NONFICTION - Oct. 20, 1996

CALLAS Images of a Legend with an essay by Attila Csampai, translated by Anne Heritage (Stewart, Tabori & Chang: 264 pp., $75). To her passionate admirers (and she attracted no other kind), Maria Callas was without peer, “the only creature who has ever deserved to stand on the opera stage,” in the words of one. Born Maria Kalogeropoulos to Greek parents in New York City in 1923, she was the most celebrated diva in an age when opera stars could get as much attention as Madonna. With a private life (including a celebrated but doomed liaison with Aristotle Onassis) that nearly matched the drama of her celebrated roles, she both commanded and demanded attention.

This fine collection of 165 photographs (by Cecil Beaton, Horst, Gordon Parks and others) documents Callas’ battles with opera house managers and the press, with her weight and with the men in her life, as well as recording the adoration of her fans. Well-represented are pictures of Callas in her most celebrated roles, including Bellini’s “Norma,” Verdi’s “La Traviata,” Puccini’s “Tosca” and Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.”

Though appreciating Callas without hearing her voice is difficult, the performance photographs do illustrate the unmatched passion and dramatic skill she brought to her art, an intensity that made them so much more than performances they defined larger than life.