“LISTENING TO CALLAS IS LIKE READING SHAKESPEARE: YOU’RE ALWAYS GOING TO BE KNOCKED SENSELESS BY SOME INCREDIBLE INSIGHT INTO HUMANITY.”
~APRILE MILLO, SOPRANO
If she hadn’t died in 1977, Maria would be 90 years old today. Born in New York City on December 3, 1923, Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulos would become one of the most exceptional opera singers of all time. She was also one of the most famous divas of all time- for more than her amazing “bel canto” voice. Maria Callas was a passionate woman, known for her temper and for her legendary love life: she was Aristotle Onassis’s lover before he married Jackie Kennedy in 1968. Her career was short-lived. She officially began at 17 years old in 1941, and acquired a love of the bel canto style of singing in 1948 when she was an understudy for the part of Elvira in Bellini’s “I Puritani” in Venice. At age 42, her career had begun its decline, as she sang her last public opera appearances in Puccini’c Tosca at the Met in NYC in 1965. With her voice and art almost finished, she gave film a go with Pasolini’s Medea. Sadly, she died from a heart attack at a very young 53 in Paris in 1977. Rumors have it that her heart attack was brought on by sleeping pills. Rest in peace, Beautiful Diva! Here she is singing my favorite aria: