The Creative Act

 I refused to sail for my South American tour without a ring, so we were married on 21 april 1949…I wish I had shown the same determination with Ari ten years later…in the small church of Chiesa del Filippini in Verona I became his wife,and the happiest woman on earth.I loved him, I really loved him and he loved me.We were happy.I did  not think anyone in the world could be happier.My career was in high gear, I met a man I loved and he will love me and protect me for the rest of my life, and was the protegee of the greatest living director.No one in his family showed up for the wedding,only his sister Pia, the other witnesses were Serafin and his wife and Pomari from the Agency.That was all.I sent a telegram to my parents in New York ,Siamo Sposati e Felici.On 22 april I boarded the American liner SS Argentina for Buenos Aires, for a two week sea voyage.I spent our honeymoon alone,lonely,seasick and in tears.

In Verona,I met a wealthy,successful businessman  twenty nine years older than I was,and we began dating.He was single,hard working , did not  have many interests except his work and opera. His universe was Verona and Venice,I don’t think he had been anywherere and nor wanted to.He loved his city and showed me around,the old churches,their graveyards , the pallazzos and piazzas and the  houses of Romeo and Juliet.Like everyone I thought that they  existed only in Shakespeare’s imagination.They were real , had lived and loved and died in that romantic city.The year was 1947 and there still was a shortage of gas so we walked and walked.I felt like Juliet and he was my Romeo.Titta was the first man who had ever showed a romantic interest in me and I fell in love.I was desperate,it was him or death.After Gioconda, no theatre manager wanted me,I was too fat,dressed like a gypsy,not Italian,my voice was too metallic,altogether a repulsive combination.I was unwanted,and they made me feel it.

 However destiny was waiting for me,for  Titta’s love and support  saved me, gave me the time to establish myself .There was de Hidalgo,and there will be Serafin and Visconti, but without Meneghini there would not have been a Callas.I had no money,was dead broke, had no work nor hope of work,nowhere to go,no friends or relatives in  after- war Italy.Because he loved me ,the way I was, fat,obese,poor, rejected by everyone,and believed in me that I became who I am.He paid for my food,hotel room and private coaching,without him I would not have survived.He did not take advantage of me, he supported me out of pity,from the goodness of his heart.And we became lovers because I wanted it,not because he forced me.

We  married in 1949, and Titta became my Manager until 1959,the year we separated.For ten years I was Maria Meneghini Callas,and proud of it.

APRIL 1968 …

– I love you but I need Jackie, I hope to marry her one day ,soon…

The beast told me that, he knew that I was at his beck and call…why do we love men that destroy us…Jackie will open the doors for the beast,hoped that she will do for him what she did for John when she was First Lady,bring prestige and class to his business,Bobby Kennedy will be the next President and he will be the brother-in-law,imagine !…the bastard had it all planned…Seduite And Abandonnee,that is what I am, like in the movie.

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.

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 ?…

After La Gioconda,I was without work,so Titta and I were quite worried.One sunday night Maestro Serafin,looking for someone to sing Tristan und Isolde,dropped on us.I was so desperate that I told him that I  knew the score, having studied it in Athens.I sight-read the  second act ,he loved it and  praised me , however I could not lie for long to such an eminent man,so I admitted my lie,he forgave  and immediately offered to coach me. From that day he became my mentor and protector.He taught me everything, that  in music there must be  expression, there must be  justification  in every single note.He taught me the depth,the universe of music.I really,really drank all I could from the man “.I would not have become la Callas without him,or would have been  a much  lesser Callas.Meeting him and working with him was really the second lucky break in my career.

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

When I lost my voice I wanted to die.I would never be Violetta again,I suffered so much for her,I lost weight for her,I fought with opera managers,directors,conductors to wear those gorgeous fin de siecle gowns,to be a courtisane, la belle du bal… I shall never be, act,play,sing Violetta the way I wanted,the way Verdi wanted it.Every soprano dreams of the divine music of Verdi.Violetta was my first love,Norma my great one.I lost weight for Violetta and for Medea,to do justice to a courtisane and a Princess.With Norma I could get away with body fat.Now it’s all over.