Maria callas party. Maria callas

29.06.2019

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Name the greatest opera singer of the twentieth century Maria Callas has always been fanned by legends. All her life she gave rise to gossip: when she managed to lose weight from 92 to 64 kg, and she kept the methods of weight loss secret, and when, while still married, she went on a sea cruise with a Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis, and when she lost her voice and left the stage, and when she lived out her days all alone. The death of Maria Callas left no fewer questions unanswered than her life: there was a version that the singer was poisoned, and in order to hide the traces of the crime, the body was cremated.

Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou was an unwanted child - the parents were expecting a boy, and after the birth of her daughter, the mother refused to even look at her for several days. Soon the parents parted, and the mother and her daughters returned from America to their homeland, to Greece. At the age of 5, Maria began to take piano lessons, and at the age of 8 - to study vocals. She continued her studies at the conservatory, where experienced teachers immediately recognized her talent.

On the big stage, Maria made her debut at the theater of Athens - she sang a part in Puccini's Tosca. Until the end of World War II, she performed in Greece, but real popularity hit her in 1947, after her appearance at the Verona Opera Festival. Then the famous Italian conductor Tullio Serafin drew attention to her, who invited her to the Venice Opera House. In Italy, fate brought the singer to an opera fan, a wealthy industrialist, Giovanni Batista Meneghini, who soon became her husband.

Maria Callas' path to success was endless work on herself. Outwardly, she managed to change almost beyond recognition. Maria recorded the results: “Mona Lisa 92 kg; Aida 87 kg; Norm 80 kg; Medea 78 kg; Lucia 75 kg; Alcesta 65 kg; Elizabeth 64 kg ". At the same time, she never talked about ways to reduce weight, which caused various speculations - for example, about surgical intervention.

In 1957, at a ball in Venice, Maria Callas met her fellow countryman, billionaire Aristotle Onassis. This meeting became fatal for her. Aristotle invited her and her husband to a sea cruise on his luxurious yacht Christina. Shocking those around them, Mary and Aristotle retired in his apartment.

For the sake of Aristotle, Mary left her husband, he was in no hurry to divorce his wife. In addition, he deprived her of the opportunity to give birth to a child - the billionaire already had heirs, and he categorically did not want children. Many years later, fate severely punished him for this: his son died in a car accident, and his daughter died from a drug overdose. In the end, Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy, and Maria was left alone. “First I lost weight, then I lost my voice, and now I have lost Onassis,” she told reporters who besieged her.

The last time Callas appeared on the stage was in 1974. After that, until her death in 1977, she practically did not leave her apartment. According to the official version, Maria Callas died of a heart attack. But among her fans, another version was widespread. It was said that Maria was poisoned by her pianist Vassa Devetzi. Allegedly, she wanted to take possession of Callas's property, and for this she protected her from communication with people, added tranquilizers to her medications, aggravating her depression. However, this version has not been proven. According to Maria's husband, Giovanni Batista Meneghini, the singer committed suicide.

Ryzhachkov Anatoly Alexandrovich

Maria Callas - a great singer and actress, an amazing phenomenon of the opera scene of the second half of the 20th century - is known to everyone, even a little bit interested in opera and vocal art.

The bourgeois press created the myth “Callas - the queen of prima donnas”. The myth was built on the same principle as the fictional image of any of the Hollywood stars. The character traits of Callas, which were credited to the singer by the world's largest theatrical figures for her creative adherence to principles, obstinate unwillingness to achieve fame with cheap means, were equated with the bizarre whims of Hollywood movie stars and turned into a farcical bait: a proven way to inflate the prices of tickets, recordings and increase the box office. American journalist George Jelinek, whose article is included in this collection, investigated this phenomenon of 'Callas prima donna' and showed how persistently the singer fought her image, shaming it with the living life of her creative personality. At the time of the replication of the image of the “prima donna Callas”, her past was also stylized in a tabloid spirit. The mass bourgeois reader of illustrated weeklies, who, as a rule, heard the singer only on the radio or on records (widespread sold-out and high ticket prices prevented him from entering the theater), knew very little about the tedious youth of opera debutante Maria Kalogeropoulos in German-occupied Athens in the early forties. Callas herself, during her stay in the Soviet Union, spoke about this time: “I know what fascism is. In Greece, during the occupation, I personally saw the atrocities and cruelty of the Nazis, experienced humiliation and hunger, saw many deaths of innocent people. Therefore, I, like you, hate fascism in all its manifestations. " This reader did not know anything about the difficult years of obscurity and apprenticeship under the leadership of Elvira de Hidalgo, about the failures and non-recognition of the “strange voice” of the singer in Italy and America (even after her triumphant success in the “La Gioconda” at the Arena di Verona in 1947. ). In other words, about everything that was resurrected for posterity by the conscientious biographer of the singer - Stelios Galatopoulos, whose work, in a slightly abbreviated version, is offered to the attention of the Soviet reader.

Instead of facts testifying to how painfully the world fame was given to the singer and with what unremitting stubbornness she crushed the operatic routine, affirming her extraordinary creative principles, the bourgeois reader was presented with gusto with gossip about her personal life, addictions and quirks. Luchino Visconti's words that “Callas is the greatest tragic actress of our time” were drowned in this avalanche of journalistic fabrications. In the ordinary bourgeois consciousness, they simply did not have a place, because they did not coincide in any way with the legend of '' the prima donna of the prima donnas '' Maria Callas, which is generally available in its vulgarity.

Callas is rarely seen on the pages of the leading music magazines in the West. Today, after leaving the stage “divine”, “unforgettable”, “brilliant” (and this is how the singer was called everywhere), new stars are burning on the opera horizon - Montserra Caballe, Beverly Seals, Joan Sutherland and others ... And here's what is curious: scrupulous and detailed studies of the vocal-acting phenomenon of Maria Callas - the works of Teodoro Celli, Eugenio Gar - appeared only in the late fifties in purely music magazines, Rene Leibovitz - in the philosophical "Le Tan Modern". They were written "in defiance" of the implanted legend, which did not become scarce even after Callas left the stage. Therefore, “in hindsight” a discussion arose of the greatest figures of the operatic art of Italy - “Callas at the court of criticism”, - perhaps the most serious critical study about Callas. These articles were inspired by the noble idea - to expose the "myth" about Callas and oppose it with the reality of her living creative practice.

