The One and Only

More ink has been spilled on Maria Callas than on perhaps any other operatic performer. Twenty-two years after her death, Callas has been reduced and elevated to an icon. She is either the intensely passionate performer or the inscrutable sphinx, the self-destructive artist, the glamorous jet-setter and the Parisienne with the broken heart. Remarkably, she still transfixes a devoted public, most of whom never saw her on stage or heard her in person.

Writers either adore or demonize her, for with Callas, there is no middle ground. They fall into two categories: those authors who worship La Callas and want to use their pens to help her, from beyond the tomb, settle old claims, justify less than angelic behavior, and explain the inexplicable--her magic--and those authors who revile her and who often have their own personal reasons to settle old accounts, bring up less than angelic behavior and poke holes in the magic. Both sides, of course, claim objectivity and intimate knowledge of the woman.

Does the world really need more books about Maria Callas? Unfortunately, yes.

Most books concentrate on the controversy and glamor that swirled around Callas--her painful relationship with her mother; the diva-like behavior of which other divas and opera impresarios accused her; her abandonment by Aristotle Onassis for perhaps the only other more striking woman of her generation, Jacqueline Kennedy; and finally how all this evaporated so quickly and silently. But the reason to keep writing and reading about Maria Callas is to try to understand how someone with neither a classically beautiful voice nor a flawless technique nor effortless physical beauty could, through sheer will and depth of soul, become the performer who changed the standard by which all other opera singers are judged. When asked whether he thought her voice was beautiful or ugly, the preeminent conductor Tullio Serafin responded: “I have known many of Callas’ voices. Do you know, I have never really considered whether her voice was ugly or beautiful. I only know that it was always the right one, and this is more than beautiful.” The director Franco Zeffirelli (who directed her definitive “Tosca” at Covent Garden and who is still a major force in opera) tried to describe Callas’ power in his “Autobiography” this way: She was “a singer with a mind and a vision of what opera could be far beyond Ghiringhelli [the head of La Scala], or in fact anyone else’s conception at that time.”

Though it may sound grandiose, it is the truth of her interpretations that makes Maria Callas tower over all other performers. Every note--whether in an aria or recitative, every movement on stage, every facial expression as she listened or sang--plumbed the depth of the character she seemingly had become. For she was no longer a singer interpreting a role, she was Norma or Tosca or Medea. She imbued every phrase with excitement and meaning and she was completely dedicated to every detail in the score. The ferocity with which she delved into a role and with which she led her personal life are the subjects of the already extensive Callasiana.

And now there are three additions: “Maria Callas: Sacred Monster” by music critic, scholar and confidant Stelios Galatopoulos; “Callas by Callas: The Secret Writings of ‘la Maria’ ” by father-son music critics Renzo and Roberto Allegri; and a reprint of “Callas at Juilliard: The Master Classes.” So as not to keep you in suspense, both biographies are from worshipers who claim a divine right to understanding the sphinx: Galatopoulos believes that Callas shared intimacies with him toward the end of her life so that he could write a “fair” biography, and the Allegris pretend to allow La Maria to speak through her own “secret writings.” (Are letters really “secret”?)

The one book which is actually by Callas herself is oddly bland. “Callas at Juilliard” is a transcript of her comments about, as well as musical examples of, 75 arias sung by 25 singers whom she coached at the Juilliard School in New York from 1971 to 1972. This reprint not only corrects some of the errors in the musical examples from the original book published in 1987, but it also, presumably, hopes to fly in on the coattails of Terrence McNally’s tremendously popular play “Master Class.” McNally’s Callas seems far more passionate than the one between these two covers and far less ferocious than, for example, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, who is also known for her master classes (those who participated in the latter are known as “survivors”).

Callas very carefully shows her young singers the pitfalls in an aria: where not to give too much, where to take a breath, where to change a word, where not to slow down; all this information is very useful but rarely inspirational. One would have hoped for reminiscences of how her interpretation of an aria evolved as she worked with a certain director, conductor or colleague. In fact, the most memorable line in the book is in the prologue, when Callas is quoted describing her mentor, Serafin. “He had a reason for everything. Serafin said, and this impressed me most, ‘When one wants to find a gesture or how to move on stage, all you have to do is search for it in the score; the composer has already put it into his music.’ How right he was, for if you take the trouble to listen with your whole soul and your ears--the mind must also work, but not too much--you will find everything you need.”

Though even the most casual fan will be delighted with the many striking photos, both the posed and spontaneous, as well as the famous, infamous and unknown which fill both books, the Galatopoulos is the more substantial. Though Callas protests that “My memoirs are in the music I interpret,” Galatopoulos believes that “her stagecraft alone will never be sufficient to illuminate her motivation as a woman,” for “the human being was so much a part of the artist.” Galatopoulos says Callas anointed him as her biographer because “Callas wanted me to know the truth because . . . she knew that I would never misquote her nor exploit her for cheap sensationalism.” Though he had already published a biography of Callas in 1976, he believes that “the Callas fresco needs not merely cleaning but major restoration.”

