The Creative Act

When I die I want to come back as Grace Kelly…I admire her … she was a talented actress who won an Oscar ,then romance and the wedding of the century with a prince, Rainier III…Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco,the jewel of her kingdom…she had everything that I did not ,a loving husband, his pride and joy,a happy family with beautiful children… I envy her.We met  many times when Ari and Prince Rainier were still in speaking terms and we became fast friends,I really loved her,we  had many things in common,we were ambitious,wanted a career,two working girls from America , full of hope and Grace ended up with everything.She had everything,beauty,talent and the world at her feet.

When I lost my voice I wanted to die, I was thirty seven…I would not sing Violetta again,I suffered so much for her,I lost weight to be her ,I fought with opera managers,directors,conductors to be her,to be a courtisane, la belle du bal,to wear those gorgeous fin de siecle gowns,… I shall never be, act,play,sing Violetta the way I wanted,the way Verdi wrote it.Every soprano dreams of her…giving up a role is like loosing a child,a part of yourself dies.Violetta was my first love…

This sequence is from Jane Eyre.I like it very much and thinks it will fit here. Onassis died in 1975.After his death it is said that Callas lost her will to live. She died two years later, at age 53.Bruna is Maria’s faithful maid.

” Bruna ,I feel so astonished…I hardly know what to say . I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a doze, that Ari  has come in and sat down beside me, and that I have even heard him call me by my name, Maria, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is actually true that Ari has come back? Don’t laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and said that in a month I would be his wife.Bruna tell me …did you see him, did you hear what he said to me ?…

In Verona where Romeo and Juliet lived,loved and died ,I met my future husband and Maestro Serafin who shaped my career and a very charismatic  man.I fell hopelessly in love  with him,he was everything any girl…he had everything…old money,titles,mansions and castles ,charm and sex-appeal …he was  unique, irresistible…”Allez,venez Milor…”,anytime I listen to Piaf ’s song,I think of him. We had two things in common,we both loved opera and were born the same year.We were twenty-four that year.He was friendly,said he  loved my voice, seemed to like  the singer but was not  interested in the woman. There and then I made up my mind to loose weight, to become  slim,beautiful , to deserve his love,it would take  seven years to reach my goal,but the decision was implanted in my mind the very moment we met .It was Lord Harewood,Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin.

Just before my debut at the MET,Time ran a cover story about me,and my love-hate relationship with Mother.It did not help,the audience treated me coldly,the girl from the Bronx mistreating her own mom.After Callas the Tigress,I was now Callas the UNGRATEFUL daughter . › Continue reading

Scandals are part of la Callas’s folklore . There were quite a few,the press usually have a vivid imagination, but the reality was much worse.

After my final performance of Madama Butterfly in Chicago, I was confronted  in front of my dressing room  by a process server who handed me some papers, forcing the writ into my kimono.It was a lawsuit brought by Eddie Bagarozy,who claimed that he was my agent and I owed him money,thousands and thousands of dollars. › Continue reading

I Puritani and my road to bel canto …

Venice,one of  the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world ,was the turning point of  my career.I was to sing Brünnhilde in Die Walküre at la Fenice.There was a flu epidemic and Margherita Carosio fell ill.Maestro Serafin could not find a substitute and ordered me to take over in six days;I protested that I did not know the role,and also had three more Brünnhildes to sing,he told me “I guarantee that you can”.And I did it ,and it changed the course of my career and the history of opera.

After the first night, even the most skeptical critics had to acknowledge the miracle,my  tour de force…” the flexibility of her limpid, beautifully poised voice, and the splendid high notes… Her interpretation has a humanity, warmth, and expressiveness that one would search for in vain in the fragility and coldness of other Elviras.”

Some idiot, a critic and a friend of  la Carosio said that the reason I was so good was that I was crazy,demented myself.After all Elvira is rather fragile ,a woman in love who looses her mind on and off in the course of the opera.

Whatever he said I felt ready for other demented heroines, women who die for love…I wanted to sing,sing,sing… Lucia,Armida,Medea,Anna Bolena,Violetta…I want to sing them  all and  sang them all.

Later on ,Michael Scott  wrote that”the notion of any one singer embracing music as divergent in its vocal demands as Wagner’s Brünnhilde and Bellini’s Elvira in the same career would have been cause enough for surprise; but to attempt to essay them both in the same season seemed like folie de grandeur”.That night I challenged the world of music and set new frontiers.Apres moi le deluge.