Here there is no need to repeat the arguments of pundits - for all the specifics of the 'vocal subject', they are available even to those who are not initiated into the wisdom of bel canto and Italian singing skill. It is worth talking about something else: if to the assessment of Visconti - "the greatest tragic actress" - add the word "opera", this statement will capture the essence of the matter.

When the singer's father Georgy Kalogeropoulos cut his bulky and difficult to pronounce Name into Callas, he, unaware of his daughter's future opera triumphs, probably did not think that the singer's name would rhyme in the minds of the audience with the Greek word - ta KaWos - beauty. Beauty in the ancient understanding of music as art, more fully than others expressing the life and movement of the human soul, art, where “the beauty of the melody and the feeling contained in it are perceived as the beauty and feeling of the soul” (Hegel). On the pages of her numerous interviews, Callas has repeatedly stated about such a “Hegelian” understanding of music, in her own way even flaunting respect for this “old”, not to say old-fashioned, XX century aesthetics. And in this loudly declared reverence for classical antiquity is one of the essential aspects of the Callas artist. The notorious phrase of Napoleon in Egypt: “Soldiers, for forty centuries, have been looking at you from the tops of these pyramids” - takes on special meaning in relation to the operatic work of Callas, over which the legendary names Malibran, Pasta, Schroeder-Devrient, Lilly Lehman soar, and to her voice , "a dramatic mobile soprano" - drammatico soprano d'agilita - "a voice from another century", according to Teodoro Celli, with all its vocal splendor and inapplicable flaw - uneven sound in registers. The equally brilliant shadows of the theatrical past loom behind the Callas actress: under the impression of her performance, critics invariably recalled Rachelle, Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanor Duse, the actresses of the enormous tragic talent of the last century. And these are not irresponsible impressionistic analogies. The naturalness of Maria Callas the artist is seen precisely in the fact that her talent is marked with a noble brand of antiquity: her singing revives the art of the former masters of soprani sfogati, and her acting - of the tragic actresses of the romantic theater. This, of course, does not mean that Callas was engaged in the restoration of opera and dramatic art of the 19th century, becoming, so to speak, a simultaneous servant of Thalia and Melpomene. Resurrecting romantic opera - from its forerunners: Gluck, Cherubini and Spontini to Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and early Verdi - Callas fought ancient romanticism on his own territory and with his own weapons.

Honoring the will of Bellini or Donizetti and the laws of their romantic scores, having perfected their technical, purely vocal wisdom and soaring above the musical material (which is already a feat in itself!), Callas read with a fresh eye the actual opera texts, feeling in the romantic blur and generalization of characters libretto psychological springs, shades of feelings, changeable colors of mental life.

Celli shrewdly noted that Callas was a philologist when it came to working on an operatic text. Keeping in mind the old adage that philology is the science of slow reading, Callas painstakingly and tirelessly psychologized and “verified” - if such a neologism is allowed - the characters of her romantic heroines - be it Norma, Elvira, Lucia, Anna Boleyn or Medea. In other words, from performance to performance, from recording to recording, I tried to create a dynamic in its development and the most believable character.

The romantic opera 'perfected' of the 19th century - and it was in this field that the singer was destined to win the most resounding victories - was seen by Maria Callas through a century and a half of opera culture: through the Wagnerian experience of creating a philosophical musical drama and the inflated pathos of Puccini's verism. She recreated the heroines Bellini and Donizetti, inspired by the realistic experience of Chaliapin - an actor and singer - and the very psychological atmosphere of the fifties, which dictated to Western art in general the strengthening and assertion of spiritual and moral values, which were steadily falling in value. Knowing perfectly the characteristics of her voice - its chesty, velvety-squeezed sound, in which there is less instrument and more direct human voice - Callas put even its flaws at the service of heightened musical expression and acting expressiveness. The paradox is that if Callas' voice were that affectionate, monotonously beautiful and somewhat anemic miracle, like, say, the voice of Renata Tebaldi, Callas would hardly have made that revolution in the opera art of the 50s - early 60s, oh which is interpreted by many of its researchers. What is this revolution?

The tragic actress and singer in Maria Callas are inseparable. And perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to call her a "tragic singer", because even operas, whose music and libretto were distinguished by weak drama (for example, "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Donizetti or "Alcesta" by Gluck), she sang and played like Wagner's "Tristana and Isolde". In her very voice, in its natural timbre, there is already a drama: the sound of her thick, juicy mezzo-soprano middle register amazes with the richness of overtones and shades, dominated by imperious, almost ominous or aching tones, as if intended to touch and stir the heart listener. In a tragedy depicted with a human voice, they are especially appropriate. As, incidentally, the plastic means that Callas chose to create her heroines with a truly rare stage tact befits tragedy.

Precisely tact, because, trying to show her operatic tragic heroines as full-blooded, lively natures, Callas never went beyond the bounds of the operatic genre, marked by such a concentrated convention. Having asked, as Fyodor Chaliapin once did, an almost unrealizable goal not only to sing, but also to play the most difficult in tessitures, puzzling romantic operas, as a play is played in a drama theater, Callas managed not to violate those very fragile proportions that exist in the opera between the musical development of the image and its plastic embodiment on the stage. The heroines of musical dramas - and this is how the singer saw almost every of the operas she performed - Callas created with precise plastic strokes that capture and convey to the viewer the psychological grain of the image: first of all, with a gesture, mean, meaningful, filled with some kind of super-powerful expressiveness; with a turn of the head, a glance, a movement of his - I want to say - spiritualized hands, which in themselves were angry, begged, threatened with revenge.

Rudolph Bing, the former CEO of the New York Metropolitan Opera, recalling meetings with the "impossible and divine Callas", writes that one of her gestures - say, the way Norma hit her on the sacred shield of Irmensul, calling out the Druids to crush the Romans, and together with them the perfidious and adored by her Pollione, - he spoke to the audience more than the diligent play of a whole army of singers. The “weeping” hands of Violetta-Callas in the scene with Georges Germont expelled tears from the eyes of Luchino Visconti (and not his only one!) headstrong, unrestrained in love and hate. Even Callas' silence on the stage was eloquent and magnetically bewitching - like Chaliapin, she knew how to fill the stage space with currents emanating from her motionless figure and drawing the viewer into the electric field of the drama.

