Maria Callas

In this episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast, fall asleep learning about one of the most famous opera singers of all time, Maria Callas. Whether you are an opera enthusiast or not, her life was full of interesting events. Critics raved about her interpretation and care of the music. I hope it's not so interesting you can't sleep tonight. Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,

Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Bostor.

Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,

Maria Callas.

Maria Callas,

Commendatory OMRI,

December 2,

1923 to September 16,

1977,

Was an American-born Greek soprano.

She was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century.

Many critics praised her bel canto technique,

Wide-ranging voice,

And dramatic interpretations.

Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donazzetti,

Bellini,

And Rossini,

And further to the works of Verdi and Puccini.

And in her early career to the music dramas of Wagner.

Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina,

The Divine One.

Born in Manhattan to Greek immigrant parents,

She was raised by an overbearing mother who had wanted a son.

Maria received her musical education in Greece at age 13,

And later established her career in Italy.

Forced to deal with the exigencies of 1940s wartime poverty,

And with nearsightedness that left her nearly blind on stage,

She endured struggles and scandal over the course of her career.

She notably underwent a mid-career weight loss,

Which might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career.

The press exulted in publicizing Callas' temperamental behavior,

Her supposed rivalry with Renata Tobaldi,

And her love affair with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

Although her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist in the popular press,

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 of her,

".

.

.

Nearly 30 years after her death,

She is still the definition of the diva as artist,

And still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists.

" Early Life Family Life,

Childhood,

And Move to Greece The name in Callas' New York birth certificate is Sophie Cecilia Callos.

She was born at Flower Hospital,

Now the Terence Cardinal Cook Health Care Center,

1249 Fifth Avenue,

Manhattan,

On December 2,

1923,

To Greek parents,

George Callogoropoulos and Elmina Evangelia Litsa Nei Demes,

Originally Demetriado,

Although she was christened Maria Ana Cecilia Sofia Callogoropoulos.

Callas' father had shortened the surname Callogoropoulos first to Callos and subsequently to Callos to make it more manageable.

George and Litsa Callos were an ill-matched couple from the beginning.

George was easygoing and unambitious,

With no interest in the arts,

While Litsa was vivacious and socially ambitious and had dreamed of a life in the arts which her middle-class parents had stifled in her childhood and youth.

Litsa's father,

Petros Demetriades,

Was in failing health when Litsa introduced George to her family.

Petros,

Distrustful of George,

Had warned his daughter,

"'You will never be happy with him.

If you marry that man,

I will never be able to help you.

'" Litsa had ignored his warning but soon realized that her father was right.

The situation was aggravated by George's philandering and was improved neither by the birth of a daughter named Yaginza,

Later called Jackie,

In 1917,

Nor the birth of a son named Vasilis in 1920.

Vasilis's death from meningitis in the summer of 1922 dealt another blow to the marriage.

In 1923,

After realizing that Litsa was pregnant again,

George made the decision to move his family to the United States,

A decision which Yaginza recalled was greeted with Litsa shouting hysterically,

Followed by George slamming doors.

The family left for New York in July 1923,

Moving first into an apartment in the heavily ethnic Greek neighborhood of Astoria,

Queens.

Litsa was convinced that her third child would be a boy.

Her disappointment at the birth of another daughter was so great that she refused to even look at her new baby for four days.

Maria was christened three years later at the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in 1926.

When Maria was four,

George Callas opened his own pharmacy,

Settling the family in Manhattan on 192nd Street in Washington Heights,

Where Callas grew up.

Around the age of three,

Maria's musical talent began to manifest itself,

And after Litsa discovered that her youngest daughter also had a voice,

She began pressing Mary to sing.

Callas later recalled,

I was made to sing when I was only five,

And I hated it.

George was unhappy with his wife favoring their elder daughter,

As well as the pressure put upon young Mary to sing and perform,

While Litsa was in turn increasingly embittered with George and his absence and infidelity,

And often violently reviled him in front of their children.

The marriage continued to deteriorate,

And in 1937,

Litsa decided to return to Athens with her two daughters.

Relationship with Mother Callas's relationship with her mother continued to erode during the years in Greece,

And in the prime of her career,

It became a matter of great public interest,

Especially after a 1956 cover story in Time magazine,

Which focused on this relationship and later by Litsa's book,

My Daughter,

Maria Callas,

1960.

In public,

Callas blamed the strained relationship with Litsa on her unhappy childhood spent singing and working at her mother's insistence,

Saying,

My sister was slim and beautiful and friendly,

And my mother always preferred her.

I was the ugly duckling,

Fat and clumsy and unpopular.

It is a cruel thing to make a child feel ugly and unwanted.

I'll never forgive her for taking my childhood away.

