Maria Callas Fiery Prima Donna

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29002, 17 September 1959, Page 2

Maria Callas Fiery Prima Donna

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SUSAN VAUGHAN)

The break between prima donna Maria Callas and her husband—he has called it “final and irrevocable’’ —would seem to spell the end of what was one of the most successful man-and-wife partnerships in show business.

Today the tempestous, saucer-eyed Madame Callas stands supreme in her field. No other singer can challenge her; none can command her fees.

Yet it is significant that her fabulous success story dates from her marriage in 1947 to the Italian millionaire Giovanni Battista Meneghini. He brought her new strength and purpose and helped her to develop into the prima donna assoluta of the age. He studied his wife’s temperament as he once studied how to make a fortune out of bricks. He I invested tens of thousands of I pounds in furthering her career. I He helped to control her diet duri ing that famous slimming course which reduced her by 671 b in a few months and made her a trim 9st 91b. Poverty But Maria’s story before her marriage is quite different, involving a series of disappointiments and embarrassments, poverty and near-heartbreak. Maria Ann Sofia Cecilia Kalogerpoulos, was born on December 3, 1923. in Manhattan, four months after her parents arrived from Athens. They drifted from one over-crowded apartment to another and Callas now looks back on her childhood days with horror. She suffered from glandular obesity and by the age of 16 She weighed more than 14 stone. "I was the ugly duckling, fat and clumsy and unpopular,” she recalls. Maria was short-sighted and had to wear heavy spectacles (she still does in private life)—and all the time she got fatter and fatter. At the age of eight she started

music and voice lessons and soon she had won two amateur contests. At 14, she was taken to Athens where she won a scholarship to the National Conservatory. Failed Audition at La Scala Maria loved singing for she discovered that “when I sang. I was really loved.’’.But success did not come easily. Returning to New York after the war, Maria went two years without a big part. In Italy she failed an audition at La Scala and began to give up hope. Then influential Meneghini came on the scene. He persuaded the famous old conductor, Tullia Serafin, to train her. and success swiftly followed. Cheering fans carried her on their shoulders through the streets of Genoa. In Trieste, she was acclaimed the greatest “Norma" ever. Her “Aida” became Turin’s greatest post-war success. She was offered a guest part at La Scala.

Meneghini sold his building materials business for £3,000,000 and took on the full-time job of being his wife's private impresario and sole agent. Fiery Temperament Today the fat and ugly duckling is a slim black-eyed beauty, loved by opera fans the world over. But in the theatre she has her enemies—thanks to her famous fiery temperament. She first revealed the fire in her blood when she marked her debut at the Athens Opera House by punching the nose of a tenor who had called her a “fat bitch.” Once in New York, she is said to have had a male co-star sacked because he held a top note longer than she did. In recent years she has walked out of several concerts after a row. But then Maria Callas can afford to be act with an imperial air, on and off the stage. For she is the unchallenged Queen of Opera and her golden voice has brought pleasure to millions. As for her fiery outbursts, it should be remembered that hers is one of the most exhausting and nerve-racking professions in the world. It requires absolute dedication to reach the top—years of voice and music lessons, rehearsals. and often studying scores into the early hours of the morning. In this respect, Maria Callas has conquered the world of opera alone.