Maria Callas
Maria Callas, a world-renowned coloratura soprano of the 20th Century, led a life of tragedy, passion, drama. Her vigorous performances on stage as an opera singer massively entertained her audiences and gradually would become a sensation to them as well.
Born in America in 1923 to Greek Immigrants, her childhood was already conflicted and signalized by her aloof mother which placed all of her frustrations to her children. Callas always felt lacking love and attention from her mother and low self-esteem compared to her sister’s beauty and extroverted personality.
At age 5, Maria’s mom discovered she had a wonderful voice so since then she decided to make Callas practice exhaustively almost every day. She was not able to enjoy a normal childhood and her low self-esteem made her terrified of public presentations which her mother made her do.
With time she learned, that there was a way she could get noticed and compete with her sister, and that was becoming a great artist.
Calla’s parents got divorced, and with the separation, they moved back with her mother’s family in Greece, where Calla’s mom was determined to launch her into what would be the start of her artistic career. Callas had no choice but to comply with her mother’s demands and humiliations. They soon discovered it would not be easy, they struggled through the hardships of World War II and afterward through the Greek civil war.
Callas was able to obtain a prestigious position in the Athens Conservatory, after auditions and schooling, she became close to the famous Spanish Soprano Elvira Hidalgo, who would boost her career.
She traveled to New York to live with her father, George, and in pursuit of greener pastures. However, she did not find immediate success.
Her ambition and character led her to Verona where she met Giovanni Meneghini, a wealthy industrialist. While at Verona Arena, Callas’s performed her Italian Opera debut La Gioconda in 1947. She eventually got married to Giovanni in 1949. Despite her ever-growing fame for her electrical voice that endeared audiences to her performances, she was known to many as being temperamental hence being nicknamed ‘The Tigress’ after engaging in a confrontation with a soprano in Milan.
During the 1950s, she was equated to the legendary Enrico Caruso for being the most successful recording artist of her time. In 1956, as part of her immense talent, she sang alongside the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Shortly after, the drama began to unravel. She was sacked for two years. She also separated from her Italian husband, Giovanni Meneghini after she had been rumored to have engaged in an extra-marital affair with a Greek millionaire, Aristotle Onassis whom she met in 1959. What to my opinion was the love of her life.
Tables turned on Callas’ stellar musical career when meeting Onassis. With her newfound relationship, she led an extravagant life engulfed by excesses, luxuries, and parties. She followed Onassis blindly. Despite Onassis keeping his wife and family, she had a baby with him that unfortunately lived for a couple of hours.
Her musical career began diminishing by the day. She began abdicating her performances on stage with ‘both her directors and the audience noting that her technique was flawed.’ It was also observed that she had increasingly become negligent to any of her tasks and therefore, people gradually turned their backs on her despite meeting Onassis when her career was at its peak.
Whereas Onassis and Callas were expected to marry after a 9-year love affair, the former got married to Jackie Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s widow, leaving Callas heartbroken. Onassis was a collector of famous people and his ambition always came before anything else in his life. It was known that Callas was his love, but Kennedy was the most famous woman, and recently widowed, it was a complete win for him.
It did not take long for Onassis to resume his relationship with Callas, it was known that they continued to see each other until his death.
Onassis’s death in 1975 was preceded by his son’s plane crash in 1973. He was in a coma at the hospital where Callas visited him while Jackie was skiing in Aspen. Two years later after his death, in 1977, Callas died alone in her Paris apartment, at the age of 54 of a heart attack surrounded by her memorabilia.