During all the years I should have been playing and growing up,

I was singing or making money.

Everything I did for them was mostly good,

And everything they did to me was mostly bad.

In 1957,

She told Chicago radio host Norman Ross,

Jr.

,

There must be a law against forcing children to perform at an early age.

Children should have a wonderful childhood.

It should not be given too much responsibility.

Referred Nicola Spazzali Stiamadis asserts that Litsa's hateful treatment of George in front of their young children led to resentment and dislike on Callas' part.

According to both Callas' husband and her close friend,

Giulietta Simonato,

Callas related to them that her mother,

Who did not work,

Pressed her to go out with various men,

Mainly Italian and German soldiers,

To bring home money and food during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II.

Simonato was convinced that Callas managed to remain untouched,

But Callas never forgave her mother for what she perceived as a kind of prostitution forced by her mother.

Litsa herself,

Beginning in New York and continuing in Athens,

Had adopted a questionable lifestyle.

It included not only pushing her daughters into degrading situations to support her financially,

But also entertaining Italian and German soldiers herself during the Axis occupation.

In an attempt to patch things up with her mother,

Callas took Litsa along on her first visit to Mexico in 1950,

But this only reawakened the old frictions and resentments.

And after leaving Mexico,

The two never met again.

After a series of angry and accusatory letters from Litsa lambasting Callas' father and husband,

Callas ceased communication with her mother altogether.

Education Callas received her musical education in Athens.

Initially,

Her mother tried to enroll her at the prestigious Athens Conservatoire without success.

At the audition,

Her voice,

Still untrained,

Failed to impress,

While the conservatoire's director Philoktitis Soikounoumaidis refused to accept her without her satisfying the theoretic prerequisites.

In the summer of 1937,

Her mother visited Maria Trevella at the younger Greek National Conservatoire,

Asking her to take Mary,

As she was then called,

As a student for a modest fee.

In 1957,

Trevella recalled her impression of Mary,

A very plump young girl wearing big glasses for her myopia.

The tone of the voice was warm,

Lyrical,

Intense.

It swirled and flared like a flame and filled the air with melodious reverberations like a carillon.

It was by any standards an amazing phenomenon,

Or rather it was a great talent that needed control,

Technical training,

And strict discipline in order to shine with all its brilliance.

Trevella agreed to tutor Callas,

Completely waiving her tuition fees.

But no sooner had Callas started her formal lessons and vocal exercises than Trevella began to feel that Callas was not a contralto,

As she had been told,

But a dramatic soprano.

Subsequently,

They began working on raising the tessitura of her voice and to lighten its timbre.

Trevella recalled Callas as a model student,

Fanatical and compromising,

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.

On April 11,

1938,

In her public debut,

Callas ended the recital of Trevella's class at the Parnassos Music Hall with a duet from Tosca.

Callas recalled that Trevella had a French method which was placing the voice in the nose,

Rather nasal,

And I had the problem of not having low chest tones,

Which is essential in bel canto,

And that's where I learned my chest tones.

However,

When interviewed by Pierre de Grope on the French La Vitae de Manche,

Callas attributed the development of her chest voice not to Trevella,

But to her next teacher,

The Spanish coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo.

Callas studied with Trevella for two years before her mother secured another audition at the Athens Conservatoire with de Hidalgo.

Callas auditioned with Ocean,

Thou Mighty Monster,

From Weber's Oberon.

De Hidalgo recalled hearing tempestuous,

Extravagant cascades of sounds,

As yet uncontrolled but full of drama and emotion.

She agreed to take her as a pupil immediately,

But Callas's mother asked de Hidalgo to wait for a year,

As Callas would be graduating from the National Conservatoire and could begin working.

On April 2,

1939,

Callas undertook the part of Santutza in a student production of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana at the Greek National Opera at the Olympia Theater,

And in the fall of the same year she enrolled at the Athens Conservatoire in Elvira de Hidalgo's class.

In 1968,

Callas told Lord Harewood,

De Hidalgo had the real great training,

Maybe even the last real training of the real bel canto.

As a young girl,

Thirteen years old,

I was immediately thrown into her arms,

Meaning that I learned the secrets,

The ways of this bel canto,

Which of course,

As you well know,

Is not just beautiful saying.

It is a very hard training.

It is a sort of straight jacket that you're supposed to put on,

Whether you like it or not.

You have to learn to read,

To write,

To form your sentences,

How far you can go,

Fall,

Hurt yourself.

Put yourself back on your feet continuously.

De Hidalgo had one method,

Which was the real bel canto way,

Where no matter how heavy a voice,

It should always be kept light,

Should always be worked on in a flexible way,

Never to weigh it down.

