (1955), Norma w/Gui (1961), Tosca w/Sabata (1953), and Lucia di Lammermoor w/von Karajan (1956). Other recommendations include the compilations La Davina (1992), La Davina Complete (1995), and From Studio to Screen (2023). Also, you could invest in the 69xCD Boxed Set The Complete Studio Recordings (1949-1969) (2007). Callas's most distinguishing quality was her ability to breathe life into the characters she portrayed. Italian critic Eugenio Gara wrote of Callas: "Her secret is in her ability to transfer to the musical plane the suffering of the character she plays, the nostalgic longing for lost happiness, the anxious fluctuation between hope and despair, between pride and supplication, between irony and generosity, which in the end dissolve into a superhuman inner pain." The press exulted in publicizing Callas's temperamental behavior, including her love affair with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. Although her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist, her artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein called her "the Bible of opera", and her influence so enduring that, in 2006, Opera News wrote: "Nearly thirty years after her death, she's still the definition of the diva as artist—and still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists." Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris and died of a heart attack at age 53 on September 16, 1977.
Artist Website: wikipedia/Maria_Callas
Featured Albums: Maria Callas
Related Artists: Bellini, Verdi, Donizetti, Puccini
