NONFICTION : MARIA: CALLAS REMEMBERED by Nadia Stancioff (Dutton: $19.95; 320 pp.).

Ten years after her mysterious demise in Paris, Maria Callas remains the quintessential diva. Always a cult figure, in death she has become bigger than life. The fact that she was a flawed but exciting singer and a mesmerizing actress with an extraordinarily wide-ranging repertory has somehow become obscured by her popular image as a tempestuous egomaniac, thwarted femme fatale and glamorous victim of multi-faceted delusions. Much--possibly too much--has been written about the soprano’s life, her art, her foibles, her legacy, her psychosexual/aesthetic appeal. Some of it has been true.

Stancioff, a New York press agent, adds little to the lore. Having met the diva at the time of her disastrous debut as a movie star, Stancioff can write with relative authority only about Callas at twilight. The author experienced the pathetic prima donna only offstage, only in retirement. She clumsily cranks out much petulant, self-serving gossip, much speculation, much second- and third-hand reportage, little substance. She may not look at her subject with rose-colored glasses--the Callas that emerges from these pages is hardly saintlike--but she does seem to encounter some sort of problem regarding blinders. “Callas as They Saw Her,” edited by David A. Lowe and published last year by Ungar ($22.50), is far more revealing.