Maria Callas sings “Casta diva”

The video shows Maria Callas in the RAI studios of Rome on December 31, 1957, singing her signature aria, “Casta diva” from Bellini’s Norma.

This is roughly 48 hours before the so-called “Rome walkout” that effectively ended Callas’s career in Italy and probably contributed more than anything else to her premature withdrawal from the stage.

(Briefly, I am of the opinion that Callas grew increasingly unable to handle the nervous strain of appearing before a hostile press, and that her dismay at Meneghini’s real or perceived mismanagement of her career contributed in no small part to her leaving him for Aristotle Onassis. This is speculation, based on what evidence we have; and all of the people who could confirm or deny my conjectures are long dead. Yes, Callas was in vocal decline by the late 1950s, but her nervous exhaustion greatly amplified the problems with her voice. This post about Callas’s 1957 Ballo at La Scala allows you to read and hear more about why I believe this.)

Hear Maria Callas in other music by Bellini. (Some of the YouTube clips, alas, have been removed since I linked to them.)

Callas and the Dormition of the Theotokos

In the Orthodox Church, 15 August is a Great Feast: The Dormition of the Theotokos (Κοίμησις της Θεοτόκου) or “The Falling-asleep of the G-d-bearer.”

According to Orthodox teaching, three days following the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, her body was taken up into heaven to join her soul. To quote from the Wikipedia entry on the Feast:

Orthodox theology teaches that the Theotokos has already undergone the bodily resurrection, which all will experience at the Second Coming, and stands in heaven in that glorified state that the other righteous ones will enjoy only after the Last Judgment.

Maria Callas celebrated her name day on 15 August and all her life was devoted to the Theotokos. She wrote to her Roman Catholic husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, from Buenos Aires in 1949:

The other evening I went with a Greek journalist and a lady to the Greek Orthodox church to light a candle for us and my Norma. You see, I feel our Church more than yours. It’s strange, but it’s so. Perhaps because I’m more accustomed to it, or perhaps because the Orthodox Church is warmer and more festive. It’s not that I don’t like yours, which is also mine now, but I have a strong partiality for the Orthodox Church.

(Okay, that quotation, transcribed when I was insufficiently caffeinated, does not in fact mention the Theotokos, though it shows that Callas was a believer and attached to her religion, albeit not a church goer.)

Early in their relationship, Meneghini made a gift to Callas of a Cignaroli miniature of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that became a good-luck charm for her. (He refers to this painting as a “Madonnina.”) He reports that they hung a painting of the Madonna by Caroto in their bedroom, and that their favorite work of art was the painting you see above: Tiziano’s “Assunta” at Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice (a basilica dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, as the Dormition of the Theotokos is known in the Roman church).

Meneghini also writes that he told Callas, after she took up with Aristotle Onassis:

Now go talk to all your patron saints and ask them for advice, ask them if you are in the right, but also pay a visit to your Madonna in the Cathedral in Milan, the Madonna you saw so very many times, before whom you genuflected and prayed.

The Madonnina (Madunina in the local dialect) who stands atop the Duomo is the symbol of Milan.

In 1960, Stelios Galatopoulos ran into Callas with Onassis making a visit to the island of Tinos, where there is a reportedly miraculous icon of the Thetokos. He wrote that

she appeared to be in the highest of spirits. Dressed simply in black and with a black chiffon scarf decorated with a few sequins over her head, Maria looked much younger than her years and the personification of Greek beauty.

Maria Callas reportedly died with a rosary (the gift of her sister-in-law Pia Meneghini) on her bedside table.

Since Maria Callas celebrated her name day on 15 August, I think that we should, too. I intend to post every day this week in her honor. The musical clip that follows is from Verdi’s I Lombardi alla prima crociata and was recorded in 1964-65, when Callas was in fragile voice, with her “big” career winding down.

Also: Please listen to Maria Callas in music from Verdi’s La forza del destino, including arias addressed to the Theotokos.

Callas as healer

In August 1956, [Franco] Zeffirellli wrote a rather curious note to my wife: “Dear Maria, yesterday evening Marlene Dietrich, one of your rabid admirers, spoke constantly of you. She says that in American hospitals they play your records continuously because they have discovered that your voice helps those who are ill, giving them confidence, calming them, and helping them to recover from what ails them. That is not surprising—we have known that for quite a while.”
Giovanni Battista Meneghini, My Wife Maria Callas

Callas tourism

Pilgrimage: A journey (usually of a long distance) made to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion; the action or practice of making such a journey.

Jared Paul Stern (oh dear) invites us to book passage for “a special Maria Callas Experience charter” this spring and summer on board the Christina O.

The yacht Christina, a floating palace of its day, belonged to Aristotle Onassis. Callas and Onassis reportedly became lovers on board in 1959. The boat changed hands several times after the tycoon’s death in 1975 and was renamed Christina O—eliding the name of Onassis’s daughter and the jaunty (scandalized?) nickname of his second wife—about ten years ago.

According to Wikipedia, she can be chartered for €45,000 to €65,000 a day.

Sean “Diddy” Combs recently cruised on the Christina O.

The more impecunious among us may prefer a tour of locations associated with Maria Callas in Verona (where she made her Italian début) and possibly also Zevio (where her husband had a family home) and Sirmione (where Callas and her husband owned a vacation home).

The site mentions a museum in Zevio displaying Callas memorabilia, “thousands of pictures, old records, magazines, dresses of the great singer.” As of late 2009, it was not yet open, though I may not have the latest information.

I offer you, as well, an article about Maria Callas and her dogs, with more than sixty photos, including the image you see here of Callas with her poodle Tea in Verona, c. 1954.

Callas remembered

Over the years, much ink has been spilled about the relationship between Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis. I believe that even today, moralistic outrage over Callas’s “scandalous” behavior motivates some part of the abuse still hurled at her.

It is interesting, then, to read this recollection of her by a Catholic priest—Father Vittricio Mabellini, associated with the Centro culturale francescano Rosetum of Milano, at which Callas cut the ribbon during the opening ceremony in 1957.

He took to visiting her home in via Buonarrotti.

Slowly, I began to understand why Maria Callas asked for my prayers with such great insistence and was so keen to confide in me: She was something of a prisoner in her own home, and no great atmosphere of affection reigned there. Her husband was 33 [actually, 26 or 27] years older than she, and their relationship was more formal and exterior than anything else.

She had a proud character, and I never saw her really happy. At most, a smile or a nod. In short, the air was heavy in that home. Let us not forget, then, that Maria Callas was a Greek woman, Mediterranean, thirsty for affection and true feelings.

I say these things not to take a certain position vis-à-vis this woman of whom so much has been said, for good and for ill. I am simply relating what were, at the time, my direct impressions.

From Ricordo di Maria Callas, Edizioni Rosetum (1992).