This is the art of gesture that Callas is so proficient in — the art of “plastic emotional shock,” according to one of Callas's critics — eminently theatrical. It, however, is capable of living only on the stage of opera and in the memory of the audience who empathized with the performing genius Callas, and should have lost its magical charm when captured on film. After all, cinematography is abhorrent to affectation, even if it is noble and tragic. However, having starred in a somewhat cold and aesthetically rational tape of the poet of the Italian screen - in "Medea" by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Callas in full growth demonstrated her special tragic talent, the "total size" of which the critics did not manage to grasp as described by Stendhal its glorious predecessors - Pasta and Malibran. In collaboration with Pasolini's camera, Callas made up for the absence of her Stendhal herself. Callas' play in "Medea" is strange and significant - strange with viscous rhythms, some heavy, theatrical plasticity, which at first scares away, and then more and more draws the viewer, as into a disastrous pool - into the pool and chaos of pristine almost primitive passions that boil in the soul this ancient Colchis priestess and sorceress, who still does not know the moral prohibitions and boundaries between good and evil.

In Medea from Pasolini's film, a remarkable facet of Callas' talent is manifested - the excessiveness of tragic colors, violently splashed out, and feelings that burn with their temperature. In its plastics itself, there is some kind of authenticity that is difficult to grasp in words, explosive vital energy and strength, bursting out or guessed in one or another sculpturally completed gesture. And yet - in Medea, the Callas-actress amazes with her extraordinary courage. She is not afraid to look unsightly and repulsively ominous in the episode of the murder of children - with unkempt hair, with a suddenly aged face filled with fatal vindictiveness, she seems like a mythological fury and at the same time a real woman, possessed by fatal passions.

The boldness and excessiveness of emotional expression are the features of Callas - "an opera artist", as singers who had a real dramatic talent were called in the old days. It is enough to turn to her Norma to appreciate these qualities at their true worth. And if Callas had performed only one Norm as she performed it, her name would have forever remained in the annals of opera, like Rose Ponsella, the famous Norma of the twenties.

What is the magic of her Norm and why us ”contemporaries of space flights and heart transplants, the intellectual novels of Thomas Mann and Faulkner, films of Bergman and Fellini, so endlessly touches, touches and even sometimes shakes in an operatic way the conventional Druidic priestess with her feelings of treachery a very stilted and sketchy Roman consul? Probably not because Callas masterfully overcomes the vocal obstacles of Bellini's subtlest score. Montserra Caballe, whom we met during the last tour of Jla Scala in Moscow, and Joan Sutherland, whom we know from the recordings, cope with them just as well, and perhaps even better. Listening to Norma-Callas, you don't think about vocals, just like you don't think about the drama of the pagan priestess as such. From the first bars of a prayer to the moon “Casta diva” to the last notes of Norma's plea asking her father not to sacrifice her children, Callas unfolds the drama of a powerful female soul, her eternally living tissue of heartache, jealousy, languor and remorse. Her three-tiered voice, sounding like a whole orchestra, depicts in all shades and semitones the tragedy of deceived female love, faith, passion, insane, unaccountable, incinerating, striving for satisfaction and finding it only in death. Norma-Callas strikes the listener's heart precisely because each intonation found by the singer is authentic in its high verism: what is one musical phrase "Oh, rimembranza!" ("0, memories!"), Sung by Callas-Norma in response to Adalgiza, which tells about the outbreak of love for a Roman. Callas sings it in an undertone, as if in oblivion, under the impression of the agitated story of Adalgiza, going headlong into the memories of his long-standing and still not fading passion for Pollio. And this quiet reproach, threatening at any moment to pour out a lava of anger and vengeful rage in the first phrases of Callas from the last duet with Pollio - "Qual cor tradisti, qual cor perdesti!" ("" What a heart I betrayed, what a heart I lost! "). Callas' entire part of Norma is generously colored with these precious, differently shimmering undertones - thanks to them, the heroine of the old romantic opera is so concrete and generally sublime.

Callas is a singer whose tragic talent fully developed in the fifties. In the years when the European bourgeois society (be it Italian or French), which had recovered from the recent war, was gradually gaining relative economic stability, entering the phase of a “consumer society”, when heroic resistance to fascism had already become history, and a jumble of self-satisfied and the stupid philistine bourgeois - the character of comedies Eduardo de Filippo. The old morality with its prohibitions and strict differentiation between good and evil was abolished by common existentialism, the old moral values were decaying. The progressive theatrical art of Europe, consecrated by the names of Jean Vilar, Jean-Louis Barrot, Luchino Visconti, Peter Brook and others, set out to raise them in price. moral values. Like a true artist. Maria Callas - most likely, unconsciously, out of artistic inspiration - responded to these underground calls of time and its new tasks. A glimpse of the psychological needs of that time falls on Callas' opera work in general and on her best works of those years - Violetta, Tosca, Lady Macbeth, Anne Boleyn. Callas' artistic courage - to play and sing opera as a drama - had a high meaning, not always open and understandable even to a well-armed critical eye. And yet it was no coincidence that Callas sang Violetta's most difficult aria “Che strano!” ('' How strange! ”) From Act 1 mezza voce, sitting on a bench by the burning fireplace, warming the chilly hands and feet of the Verdi heroine, already slain with a fatal illness, turning the aria into thinking aloud, into a kind of internal monologue that exposes the listener to intimate thoughts and movement feelings of the notorious "lady with camellias". It is no coincidence that the psychological picture of her Tosca, impudent to the point of blasphemy in relation to the operatic tradition, is a weak, stupidly jealous actress spoiled by success, who inadvertently turns out to be a fighter against the bearer of tyranny - the fierce and cunning Scarpia. Painting such dissimilar female natures with voice and stage play, the verism of Callas art translated into another dimension that real moral pathos that fought in the heroines of Verdi and Puccini, not vulgarized by blood relationship with the tabloid pen of Dumas-son and Victorien Sardou. The beauty of a woman's soul - not in an operatic stilted and stereotyped, but alive, with all the weaknesses and mood swings - a soul truly capable of love, self-denial and self-sacrifice - was affirmed in the minds of listeners, producing a genuine catharsis in their hearts.