It is a method of keeping the voice light and flexible and pushing the instrument into a certain zone,

Where it might not be too large and sound,

But penetrating,

And teaching the scales,

Trills,

All the bel canto embellishments,

Which is a whole vast language of its own.

De Hidalgo later recalled Callas as a phenomenon.

She would listen to all my students,

Sopranos,

Mezzos,

Tenors,

She could do it all.

Callas herself said that she would go to the conservatoire at ten in the morning and leave with the last pupil devouring music for ten hours a day.

When asked by her teacher why she did this,

Her answer was that even with the latest talented pupil,

He can teach you something that you,

The most talented,

Might not be able to do.

Early operatic career in Greece After several appearances as a student,

Callas began appearing in secondary roles at the Greek National Opera.

De Hidalgo was instrumental in securing roles for her,

Allowing Callas to earn a small salary which helped her and her family get through the difficult war years.

Callas made her professional debut in February 1941 in the small role of Beatrice in Franz von Suppes' Boccaccio.

Soprano Galetia Amak Sopulo,

Who sang in the chorus,

Later recalled,

Even in rehearsal,

Maria's fantastic performing ability had been obvious,

And from then on,

The others started trying ways of preventing her from appearing.

Fellow singer Maria Alcos similarly recalled that the established sopranos Navsika Galano and Ana Zoso Ramonundu used to stand on the wings while Callas was singing and make remarks about her,

Muttering,

Laughing,

And point their fingers at her.

Despite these hostilities,

Callas managed to continue and made her debut in a leading role in August 1942 as Tosca,

Going on to sing the role of Marta in Eugene Delbert's Tiefland at the Olympia Theatre.

Callas' performance as Marta received glowing reviews.

Critics Spannudi declared Callas an extremely dynamic artist possessing the rarest dramatic and musical gifts,

And Vangelis Mangroveras evaluated Callas' performance for the weekly 2 Radio Phonon.

About her exceptional voice with its astonishing natural fluency,

I do not wish to add anything to the words of Alexandra Laloni.

Callo Goropolo is one of those God-given talents that one can only marvel at.

Following these performances,

Even Callas' detractors began to refer to her as the God-given.

Some time later,

Watching Callas rehearse Beethoven's Fidelio,

Hertzweil rival soprano Ana Ramondo asked a colleague,

Could it be that there is something divine,

And we haven't realized it?

Following Tiefland,

Callas sang the role of Santuza in Cavalleria Rusticana again and followed it with O Protamastoras el Manoles Calamoris at the ancient Odeon of Herodas Atticus Theater at the foot of the Acropolis.

During August and September 1944,

Callas performed the role of Leonore in a Greek language production of Fidelio,

Again at the Odeon of Herodias Atticus.

German critic Friedrich Herzog,

Who witnessed the performances,

Declared Leonora Callas' greatest triumph.

When Maria Callo-Gioropoulos Leonore let her soprano soar out radiantly in the untrammeled jubilation of the duet,

She rose to the most sublime heights.

Here she gave bud,

Blossom,

And fruit to that harmony of sound that also ennobled the art of the prima donna.

After the liberation of Greece,

De Hidalgo advised Callas to establish herself in Italy.

Callas proceeded to give a series of concerts around Greece and then,

Against her teacher's advice,

She returned to America to see her father and to further pursue her career.

When she left Greece on September 14,

1945,

Two months short of her 22nd birthday,

Callas had given 56 performances in seven operas and had appeared in around 20 recitals.

Callas considered her Greek career as the foundation of her musical and dramatic upbringing,

Saying,

When I got to the big career,

There were no surprises for me.

Main Operatic Career After returning to the United States and reuniting with her father in September 1945,

Callas made the round of auditions.

In December of that year,

She auditioned for Edward Johnson,

General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera and was favorably received.

Exceptional voice ought to be heard very soon on stage.

Callas maintained that the Met offered her Madame Butterfly and Fidelio to be performed in Philadelphia and sung in English,

Both of which she declined,

Feeling she was too fat for Butterfly and did not like the idea of opera in English.

Although no written evidence of this offer exists in the Met's records,

In a 1958 interview with the New York Post,

Johnson corroborated Callas's story.

We offered her a contract,

But she didn't like it.

Because of the contract,

Not because of the roles.

She was right in turning it down.

It was frankly a beginner's contract.

Italy Meneghini and Seraphine In 1946,

Callas was engaged to reopen the opera house in Chicago as Turandot,

But the company folded before opening.

Basso Niccolò Rossi Lemeni was also to star in this opera,

Was aware that Tulio Seraphine was looking for a dramatic soprano to cast as La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona.

He later recalled that young Callas has been amazing,

So strong physically and spiritually,

So certain of her future.