Galatopoulos retells the old story of the early years; the mother disappointed in her marriage and her husband’s financial prospects as a pharmacist, the beautiful sister who was favored by the mother and the brother who died at age 3 and whom Maria, as a girl, was never able to replace. Galatopoulos believes that Maria made a place for herself in this depressing picture by discovering that “singing was a foolproof way of attracting attention--the best substitute for affection. Her desire to prove her worth was not only directed at her forceful and ambitious mother but also at her father, who held the opposite view.” A more perceptive interpretation of Maria’s teenage years, however, might come from her sister, Iakinthy, who remembers Maria at age 15 dismissing her vocal talent and declaring, “What is a voice? I am a woman, that’s what matters!”

Callas declared that her salvation lay in a variation on Descartes: “I work, therefore I am.” The sheer diligence in the early years of her career is astounding: She learned the treacherous role of Wagner’s Isolde in two months, Elvira in Bellini’s “I Puritani” in six days and “Andrea Chenier” in five days. As a student, she stayed all day to listen to everyone’s lesson; as a young professional, she attended orchestral rehearsals, even when she was not called. Serafin, with whom Callas studied all of her first roles and who remained her greatest champion, recounts, “What struck me first was the way she would sing recitatives. This young singer (she was 23 in 1947 when I first heard her), who was not Italian, had never been to Italy before . . . was able to bring so much meaning to Italian recitative. . . . She would listen to advice and everything to her was important.”

It is surprising to remember in those early years how Callas was plagued by weight problems, bad skin, professional rejection and strife with her colleagues. Enter Giovan Battista Meneghini, who adored her nevertheless and is thanked, in the end, by her accusing him of loving her only for her earning potential (though it’s hard to imagine how someone fat, pimply and unemployed seemed like a great catch), so that she could run off with Aristotle Onassis (whom she didn’t love for his earning potential?). To his credit, Galatopoulos confesses: “Was she as much a villain as Meneghini or Onassis? I think she was.” But he rejoins, a la “Vissi d’arte,” “her sincere devotion to art amounted to a personal sacrifice of the kind that enriches the world.”

Galatopoulos carefully chronicles all of her roles, feuds (particularly wanting to settle the Tebaldi, La Scala and Met scorecards) and the tragic attempt to regain her vocal glory in the 1970s. Though it was a popularly held belief that Callas died of a broken heart when Onassis deserted her for Kennedy, Galatopoulos paradoxically believes that Callas’ friendship with Onassis in fact grew after his marriage. According to the author, Callas believed that Onassis described this as merely an arranged marriage, not a love match. Galatopoulos describes Onassis’ friendship as one of Callas’ most cherished in the final years of her life.

“Callas by Callas” can hardly be considered an “autobiography.” Though it quotes from some of her letters and contains beautifully reproduced photographs, this book is just another coffee-table valentine to La Divina. In it Callas is always right and misunderstood; everyone else becomes a commedia dell’arte villain.

The leitmotif of this book is rejection. The Allegris claim that right from the beginning, “Maria Callas was not exactly received enthusiastically when she arrived in this world.” They conclude, “She always felt unwanted, both in private and professional spheres.” Her mother was merely “ambitious and wanted her daughter to become immediately famous, so that she herself could bask in glory and, through the success of her daughter, satisfy her own vanity.” Yet the authors never consider how many years Callas’ mother believed in her talent when no one else did, how hard it was to make musical study possible in German-occupied Greece when food was already considered a luxury, and how it felt when Callas, at the height of her career, thanked her mother, who had applied for welfare retirement benefits, by “generously” offering her $200 a month.

Meneghini becomes the caricature of the greedy villain who took financial advantage of poor Maria. The authors don’t consider the moving and endearing love letters the couple exchanged, the humiliation he suffered as his family rejected both of them, and how many years he stood by Callas before she became a star. The only person to emerge a hero in this book is the tenor, Giuseppe di Stefano, who encouraged her to come out of hiding and sing a worldwide concert tour with him in the 1970s. The authors believe he was professionally and personally a deep source of comfort in her final decade.

On many crucial details these two books disagree. Though both books describe how much Callas wanted to have children and how distraught she was when she lost Onassis’ child, Galatopoulos claims that Callas revealed to him that Onassis forced her to have an abortion, whereas the Allegris believe she had a miscarriage. Galatopoulos believes that though Callas may have been infatuated with Pier Paolo Pasolini, the handsome director of the film “Medea” in which she starred, she couldn’t possibly have “thrown herself” at this openly gay man. The Allegris, on the other hand, claim to know through an intimate of Pasolini that she was truly and hopelessly in love with the director. Though details about Callas’s death are unclear, the Allegris conclude that “Meneghini inherited all Maria’s wealth,” whereas Galatopoulos claims that Callas’ mother and sister divided the estate with Meneghini.

Yet after all the ink dries, in the end Callas said it better than anyone else: “I have written memoirs. They are in the music I interpret--the only language I really know.”