A similar purification, obviously, was performed by Callas and her Lady Macbeth, having recreated on the stage another living female soul - a criminal, corrupted, but still striving for repentance.

Barro, Luchino Visconti, Peter Brook, and others. Their activities were inspired by the '' teacher's '' pathos, almost preaching fervor, resurrecting to life and instilling moral values in the public. Like a true artist. Maria Callas - most likely, unconsciously, out of artistic inspiration - responded to these underground calls of time and its new tasks. A glimpse of the psychological needs of that time falls on Callas' opera work in general and on her best works of those years - Violetta, Tosca, Lady Macbeth, Anne Boleyn. Callas' artistic courage - to play and sing opera as a drama - had a high meaning, not always open and understandable even to a well-armed critical eye. And yet it was no coincidence that Callas sang Violetta's most difficult aria “Che strano!” ('' How strange! ”) From Act 1 mezza voce, sitting on a bench by the burning fireplace, warming the chilly hands and feet of the Verdi heroine, already slain with a fatal illness, turning the aria into thinking aloud, into a kind of internal monologue that exposes the listener to intimate thoughts and movement feelings of the notorious "lady with camellias". It is no coincidence that the psychological picture of her Tosca, impudent to the point of blasphemy in relation to the operatic tradition, is a weak, stupidly jealous actress spoiled by success, who inadvertently turns out to be a fighter against the bearer of tyranny - the fierce and cunning Scarpia. Painting such dissimilar female natures with voice and stage play, the verism of Callas art translated into another dimension that real moral pathos that fought in the heroines of Verdi and Puccini, not vulgarized by blood relationship with the tabloid pen of Dumas-son and Victorien Sardou. The beauty of a woman's soul - not in an operatic stilted and stereotyped, but alive, with all the weaknesses and mood swings - a soul truly capable of love, self-denial and self-sacrifice - was affirmed in the minds of listeners, producing a genuine catharsis in their hearts.

A similar purification, obviously, was performed by Callas and her Lady Macbeth, having recreated on the stage another living female soul - criminal, corrupted, but still striving for repentance.

And again the same characteristic detail: the scene of Lady Macbeth's somnambulism, the performance of which Jelinek so subtly reproduces in her article, Callas sang "in ten voices", conveying the twilight state of mind of her heroine, rushing between madness and flashes of mind, craving for violence and disgust from him. The moral pathos of the image, supported by an impeccable - no longer verism, but an openwork psychologism of interpretation - acquired authenticity and expressiveness from Callas - Lady Macbeth.

In 1965 Maria Callas left the opera stage. From 1947 to 1965, she sang 595 opera performances, but the state of her voice no longer made it possible to perform that truly phenomenal repertoire in terms of range, which earned her the name of the first singer in the world.

Researchers of the singer's art differ in determining the range of her voice, but according to the testimony of Callas herself, it extends from the "F-sharp" of the small octave to the "mi" of the third.

Having put her voice in order, Maria Callas returned to the concert stage in 1969. With her constant partner Giuseppe di Stefano, she regularly performs in different parts of the world, never ceasing to amaze listeners with her huge repertoire: Callas performs arias and duets from almost all the operas she sang.

And if from the open window a radio or transistor suddenly brings to you a chesty, velvety-enveloping female voice, singing the melody of Verdi, Bellini or Gluck with winged bird freedom, and before you are able or have time to recognize it, your heart will pinch, shudder, and tears will come to your eyes - you should know: this is being sung by Maria Callas, “a voice from another century” and our great contemporary.

M. Godlevskaya

From the editor. In the days when this book was in print, the tragic news of the death of Maria Callas came. The editors hope that this work will be a modest tribute to the memory of the outstanding singer and actress of the 20th century.

Maria Callas: biography, articles, interviews: trans. from English and ital / [comp. E. M. Grishina]. - M .: Progress, 1978. - p. 7-14

Maria Callas is a woman whose voice is called a phenomenon. An opera singer, whose performance made and makes the listener hold their breath, and "Casta Divo", "Bachiana" and "Ave Maria" are still loved by fans of classical opera. After the death of Maria Callas, the famous music critic of the time Pierre-Jean Remy wrote:

"After Callas, the opera will never be the same."

However, few people know that in addition to applause and universal adoration, the biography of Maria Callas was filled with the pain of disappointment and loss.

Childhood and youth

Maria Cecilia Callas, baptized as Maria Anna Sofia Kekilia Kalogeropoulou, was born on December 2, 1923 in New York. The birth of the girl was preceded by a tragedy in the family: the parents lost their only son Basil. A terrible shock pushed George, Maria's father, to decide to move from Greece to the United States. Mary's mother, the Gospel, at that time was carrying a third child (the family already had the eldest daughter Cynthia). The woman dreamed of giving birth to a boy who would replace her deceased son.

The birth of a second daughter was a blow to the Gospel: the mother refused to even look towards the newborn for several days after giving birth. It quickly became clear that the girl was born gifted. From the age of three, Maria listened to classical music, the toys for the girl were replaced by records with opera arias. Maria Callas spent hours listening to music without feeling bored. At the age of five, the girl began to master the piano, and at eight - to take singing lessons. Already at the age of ten, Maria made an impression on the audience with an extraordinary voice.

Maria's mother seemed to be trying to correct her disappointment at the birth of the girl, constantly insisting that she achieve perfection, earning a good attitude from the parent. At the age of 13, the girl participated in a popular radio show, as well as in a children's vocal competition in Chicago.

The constant exactingness of the mother left an indelible mark on the character of Mary: until the last hour, the singer will strive for perfection, overcoming herself and external circumstances. Later, Sister Callas will remember that the beautiful and talented Maria considered herself fat, mediocre and awkward.

The mother's dislike made the girl look for flaws in herself and strive to prove her own worth. This childhood trauma will remain with Callas for life. Already being famous, the woman admits to reporters:

"I am never sure of myself, I am constantly gnawed by various doubts and fears."

When Mary was 13 years old, the girl's mother, having quarreled with her husband, took her daughters and returned to her native Athens. There, the woman made every effort to arrange for her daughter to study at the Royal Conservatory. The catch was that admission was only allowed from the age of 16, so Maria lied about her age. This was the beginning of Maria Callas' serious creative career.