I knew in a big outdoor theater like Verona's,

This girl with her courage and huge voice would make a tremendous impact.

Subsequently he recommended Callas to retired tenor and impresario Giovanni Zanatello.

During her audition,

Zanatello became so excited that he jumped up and joined Callas in the Act IV duet.

It was in this role that Callas made her Italian debut.

Upon her arrival in Verona,

Callas met Giovanni Battista Meneghini,

An older,

Wealthier industrialist who began courting her.

They married in 1949 and he assumed control of her career until 1959,

When the marriage dissolved.

It was Meneghini's love and support that gave Callas the time needed to establish herself in Italy,

And throughout the prime of her career she went by the name of Maria Meneghini Callas.

After La Gioconda,

Callas had no further offers and when Serafin,

Looking for someone to sing Isolde,

Called on her,

She told him that she already knew the score even though she had looked at only the first act out of curiosity while at the conservatory.

She sight read the opera's second act for Serafin,

Who praised her for knowing the role so well,

Whereupon she admitted to having bluffed and having sight read the music.

Even more impressed,

Serafin immediately cast her in the role.

Serafin thereafter served as Callas' mentor and supporter.

According to Lord Harewood,

Very few Italian conductors have had a more distinguished career than Tulio Serafin,

And perhaps none apart from Toscanini more influence.

In 1968,

Callas recalled that working with Serafin was the really lucky opportunity of her career,

Because he taught me that there must be an expression,

That there must be a justification.

He taught me the depth of music,

The justification of music.

That's where I really drank all I could from this man.

Ippuritani and Pass to Belcanto The great turning point in Callas' career occurred in Venice in 1949.

She was engaged to sing the role of Brunhilde in Divalcuri at the Teatro La Fenice,

When Margarita Carossio,

Who was engaged to sing Elvira in Ippuritani in the same theatre,

Fell ill.

Unable to find a replacement for Carossio,

Serafin told Callas that she would be singing Elvira in six days.

When Callas protested that she not only did not know the role,

But also had three more Brunhildes to sing,

He told her,

I guarantee that you can.

In Michael Scott's words,

The notion of any one singer embracing music as divergent in its vocal demands as Wagner's Brunhilde and Bellini's Elvira in the same career would have been cause enough for surprise.

But to attempt to assay them both in the same season seemed like folie de grandeur.

Before the performance actually took place,

One incredulous critic snorted,

We hear that Serafin has agreed to conduct Ippuritani with a dramatic soprano.

When can we expect a new edition of La Traviata with baritone Gino Becchi's Violetta?

After the performance,

One critic wrote,

Even the most skeptical had to acknowledge the miracle that Maria Callas accomplished,

The flexibility of her limpid,

Beautifully poised voice and her splendid high notes.

Her interpretation also has a humanity,

Warmth,

And expressiveness that one would search for in vain in the fragile,

Pollucid coldness of other Elvira's.

Franco Zeffirelli recalled,

What she did in Venice was really incredible.

You need to be familiar with opera to realize the size of her achievement.

It was as if someone asked Birgit Nilsson,

Who was famous for her great Wagnerian voice,

To substitute overnight for Beverly Sills,

Who was one of the great coloratura sopranos of our time.

Scott asserts that,

Of all the many roles Callas undertook,

It is doubtful if any had a more far-reaching effect.

This initial foray into the belcanto repertoire changed the course of Callas' career and set her on a path leading to Lucile de l'Amomore,

La Traviata,

Armida,

La Sonambola,

Il Pirata,

Il Turco in Italia,

Medea,

And Anambolena,

And reawakened interest in the long neglected operas of Cherubini,

Bellini,

Donazzetti,

And Rossini.

In the words of the soprano Montserrat Caballé,

She opened a new door for us,

For all the singers in the world,

A door that had been closed.

And it was sleeping not only great music,

But great idea of interpretation.

She has given us the chance,

Those who follow her,

To do things that were hardly possible before her.

That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream.

It is not right.

I am much smaller than Callas.

As with Ippuritani,

Callas learned and performed Cherubini's Madea,

Giordano's Andrea Chaniere,

And Rossini's Armida on a few days' notice.

Throughout her career,

Callas displayed her vocal versatility in recitals that pitched dramatic soprano arias alongside coloratura pieces,

Including in a 1952 RAI recital in which she opened with Lady Macbeth's Letter Scene,

Followed by the Mad Scene from Lucia di l'Amomore,

Then Abigail's treacherous recitative and aria from Nabucco,

Finishing with the bell song from Lakme,

Capped by a ringing high E in alt E6.

Reviews

I saved this one for time when I needed something extra boring, and I wasn't disappointed in the least. Some of your best work for sure!

So good