She Died Of A Broekn Heart But Still Lives On

[PeterRS]

Outside the world of pop, I cannot think of any artist/musician whose recordings continue to sell better year after year even 50 years after his/her death. I guess Frank SInatra must be up there somewhere but then he's only been gone for 25 years or so. In the classical sphere, Pavarotti will surely be up there for many years to come, but again it's only been 16 years since his death.

The one who proves us wrong died 50 years ago this coming Saturday. Since then the recordings of soprano Maria Callas continue to outsell those of any other EMI artist before and since. Extraordinary, the more so when you realise she was only 53 when she died  and had spent many of her earlier years away from singing. Yet there is something about that voice that results in her continuing appeal. That she was a consummate stage actor in addition to being one of the most in-demand opera singers of her time hardly matters today since there are now very few alive who actually saw her in her prime. Perhaps part of the reason is that through her voice she became the characters she was portraying. In essence she was The Diva.

We tend to think of her as Greek; yet she was actually born in New York to Greek immigrant parents. Her mother lavished little attention on her as she had been desperate for a son. Then she realised her daughter was a decent singer and around the age of five pushed her to lessons despite Maria having little interest. With a deteriorating marriage, Maria's mother took her to Greece aged 13. According to both her later husband and her soon-to-become good friend, the famed mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato, during WWII her mother forced her to go out with various men. Both denied she had ever become a prostitute but the experience haunted her throughout much of her life. Soon Callas ceased all communication with her mother.

In Athens she was not permitted to enter the Music Conservatoire. So she took private lessons. Eventually she moved to Italy where one of the great conductors of the day took her under his wing. But she started her main career singing a variety of roles that no soprano would even consider today. The great, heavy dramatic roles of Wagner's Brunnhilde and isolde were interspersed with the high, far lighter soprano and often coloratura roles in La Traviata and Lucia di Lammermoor. Soon the doors to the great opera houses of the world were opened for her, mostly in her new bel canto repertoire.

Desperate for love in what had till then been very much a loveless life, in 1949 she married the industrialist Giovanni Meneghini. He was soon managing much of her career, but she remained unhappy. She had always been overweight and around 1953 decided that for the roles she was then singing she needed to be much slimmer. So she lost 37 kgs. Some thought this dramatic weight loss must have affected her voice for it is from the diaphragm that the voice is produced and must be supported. But there is no doubt that the 'new' Callas looked one of the most beautiful in the opera firmament. Wherever she went she was front-page news, not only for the magnificence of her performances but also not a few scandals.

It was in 1957 that an event occurred which totally changed her life and career forever. Although still married to Meneghini, at a society party in New York she was introduced to the Greek Shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, one of the world's richest men. Although he was 19 years older, this was to lead to an intense affair that brought even more headline attention. That the two were in love is certain. But whether Onassis loved Callas as much as she loved him is still a matter of debate. It certainly became the most talked about affair of the decade, the more so as both still remained married. In 1966 Maria renounced her US citizenship to facilitate the end of her relationship with Meneghini, certain that she would soon be marrying Onassis, even though aware that Onassis was compulsively unfaithful.

But three bullets in Dallas were to put an end to those dreams, even though both were soon single again. After the assassination of JFK, Onassis discovered an even more valuable prize. Although arguably a man with ugly features, he exuded immense charm in addition to his immense wealth. He saw in Kennedy's widow a wife who could open so many doors for him. She saw in him the degee of wealth necessary to take her out of the papparazi limelight and protect her and her children. It was a marriage that rocked the world. For Maria it was a devastating blow from which she would never recover. She had already given up so much to be Onassis' other half. Now that he was gone, she went into a state of desperate depression. She had all but given up performances on the opera stage. Eventually she took part in two world tour recitals, the critics lamenting at how the once glorious voice was frayed and a travesty of what it had once been.

Onassis was an ill man. He entered hospital in Paris in early 1975. The relationship with Jackie was by now virtually at an end. His one visitor was the woman he had scorned: Maria Callas. He had taken with him to the hospital Maria's final gift to him: a red cashmere Hermes blanket. Although she was not with him when he died in March that year, thereafter she became a virtual recluse, stayiing in her own Paris apartment and rarely moving outside. She died of a heart attack just two years later at the ae of 53. Many believed she had in fact died of a broken heart.

There are dozens of recordings of Callas in her prime. There is also the superb black-and-white video of Act 2 from Zeffirelli's production of Puccini's Tosca at the Royal Opera House with the excellent Tito Gobbi as Baron Scarpia. Here Scarpia attempts to persuade Tosca to sleep wth him in return for letting her lover out of prison. She agrees but after obtaining the release papers, she kills him. There are also books galore about her life. Two worth mentioning are Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis by Nicholas Cage is well worth a read for the insight it brings to that strange relationship; and Maria Callas: The Woman Behind The Legend by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington who was also Greek by birth is another riveting story.