Music

Maria studied with pleasure, making progress. At the age of 16, the girl graduated from the conservatory, having won the main prize in the traditional graduation conservatory competition. Since then, the young diva began to make money with an extraordinary voice. During the war years, this came in handy: the family had no money. When the girl was 19, she sang her first part in the opera Tosca. The fee for those times turned out to be royal - $ 65.

In 1945, Maria Callas went to New York. The meeting with his beloved father was overshadowed by the presence of the man's new wife: she did not like Maria's singing. The next two years were marked for Callas with constant auditions and auditions in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

Finally, in 1947, Maria was offered a contract to perform in Verona, Italy. There, the singer was in for a triumph: the parties in La Gioconda and The Puritans shocked the musical community. Callas was constantly invited to new roles, thanks to which Maria visited Venice, Turin, Florence.

Italy became a new home for a woman, giving Callas recognition, admiration and a loving husband. The singer's career went uphill, there was no end of invitations, and the photos of Maria Callas were adorned with numerous posters and posters.

In 1949, Maria performs in Argentina, in 1950 - in Mexico City. Constant travels did not have the best effect on the health of the diva: the woman was gaining weight, which threatened to become an obstacle to further performances. However, the longing for loved ones and Italy, which became native, forced Maria to "seize" her experiences.

Finally, returning to Italy, Maria made her debut at the cult opera house La Scala. The woman got Aida. The success turned out to be colossal - Callas was recognized as a genius singer. However, Maria herself was still the strictest critic of Mary. Childhood fear of being rejected by the mother constantly lived inside Callas, forcing him to strive for perfection. The best award was an invitation to the official troupe "La Scala" in 1951.

In 1952, Callas performed Norma at the Royal Opera House in London. 1953 marked by Medea at La Scala. Unpopular until then, "Medea" became, as they would say now, a hit: the sensual performance of Maria Callas gave the piece of music a new life.

Maria Callas in the play "Norma"

Despite the tremendous success, Callas suffered from constant depression. The woman tried to lose weight, the stress of malnutrition was complemented by tedious travel from city to city and lengthy rehearsals. Nervous exhaustion began to affect, Callas began to cancel the performances.

This could not but affect the opinion of the public: the fame of an eccentric and capricious woman was fixed for the singer. Cancellation of performances led to legal proceedings, and devastating articles in the press only exacerbated Maria's stress.

The events that followed in her personal life further undermined the reputation of Maria Callas. In 1960 and 1961, the singer performed only a few times. She performed the last part of the diva in the opera Norma in 1965 in Paris.

In 1970, the singer agreed to shoot in the film: Maria Callas was invited to the role of Medea. The genius Pasolini was the director. Later, the master will say about Mary:

"Here is a woman, in a sense the most modern of women, but an ancient woman lives in her - a strange, mystical, magical, with terrible internal conflicts."

Personal life

The first husband of Maria Callas was a man named Giovanni Battista Meneghini. Callas met him in Italy. Giovanni was passionate about opera, and no less passionate about Maria. Being a wealthy man, Meneghini gave up a successful business in order to devote his life to his beloved. Meneghini was twice Callas's age, and perhaps due to the age difference, the man managed to become a lover and friend for his wife, a sensitive father and an attentive manager.

In 1949, the lovers were married in the Catholic Church. 11 years later, this fact will become an obstacle for Mary's union with a new lover: the Orthodox Greek Church will refuse a divorce to a woman. The first years of marriage with Meneghini turned out to be happy, Maria even thought to leave the stage, give birth to a child and devote her life to her family. However, this was not destined to come true.

In 1957, Maria met Aristotle Onassis, a wealthy ship owner and businessman from Greece. Two years later, doctors recommended that the singer spend more time at sea: the sea air was supposed to help the woman cope with fatigue and nervous exhaustion. So Maria meets with Onassis again, accepting the invitation to cruise on the billionaire's yacht.

This trip was the last point in Callas' marriage. A passionate relationship developed between Mary and Aristotle. The attractive man turned the head of the opera diva, who later admitted that at times she could not breathe from overwhelming feelings for Aristotle.

After the cruise, Maria moves to Paris to be closer to her lover. Onassis divorced his wife, ready to marry Mary, but the wedding in the Catholic Church did not allow the woman to break off the previous marriage, especially since Meneghini made a lot of efforts to postpone the divorce.

Despite the storm of feelings, the personal life of Maria Callas was not at all cloudless. In 1966, a woman became pregnant by Aristotle, but he was categorical: an abortion. Maria was broken. The woman got rid of the child for fear of losing her lover, but until the last moment she regretted this decision.

In the relationship, discord began to brew, the couple constantly quarreled. Maria Callas tried to maintain her love by refusing concerts and canceling performances, only to be close to Aristotle. Unfortunately, as often happens, the sacrifices were in vain. The couple broke up, and in 1968 Aristotle married. After breaking up with Onassis, Maria Callas was never able to find her happiness.

Death

The departure of her lover, the end of her career, and previous nervous shocks crippled Mary's will and health. The former star spent the last years of her life alone, not wanting to communicate with anyone.

Maria Callas died in 1977, the woman was 53 years old. The cause of death, doctors will call cardiac arrest, which led to dermatomyositis (a serious disease of connective tissue and smooth muscles), diagnosed to the singer shortly before her death.

There is also a version that the death of Maria Callas is not accidental. The singer was allegedly poisoned by Vasso Devetzi, Maria's friend. However, this story has not been confirmed. The ashes of the diva, according to Mary's will, are scattered over the Aegean Sea.

In 2002 Franco Zeffirelli, a former friend of Maria, directed the film Callas Forever. The singer was played by an inimitable one.

Parties Maria Callas

1938 - Santuzza
1941 - Longing
1947 - La Gioconda
1947 - Isolde
1948 - Turandot
1948 - Aida
1948 - Norm
1949 - Brunhilde
1949 - Elvira
1951 - Elena

What the hapless pharmacist George Kalogeropoulos has not tried to make ends meet meet!