Franco, my dear  friend ,the very talented Mr.Zeffirelli, said that what I did in Venice was really incredible.People need to be familiar with opera to realize the enormity of my achievement.It was as if someone asked Birgit Nilsson,famous for her great Wagnerian voice,to substitute overnight for Beverly Sills,one of the great coloratura sopranos of our time.”
In other words it was like an athlete winning the 100  meters freestyle in the swimming pool and a few days later the marathon at the Olympics

Titta and I collected all those glorious comments,after two years of living together I  still could not get pregnant, and we  resigned ourselves that my career is going to be our baby.

I have always been controversial,my voice,my acting,my life.Whatever I do I get criticized…my voice is ugly,well…some people have beauty,others have talent,genius.

They hated me, so they hated my voice… I was fat ,very fat, dead broke when I first started in Verona. I was non-italian singing in Italy, and afterI met Titta became uncompromising so they hated me even more.Others said that I was the voice of the century,incomparable ,a voice that thrilled and inspired them.

When I was at the top of my career,some critics wrote that the timbre of my voice,its sound,was ugly…  I honestly believe that part of its uniqueness was due to that ugliness.It may lack velvet and beauty of tone, but I could acquire different colours and timbres ,I could change its timbre ,the vocal colour at will and according to the role, give each heroine her own  personality.Queen Anne Boleyn does not have the same voice as Violetta,the courtesane or Norma the High Priestess …And Violetta should not have have the same voice in the first act and in the final act when she is dying.That would be ridiculous.

To all of you who hate my voice , I want you to read this…

Walter Legge ,Elizabeth Schwarzkopf ’s husband , possibly the greatest interpreter of Schubert’s leider of our  time, wrote that I had ” that most essential ingredient for a great singer: an instantly recognizable voice”.I loved  him for that and loved it even better when his wife  said she will never sing La Traviata again after one of  my performances….”What is the point of singing  it when another artist  has done it to perfection “Thank you,darling…

Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini ,who conducted  many of my operas,thus described my voice:

It is very difficult to describe Callas’s voice. It is a very special instrument.The same thing happens with string instruments—violin, viola, cello—the first moment you listen,you have to get used to it and when you are used to its sound,it acquired a magical quality.

He was so right,I have always thought of myself as the first instrument of the orchestra

they looked up together. the sky seemed bigger now somehow, especially the clouds. especially compared to the hill under them.
he had his arm around her and she felt good against him, but he was looking too far up, and starting to lose his balance.
the sky was full of clouds, the fluffy kind, not the whispy dream ones. the kind of cloud that looks like whatever you want it to. the kind of cloud that you could dance on if you could only jump high enough.
there was one especially, a dark brooding one, that he couldn’t help looking at. it reminded him of a person, it was a grumpy cloud.

eventually it got cold and they walked home, his goose was all aflesh and so was her’s. he offered her his coat but it was thin, and didn’t really protect anything from the world.

when they got home he tried to write her a poem. he wanted to tell her how beautiful it had been on the hill. he wanted to tell her about what it was like to feel her prickled flesh in his hand. he wanted to tell her that she was more beautiful than he ever could have imagined anything to be.
but his poem was all about the cloud. the big one. the grumpy one.

I have written in the past about the other woman in the life of Maria Callas, here are some additions,corrections…

She was young,pretty,and at 31 entered the White House.I give her the credit,she worked hard and well,and quickly became the most popular First Lady in American history.She gave her all,in  three years she achieved more than any other in four or eight.Her elegance,class, her love of the arts inspired her fellow Americans.She decorated and redecorated The White House and it became the Louvre of American history and a mini Palace for the First Family.

The press criticized her expensive tastes but the Americans loved her and made her their idol.They forgave her obsession with French designers, for the wore her Chanel suits and Givenchy gowns with such elegance and grace that nothing else matters.Though she asked for more privacy she loved being in the limelight,giving interviews and being photographed.Her role was only “to take care of the President and his children,I am his wife not his secretary, and if I bungle raising our children,I don’t think whatever else I do well matters very much”.

Her social events brought splendour,magic to the White House,inviting some of the most famous artists of the time to perform at her soirees,Pablo Casals,Margot Fonteyn and Nureyev, among others.She invited them all,” the best and the brightest “,  the American Nobel Laureates , the greatest talent in the arts,singers,dancers,actors ,the thinkers and the  rich and the famous, the most influential politicians,diplomats,and statesmen of the day, altogether.Glorious Mix and Match that sparkled her evenings.The Americans were dizzy watching her,she was smart, and she knew it.