INTRODUCTION

HER STORY

QUOTES

Maria spoke and sang in numerous languages, although with a decided American accent.  But she found the harsh sound of German, which reminded her of the days of the Occupation, the most difficult to overcome.

Once, after Renata Tebaldi said something about Sempre libera not being suitable for concerts Maria, always the champion at sharp jibes replied 'A good singer can extract any aria and make it soar!'

Maria capitalized the word Voice in letters to friends, giving it human distinction.

Soon after her beloved poodle Toy died, Onassis bought Maria two female miniature poodles - white Pixie and brown Djedda."

Her last-ever press interview took place mere days before her death and during it she responded to Philippe Caloni's provocative question as to whether, in her estimation, she had any real successors. She replied unequivocally: "Only Montserrat Caballé."

When Maria Callas made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, Marlene Dietrich was there to see her performing. She had to retire early, having applauded her friend in the theatre so violently as to cause blood blisters on her delicate hand.

During 1958/59 Callas succeeded in parting with 28 kilograms, nearly 62 pounds. She went from 202 pounds to 140 pounds.

In a letter replying to her mother's request for financial aid she wrote: "Don't come to us with your troubles. I had to bark for my money, and you are young enough to work too. If you can't make enough money to live on, you can jump out of the window or drown."

Apart from being a great singer Callas was also an accomplished pianist.

Maria made one hundred fifty-seven performances in seven seasons, and only two evenings cancelled at La Scala theatre in Milan.

Was fluent in four languages: English, Greek, Italian and French.

In the 50's she owned 300 hats and 150 pairs of shoes.

Her favourite colour was red.

She would not wear glasses on stage and admitted she could hardly see her fellow performers and "the conductor not at all".

On the eve of her debut performance in Verona Meneghini gave her a tiny oil painting of the Holy Family. Callas refused to part with the painting and it became her charm - she refused to perform without it in her dressing room and once sent a private plane to collect the work from Milan.

After the first act of an opera in Rome in 1958 she suddenly left the stage. She composed a note explaining to the audience, which included the Italian president, that a respiratory illness had caused her voice to fail. But the note was never read to the audience and Callas was condemned for insulting the president. The incident became known as the Rome scandal.

There was no post-mortem after she died. Two doctors signed the certificate to the effect that Maria died of "un accident cardiaque," and at once there were whispers amongst the Callas coterie of a cover-up. Although no one even suspected foul play, few ruled out suicide.

Her maid Bruana and butler Ferruccio were well compensated for their loyalty towards her, and were awarded $250,000 each in her will. Later, Ferruccio committed 'high treason' by going to work for Christina Onassis.

She bore the child of Greek shipping magnate Onassis but the baby died. Biographer Nicholas Gage offers 1960 birth documents found among Callas' private papers after her death. The baby, named Omero Legrini, was delivered by caesarean section and lived for about two hours. Callas made many visits to the baby's grave in Milan before her death in 1977. The reason for the baby's surname remains unclear.

The true secret of her remarkable weight-loss had nothing whatsoever to do with diet: she had simply taken to swallowing tapeworms!

When she was pregnant with Onassis' child and found out he didn't want it, she booked into a clinic at once and had not just an abortion, but a hysterectomy so that she would not slip up again. In view of new evidence (see above) the story that Onassis forced her to have an abortion no longer holds.

Maria died on exactly the same day as pop singer Marc Bolan, 16 September 1977.

Maria's parents wanted a baby boy to make up for the tragic loss of their son Vasilis, who died of typhus at the age of 3. When Maria's mother learned that she had given birth to a daughter, she refused to see the baby girl for days, and her father did not register her.

Maria suffered a lifelong love-hate feeling toward her singing and said that if she could have had her time again, she would have studied psychology or psychiatry.

After watching Maria's superb performance in Tosca, Queen Elizabeth II said to her: "What a pretty frock you're wearing."

She had a relationship with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, for whom she gave up her career and left her husband, Gian Battista Meneghini, in the expectation of marriage to Onassis. Callas was bitterly disappointed when Onassis discarded her and chose instead to marry Jacqueline Kennedy. Her interest in life wained and she became a lonely recluse in Paris where she died in 1977 at the age of 53.

During rehearsals for the Rome 'Parsifal' Maria refused to kiss her onstage lover, sung by the Viennese tenor Hans Beirer, screaming at conductor Serafin, 'His breath stinks of God knows what!' Beirer was promptly dispatched to scrub his teeth, but Maria still refused to kiss him, this time claiming she didn't know how to kiss a man in public. Serafin then mounted the platform and showed her how - planting a long, lingering 'smacker' on the baritone's mouth which, Maria later declared, both men enjoyed immensely.