And finally, together with his family, he left his native Greece, having warned his spouse about leaving one day in advance. They settled in New York, which sheltered thousands of emigrants in the 20s of the last century. Having changed the country, he changed his surname to the sonorous "Callas" - not least because, according to legends, his fate changes with the name of a person ... It's a pity that the higher powers did not know this Hellenic legend: the pharmacy opened by George brought income,and Evangeline's unfriendly wife became a real shit. However, is it possible to demand complacency from a woman who has withdrawn into herself after the recent death of her beloved three-year-old son Basil from typhus? Even before she took off her mourning, Evangeline realized that she was pregnant. “A boy will be born,” she repeated, looking at her growing belly, confident that the child would replace her deceased son.

The illusion lasted until the birth: as soon as Evangeline heard the words of the midwife "You have a daughter," not a trace of affection for the child remained. The congratulations sounded like a bitter grin: hopes collapsed overnight, and the mother did not approach the heart-rendingly screaming baby for four days. Households could not even say with certainty whether the girl was born on December 2, 3 or 4, 1923.

But formalities in a purely Greek spirit were followed: the girl was christened with the magnificent name Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria, which contrasted with the appearance of her bearer - an awkward, short-sighted fat woman. The eldest daughter Jackie, beautiful and playful like an angel from a Christmas card, was not difficult to love. Another thing is the gloomy, not childishly quiet Maria, whom her mother could not forgive for the fact that she was not a boy and thus destroyed her hopes. The youngest daughter now and then fell under a hot hand, reproaches and slaps in the face rained down on her.

Cruel accidents haunted Mary with rare consistency. At the age of 6, she was run over by a car. Doctors made a helpless gesture:

"We are doing our best, but we have not been able to get her out of the coma for 12 days." However, the girl survived and did not become disabled. Life was presented to Mary for the second time - it was necessary to prove that she was worthy of such a generous gift.

They say that in critical situations, all hope is in the "black box". The first "black box" in Mary's childhood turned out to be an old gramophone - a three-year-old girl discovered that sounds of enchanting beauty were coming from it. This is how she became acquainted with classical music. A close acquaintance with the second "black box" - the piano - took place at the age of five: it turned out that it was enough to touch the keys - and the sounds that existed in the imagination will flow. “Perhaps there are abilities,” Evangeline was surprised and firmly decided to raise a prodigy from the “ugly duckling”. From the age of eight, Maria took vocal lessons. The mother's calculation was practical to the point of cynicism - family friends remember how she said: “With the appearance of my youngest daughter, it is difficult to count on marriage - let him make a career in the musical field”. While the other children were frolicking, Maria played plays. The daily routine was Spartan: her mother forbade her "uselessly" to spend more than ten minutes a day. But, exhaustedly falling on a hard bed in the evenings, Maria did not regret anything. Years will pass, and she confesses: "Only when I sang, I felt that I was loved." Such was the price of maternal love - even the self-evident did not get Mary for nothing

At the age of ten, Maria knew Carmen by heart and discovered inaccuracies in the radio recordings of the Metropolitan Opera performances. At eleven, hearing the performance of the opera diva Lily Pance, she said: "Someday I will become a bigger star than she." Thirteen-year-old daughter Evangelina signed up to participate in a radio competition, and after a while Maria took second place at a children's show in Chicago.

The Great Depression that gripped America in the 30s did not escape Maria's father with his pharmacy. "I'm so tired from everything! - lamented Evangeline, transporting meager belongings from the eighth rented apartment to the ninth. “I don’t want to live.” Accustomed to her difficult nature, the household did not take her complaints seriously until Evangeline was taken to the hospital after trying to commit suicide. By that time, my father had left the family.

In an effort to escape difficult memories, Evangeline transported the children to Athens. Who knew that in 1940 the Nazis would enter to Greece ...

Dangers and hunger caused despair of the mother, Jackie tormented those around her with outbursts of anger. And only Maria rehearsed, although machine gun fire and sharp shouts in German could be heard from behind the window. She studied singing at the Athens Conservatory, Elvira de Hidalgo taught her the basics of bel canto. Against this background, the search for scraps in garbage cans was perceived as a minor household item. She had something to live for: singing did not just brighten up the gray everyday life.

At the age of sixteen, having received the first prize at the graduation competition at the conservatory, Maria begins to support her family on her earnings. Evangeline, who measured success in currency units, could be proud of her daughter. But the mother's exorbitant monetary appetites and the desire for self-realization prompted Mary to buy a ticket for a steamer that was sailing to the United States.

“I sailed from Athens penniless, alone, but I was not afraid of anything,” Callas will say later. And recognition in the States came: in 1949, Maria sang Elvira in Bellini's Puritans and Brunhilde in Wagner's Valkyrie for one week. Opera connoisseurs stated:

"This is physically impossible - both games are difficult, and they are too different in style to be practiced at the same time." Few people knew that Maria taught them by heart to the smallest detail - she could not read "from the sheet", being myopic. “If you have a voice, you have to perform the leading parts,” the singer said. "If he is not there, nothing will happen." And with the fact that she had a voice, the most fastidious connoisseur could not argue - not just a three-octave range, but a certain "irregularity" that made it memorable and at the same time flawless.

In 1951, Maria became the prima donna of MilanLa Scala. At the same time, an expert in operatic art, Giovanni Batista Meneghini, an Italian industrialist, 30 years older than her, appeared in the circle of her friends. Fascinated by Maria's voice, he proposed to her. Relatives from both sides tore and threw about: Evangeline wanted to see a Greek son-in-law, and the Meneghini clan rebelled altogether: “A rootless young upstart American hoped for millions of Giovanni! Gray hair in a beard ... ”In response, Meneghini left his relatives27 factories: "Take everything, I stay with Maria!"

The Catholic wedding ceremony took place without the relatives of the bride and groom. However, Maria did not seek to maintain the illusion of a close relationship with her mother. Ten years will pass, and, having sent Evangeline a luxurious fur coat, her daughter will disappear from her life forever.

Giovanni devoted himself entirely to Maria's career, becoming her husband, manager and the only close person in one person. It was rumored that Maria treats Meneghini as a beloved father. Meneghini controlled everything - from the singer's contracts to her outfits. Thanks to him, she performed at the Teatro Colon in Argentina, at London's Covent Garden and at La Scala in Italy. Connoisseurs breathe in unison with Maria; the audience is less demanding slander about her appearance: Maria weighs 100 kg - monstrous for a lyrical heroine!

