Maria Callas trivia: 70 amazing facts about the soprano

Maria Callas was aa American-born Greek soprano and one of the most famous singers in the world.

Her tumultuous life and career has made lots of headlines and still to the day intrigues the general public. So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about her life and career.

1. Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano
2. She was born on December 2, 1923
3. She died on September 16, 1977
4. She was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century
5. Many critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations
6. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini
7. And, further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini
8. In her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner
9. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina
10. She was born in Manhattan to Greek immigrant parents
11. She was raised by an overbearing mother who had wanted a son
12. Maria received her musical education in Greece at age 13
13. She later established her career in Italy
14. Forced to deal with the exigencies of 1940s wartime poverty and with near-sightedness that left her nearly blind onstage
15. She endured struggles and scandal over the course of her career
16. She turned herself from a heavy woman into a svelte and glamorous one after a mid-career weight loss
17. This might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career
18. The press exulted in publicizing Callas’s temperamental behavior, her supposed rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and her love affair with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis
19. Although her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist in the popular press
20. Her artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein called her “the Bible of opera”
21. Her influence is so enduring that, in 2006, Opera News wrote of her: “Nearly thirty years after her death, she’s still the definition of the diva as artist – and still one of classical music’s best-selling vocalists”
22. The name on Callas’s New York birth certificate is Sophie Cecilia Kalos
23. She was born at Flower Hospital, 1249 5th Avenue, Manhattan, on December 2, 1923
24. It is now called the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center
25. Her parents were George Kalogeropoulos and Elmina Evangelia “Litsa”
26. She was christened Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos
27. Callas’s father had shortened the surname Kalogeropoulos first to “Kalos”
28. And subsequently to “Callas” to make it more manageable
29. After several appearances as a student, Callas began appearing in secondary roles at the Greek National Opera
30. De Hidalgo was instrumental in securing roles for her
31. Allowing Callas to earn a small salary, which helped her and her family get through the difficult war years
32. After returning to the United States and reuniting with her father in September 1945, Callas made the round of auditions
33. In December of that year, she auditioned for Edward Johnson, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera
34. Callas maintained that the Met offered her Madama Butterfly and Fidelio, to be performed in Philadelphia and sung in English, both of which she declined
35. Feeling she was too fat for Butterfly and did not like the idea of opera in English
36. Callas’s voice was and remains controversial
37. It bothered and disturbed as many as it thrilled and inspired
38. Walter Legge stated that Callas possessed that most essential ingredient for a great singer: an instantly recognizable voice
39. The latter half of Callas’s career was marked by a number of scandals
40. Following a performance of Madama Butterfly in Chicago in 1955, Callas was confronted by a process server who handed her papers about a lawsuit brought by Eddy Bagarozy, who claimed he was her agent
41. Callas was photographed with her mouth turned in a furious snarl
42. The photo was sent around the world and gave rise to the myth of Callas as a temperamental prima donna and a “Tigress”
43. In the same year, just before her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, Time ran a damaging cover story about Callas, with special attention paid to her difficult relationship with her mother and some unpleasant exchanges between the two
44. From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes at the Juilliard School in New York
45. These classes later formed the basis of Terrence McNally’s 1995 play Master Class
46. Callas staged a series of joint recitals in Europe in 1973 and in the U.S., South Korea, and Japan in 1974 with the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano
47. Critically, this was a musical disaster owing to both performers’ worn-out voices
48. However, the tour was an enormous popular success
49. Audiences thronged to hear the two performers, who had so often appeared together in their prime
50. Her final public performance was on November 11, 1974, in Sapporo, Japan
51. In 1957, while still married to husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini, Callas was introduced to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis at a party given in her honor by Elsa Maxwell after a performance in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena
52. The affair that followed received much publicity in the popular press
53. In November 1959, Callas left her husband
54. According to one of her biographers, Nicholas Gage, Callas and Onassis had a child, a boy, who died hours after he was born on March 30, 1960
55. In his book about his wife, Meneghini states categorically that Maria Callas was unable to bear children
56. Various sources also dismiss Gage’s claim, as they note that the birth certificates Gage used to prove this “secret child” were issued in 1998, twenty-one years after Callas’s death
57. Still other sources claim that Callas had at least one abortion while involved with Onassis
58. In 1966, Callas renounced her U.S. citizenship at the American Embassy in Paris, to facilitate the end of her marriage to Meneghini
59. This was because after her renunciation, she was only a Greek citizen, and under Greek law a Greek could only legally marry in a Greek Orthodox church
60. As she had married in a Roman Catholic church, this divorced her in every country except Italy
61. The renunciation also helped her finances, as she no longer had to pay U.S. taxes on her income
62. The relationship ended two years later in 1968, when Onassis left Callas in favor of Jacqueline Kennedy
63. However, the Onassis family’s private secretary, Kiki, writes in her memoir that even while Aristotle was with Jackie, he frequently met with Maria in Paris
64. There they resumed what had now become a clandestine affair
65. Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris
66. She died of a heart attack at age 53 on September 16, 1977
67. A funerary liturgy was held at St. Stephen’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral on rue Georges-Bizet, Paris on September 20, 1977
68. She was later cremated at the Père Lachaise Cemetery and her ashes were placed in the columbarium there
69. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered over the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece
70. According to her wish, in the spring of 1979