For millions of people, the great soprano Maria Callas (1923-1977) remains the focus of such unparalleled fascination that there is still no higher praise for singers than "...the best since Callas." In this biography, Callas' career is brought brilliantly to life, from her transformation from a chubby, painfully shy girl into a magnificent, celebrated soprano, to her conflict with her larger-than-life image. Huffington makes this struggle, which was at the center of her life, also the center of the biography. Using a wealth of previously unpublished material and numerous first-hand interviews, Huffington documents Callas' interminable conflict with her mother, her deeply emotional relationship with her voice, the gradual unraveling of her first marriage, her passionate love affair with of Aristotle Onassis, her agony and humiliation at his leaving her, and her secret abortion.
A fictionalised account of the well-known and not so widely known details of the tempestuous and passionate, creative and private life of the internationally acclaimed diva. The soaring heights of her talents, the fears of her decline, written from a psychological, highly controversial perspective.
From the New York Times bestselling biographer Anne Edwards comes the irresistible true story of the lives and loves of the great opera diva, Maria Callas. Maria Callas continues to mesmerize us decades after her death, not only because she was indisputably the greatest opera diva of the 20th century, but also because both her life and death were shrouded in a Machiavellian web of scandal, mystery and deception. Now Anne Edwards, well known for her revealing and insightful biographies of some of the world's most noted women, tells the intimate story of Maria Callas—her loves, her life, and her music, revealing the true woman behind the headlines, gossip and speculation. The second daughter of Greek immigrant parents, Maria found herself in the grasp of an overwhelmingly ambitious mother who took her away from her native New York and the father she loved, to a Greece on the eve of the Second World War. From there, we learn of the hardships, loves and triumphs Maria experienced in her professional and personal life. We are introduced to the men who marked Callas forever—Luchino Visconti, the brilliant homosexual director who she loved hopelessly, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, the husband thirty years her senior who used her for his own ambitions, as had her mother, and Aristotle Onassis, who put an end to their historic love affair by discarding her for the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy. Throughout her life, Callas waged a constant battle with her weight, a battle she eventually won, transforming herself from an ugly duckling into the slim and glamorous diva who transformed opera forever, whose recordings are legend, and whose life is the stuff of which tabloids are made. Anne Edwards goes deeper than previous biographies of Maria Callas have dared. She draws upon intensive research to refute the story of Callas's "mystery child" by Onassis, and she reveals the true circumstances of the years preceding Callas's death, including the deception perpetrated by her close and trusted friend. As in her portraits of other brilliant, star-crossed women, Edwards brings Maria Callas—the intimate Callas—alive.
Maria Callas (1923–77) was the greatest opera diva of all time. Despite a career that remains unmatched by any prima donna, much of her life was overshadowed by her fiery relationship with Aristotle Onassis, who broke her heart when he left her for Jacqueline Kennedy, and her legendary tantrums on and off the stage. However, little is known about the woman behind the diva. She was a girl brought up between New York and Greece, who was forced to sing by her emotionally abusive mother and who left her family behind in Greece for an international career. Feted by royalty and Hollywood stars, she fought sexism to rise to the top, but there was one thing she wanted but could not have – a happy private life. In Cast a Diva, bestselling author Lyndsy Spence draws on previously unseen documents to reveal the raw, tragic story of a true icon.
Packed with newly uncovered secrets, this account of the romance of Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis and opera diva Maria Callas reveals their full story. Drawing from the private papers of Callas, the author tracks their relationship, from Onassis's pursuit of Callas throughout Europe to the strange covert courtship conducted prior to his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Stelios Galatopoulos first met Maria Callas as a fan, at a performance of La Giocononda in 1947. Aged 24, she was still a large woman, hiding the gaunt dramatic figure she was to become. Galatopoulos was there at her debut at Covent Garden in 1952, and by 1957 had become a friend.
(Amadeus). In this award-winning biography, Petsalis-Diomidis closely examines Maria Callas's life in Athens from 1937 to 1945. These years have been largely absent from previous works about Callas, but were crucial to her professional and personal growth. The author examines her professional development, her studies, her concertizing, and her work with the Greek National Opera. He also recounts Callas's daily life, her friendships, her rivalries at the conservatory, and her personal life. Though it is a detailed historical biography, the writing and pace are novelistic. HARDCOVER.
From fantastical beginnings - his mother went into labour while gambling at a French casino - to escaping Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and ultimately conquering New York City, John Gruen's life has been anything but ordinary. As a boy unable to speak a single word of English, Gruen was determined to make it in America. Anxious to learn about his adopted country, Gruen ventured to the midwest to attend Iowa University, emerging five years later as a fully Americanised graduate student on his way to a PhD. Here is a subtly revealing self-portrait of a truly remarkable man.
(Amadeus). His exceptional good looks made him a matinee idol, and Franco Corelli the Prince of Tenors was dubbed "Mr. Soldout" for 20 consecutive years. In 1958, just seven years after beginning his career, he was already the highest-paid tenor in Italy. Following his Met debut in 1961, he was celebrated as the greatest tenor in the world, a position that he retained until his departure from the Met in 1975. His charismatic performances in such operas as La Vestale and Fedora (both in collaboration with Maria Callas), coupled with a formidable mystique, as well as a number of notorious and colorful incidents, including his real-life sword fight with Boris Christoff in Rome, the Callas walkout there, the beating up of a spectator in Naples, and the alleged biting of Birgit Nilsson on a Boston tour of Turandot , created a mania for Corelli. Nearly a decade in the making, this definitive biography is based on the author's extensive research of theater archives and interviews with the opera star's numerous friends, family members, colleagues (Nilsson, Pavarotti, and many others), as well as the management of some of the world's leading opera houses.