No wonder: starving during the war, Maria indulged in gastronomic orgies for several years. The cult of food reached the point that she did not dare to throw away even the stale hump. But, having read in the morning newspaper a review of a journalist who did not mention her voice, but mentioned her "elephant-like" legs, the singer goes on a strict diet. And in 1954, Maria is unrecognizable: in a year and a half, she lost almost 34 kg. Evil tongues argued that it was not without a barbaric method - tapeworm infection.

Together with her appearance, Maria's character changed: she was no longer a shy girl, but a tough, self-confident perfectionist, demanding of herself and others. They said that she was able to captivate even the most indifferent to her with the opera.

Callas played Norma from Bellini's opera, voluntarily going to her death in order to save her beloved from the suffering.

She played the role of Lucia di Lammermoor from the opera of the same name by Donizetti, married against the will of the unloved. Her heroine in La Traviata was subjected to unjust persecution.

In "Tosca" she went to crime for the sake of insane passion, in "Iphigenia", on the contrary, she became a victim of circumstances. Maria did not play the role - she lived the fate of her heroines, so bringing tragic and vital notes to them that each scene captured the audience and herself. In a few years, she will involuntarily follow in the footsteps of one of her heroines - only the role will have to be played in life.

Was the famous diva happy with her life? Behind external well-being, alas, lay boredom, bordering on disappointment: Maria was barely over 30, while Batista was over 60. Pragmatist,not inclined to bright gestures, stingy in everyday life, he was not the kind of person for whom one could feel the incinerating passion, known to Mary from the "experience" of her heroines, and not just affection and gratitude. As soon as she hinted at having a child, the rebuke followed: "Think about a career, family concerns are not for an artist."

It remained to hide tenderness towards other people's babies,with whom she had occasion to communicate except on stage, playing the vengeful and desperate Medea, abandoned by Jason: calm outwardly, but torn apart by passions from the inside, like Maria herself.

It is no coincidence that the singer called her her alter ego.

Unjustified expectations and nervous tension affected the state of health: Callas was sometimes forced to cancel performances due to ailments.

In 1958, after the first act of Norma, Maria refused to go on stage again, feeling that her voice did not obey her.

According to the law of meanness, it was to this speech that the Italian president came. Taking this incident as a warning, Callas turned her attention to her health. Finding no serious illness, the doctors advised her to relax on the seaside. It was there in 1959 that Maria met the one who played the role of Jason in her life.

The yacht "Christina", owned by the Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis, set sail from the coast. Some whispered: both the ship and its owner did not enjoy a very good reputation, but how can you refuse a boat trip when the Duchess of Kent herself accepted the offer, and among those invited - Gary Cooper and Sir Winston Churchill, who lazily lit a cigar, watching receding shore. Walking up the ladder hand in hand, Maria and her husband could not imagine that they would have to return alone

On the very first evening, Maria seemed to be replaced: she danced tirelessly, laughed and coquettishly averted her eyes, meeting the eyes of the owner of the yacht.

“The sea is splendid when it storms,” she threw over her shoulder inappropriately when Batista called out to her.

He did not attach importance to Aristo's courtship of his wife: everyone knows that this Greek is just a womanizer, unremarkable by anything but billions, and if faithful Maria was not flattered even by the speech of Luchino Visconti, a talented director and a charming person, then she was not an Onassis will be interested.

Night dances under the piercing starry sky. Wine, which, heated after the dance, Maria drank greedy sips from Aristotle's folded palms ... "Bitter?" - "No more than true Greek wine is supposed to!" Warm hugs until the morning ... "What do we care what others think?" When in the morning Batista, who had lost his phlegmaticness, interrogated his wife, she answered with a laugh: "You saw that my legs were giving way, why did you not do anything?"

Onassis is only nine years younger than Meneghini. Charming, open-minded and inclined to the spectacular gestures that Mary liked so much on stage and in life, he threw an evening in honor of Callas at the Dorchester Hotel in London, covering the entire hotel with red roses. Meneghini was not capable of such "directing".

After the cruise, Maria parted with her husband and settled in Paris to be closer to Ari, as she called Onassis.

He divorced his wife. At 36, she acted like a girl in love - a sizzling passion so overwhelmed her that performances faded into the background.

In subsequent years, she will perform only a few times. Those who said that she was leaving the stage to pay more attention to Ari, and those who whispered that the prima donna had serious problems with her voice, would be right.

This little-studied instrument, like a barometer, reacts to the slightest changes in the atmosphere and is capable of cruel revenge on a singer who has exposed himself to stress.

After a three-year relationship, Maria and Ari were going to get married. On the way to the church, hearing from the groom: “Well, have you gotten your way?”, Offended Maria jumped out of the car almost at full speed. They never got married, although Maria only I dreamed about that.

The denouement was approaching: in the fall of 1965, Maria, performing the Tosca aria at Covent Garden, realizes that her own voice has betrayed her. A little earlier, in Dallas, her voice was already breaking, but, pulling herself together, she finished the part. Now she knows: this is the reckoning for a destroyed family and Batista's loyal trust - as in an opera based on an ancient tragedy, higher powers punished her, depriving her of the dearest. Moreover, the chosen one - again according to the laws of the genre - turned out to be by no means the hero she saw in him. Maria wanted opera passions, adoration of talent - Aristo, by an evil irony, fell asleep from the sounds of her voice.

At 44, Maria, who had long dreamed of a child, finally became pregnant. Onassis's answer, who already had two children, was as short as a sentence: "abortion." Mary obeyed, fearing the loss of her beloved.

“It took me four months to recover. Think how my life would be filled if I resisted and saved the child, ”she later recalled.

The relationship cracked, although Onassis tried to make amends in the only way he knew - by giving Callas a mink stole ...

He no longer insisted that she get rid of her second child, but the baby did not live even two hours.

Meanwhile, a new guest appeared on Aristo's yacht - Jacqueline Kennedy ... The final blow for Callas was the news of the wedding of Ari and the widow of the American president. Then she uttered the prophetic words: “The gods will be just. There is justice in the world ”. She was not mistaken: in 1973, Onassis's beloved son Alexander died in a car accident, and after that Aristotle could not recover ...

All of my life Maria Callas tried to earn someone's love. First - the mother, who was indifferent to her from birth. Then - an influential husband who idolized the artist Callas, but not a woman. And I closed this chain Aristotle Onassis who betrayed the singer for his own selfish interests. She died at 53 in an empty apartment without ever becoming truly happy. For the anniversary of the opera diva, AiF.ru talks about the main events and people in the life of Maria Callas.

Unloved daughter

No one was overjoyed at the birth of Mary. Parents dreamed of a son and were sure that all nine months Gospels to Demetriad it was the boy who was carrying it. But on December 2, 1923, an unpleasant surprise awaited them. For the first four days, the mother refused to even look at the newborn. It is not surprising that the girl grew up disliked and terribly notorious. All the attention and care went to her older sister, against which the future star looked like a gray mouse. When people saw the plump and shy Mary next to the spectacular Jackie, they could hardly believe in their relationship.

The singer's parents divorced when she was 13 years old. The father of the family stayed to live in America, while the mother and two daughters returned to their historical homeland: to Greece. They lived poorly, but it was not so much that upset little Maria, as the separation from her dad, whom she terribly lacked. Despite the fact that it was difficult to call the Gospel a sensitive and caring mother, the opera diva owes her career to her. The woman insisted that her youngest daughter enter the conservatory. From the first days of her studies, Callas made an impression on the teachers, she grasped everything on the fly. She was always the first to come to the class and the last to leave. By the end of the third trimester, she could already speak fluent Italian and French. In 1941, the girl made her debut on the stage of the Athens Opera as Tosca in the opera of the same name by Puccini, but the world learned about her a little later: six years later. At 24, the singer performed at the Arena di Verona in the opera La Gioconda. Here in Italy she met Giovanni Battista Meneghini, a renowned industrialist and an avid opera fan. It is not surprising that he was fascinated by Callas from the first minutes and was ready to throw the whole world at her feet.

Husband and producer

Giovanni Battista Meneghini was 27 years older than Maria, but this did not stop him from marrying a young singer. Down the aisle, the couple went less than a year after they met. The businessman became for Callas a spouse and manager in one person. For the next ten years, the opera diva and the wealthy industrialist walked hand in hand through life. Of course, Meneghini provided his wife with powerful financial support, which contributed to Maria's already brilliant career. But the main secret of her being in demand was not her husband's money, but impeccable possession of technology. Our famous opera singer Elena Obraztsova once said on this occasion: “Callas did not have a beautiful voice. She possessed a fantastic singing technique and, most importantly, sang with her heart and soul. She was like a guide from God. " After Verona, the doors of all famous opera houses began to open gradually for the girl. In 1953, the artist signed a contract with the major record company EMI. It was this company that produced recordings of operas performed by the singer.

From the very beginning of her career, Maria was quite large. Some ill-wishers and envious people called her oily. Weight problems arose from a great love of food. Artist secretary Nadia Stanschaft told about her: “We set the table, she came up and innocently asked: 'Nadya, what is this? Can I try a little bite? ”It was followed by another and another. So she practically ate everything that was on the plate. And then I tried from every plate at everyone sitting at the table. It was driving me crazy. " Maria's favorite delicacy was ice cream. It was with this dessert that absolutely any meal of the singer should have ended. With such an appetite, Callas had every chance not only to become famous as an opera performer, but also to become the fattest woman in the world, but, fortunately, she stopped in time. Working on the role of Violetta in her beloved "La Traviata", the girl lost a lot of weight and became a real beauty, which the famous ladies' man could not miss Aristotle Onassis.

Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas. Photo: Frame youtube.com

Traitor

Maria first met the billionaire in the late fifties in Italy, at a party after the performance of Norma. Six months later, the billionaire invited the singer and her husband to ride on his famous yacht Christina. Towards the end of this journey, Callas' marriage to Meneghini had a fatal point. And this despite the fact that Onassis himself at that time was also in a relationship with Tina Levanos... It was she who caught the newly-made lovers and made their romance public. To divorce, the singer renounced her American citizenship, adopting Greek. “I did it for one reason: I want to be a free woman. According to Greek law, anyone who, after 1946, married outside of the church, is not considered a married person, ”Maria told one of the journalists who became more active during that period of her life than ever before.

Unlike the ex-spouse of the singer, Onassis was indifferent to opera. He did not understand Maria's desire to sing and more than once suggested that she end her career. Once she really stopped going on stage, but not for the sake of Aristotle. This is how the circumstances developed: problems with the voice, general fatigue, breaking off relations with the Metropolitan Opera and leaving La Scala. A new period began in her life: bohemian. But he did not make the artist happy. Neither did Aristotle. The businessman needed Callas for his image. The billionaire was not going to marry her and even forced her to have an abortion when she became pregnant. Taking everything he needed from the singer, Onassis safely found himself a new object of desires: Jacqueline Kennedy... He married the widow of the 35th President of the United States in 1968. Maria learned about the incident from the newspapers. Of course, she was in despair, since she herself dreamed of being in Jacqueline's place. By the way, after the wedding, the businessman did not stop his meetings with Maria, only now they were of a secret nature. And during his honeymoon in London, he called the singer every morning, giving hope for the continuation of the relationship.

The only medicine that could save the diva from depression is work. But by that time, the artist's voice was no longer the same, so she began to look for new ways of self-realization. First, Maria starred in Pasolini's film Medea, although it did not have a box office success. Then she directed an opera production in Turin, and also taught at the Juilliard School in New York. Unfortunately, the singer did not get satisfaction from all this. Then Callas tried to return to the stage with the famous tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano. The audience greeted the creative tandem very warmly, but during the tour Maria was unhappy with herself, her voice cheated on her, and critics wrote unpleasant things. As a result, the attempt to resume her career also did not make her happier and could not help her forget Aristotle's betrayal.

At the end of her life, the legendary diva turned into a real recluse and practically never left her Paris apartment. The circle of those with whom she communicated sharply decreased. According to one of Callas' close friends, at that time it was impossible to get through to her, as well as to arrange a meeting, and this repulsed even the most devoted people. On September 16, 1977, the famous opera singer died at about two o'clock in the afternoon from cardiac arrest in her apartment. According to the last will of Mary, her body was cremated.