Skip to content
Independent and accessible public media is needed more than ever.
Help us continue keeping communities informed and inspired.
Keep public media independent and accessible
Donate Now

View thank you gift options

CapRadio

CapRadio

signal status listen live donate
listen live donate signal status
listen live donate signal status
  • News
    • topics
    • State Government
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • Race and Equity
    • Business
    • Arts and Lifestyle
    • Food and Sustainability
    • PolitiFact California
  • Music
    • genres
    • Classical
    • Jazz
    • Eclectic
    • Daily Playlist
  • Programs + Podcasts
    • news
    • Morning Edition
    • All Things Considered
    • Marketplace
    • Insight With Vicki Gonzalez
    • music
    • Acid Jazz
    • At the Opera
    • Classical Music
    • Connections
    • Excellence in Jazz
    • Hey, Listen!
    • K-ZAP on CapRadio
    • Mick Martin's Blues Party
    • Programs A-Z
    • Podcast Directory
  • Schedules
    • News
    • Music
    • ClassicalStream
    • JazzStream
    • Weekly Schedule
    • Daily Playlist
  • Community
    • Events Calendar
    • CapRadio Garden
    • CapRadio Reads
    • Ticket Giveaways
  • Support
    • Evergreen Gift
    • One-Time Gift
    • Corporate Support
    • Vehicle Donation
    • Stock Gift
    • Legacy Gift
    • Endowment Gift
    • Benefits
    • Member FAQ
    • e‑Newsletter
    • Drawing Winners
    • Thank You Gifts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Close Menu
 We Get Support From:
Become a Supporter 
 We Get Support From:
Become a Supporter 

Forebears: Maria Callas, The Divine Voice Of Classical Music

By Anastasia Tsioulcas | NPR
Monday, August 7, 2017

Maria Callas: vocal chameleon, gossip-column staple and influential opera icon.

Weston / Getty Images

When NPR Music published its list of 150 Greatest Albums By Women two weeks ago, we who created it firmly intended that this be just the beginning of a conversation that puts women's musical artistry at the center. Immediately, others took up our call. Lists began proliferating, representing different taste affinities, time periods and genre focuses than what our list encompassed. In that spirit, today NPR Music introduces two ongoing series of essays: Forebears, celebrating women whose recording careers made the most impact before the time period our list encompasses, and Shocking Omissions, honoring women whose albums did not make the initial list, but which still deserve special recognition. These essays act upon our belief that the feminist music canon is a living, constantly evolving entity.


No opera star has shone brighter in the public consciousness of the last half-century than soprano Maria Callas. Born in New York in 1923 to a couple of struggling immigrants who had just arrived from Greece a few months before her birth, Callas — who throughout her life bore an undeniable feeling for music, a pronounced taste for luxury, and an iron will — climbed to the pinnacle of international fame.

Much of that notoriety had nothing to do with her artistic life. Her long affair with the world's then-wealthiest man, Aristotle Onassis — and his eventual marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy instead of to her — guaranteed that she was a gossip-column staple. Her epic battles with other singers and opera impresarios made for prime publicity fodder, too, and included a feud with the Metropolitan Opera's then-general manager, Rudolf Bing, that left her barred from the Met, and an episode in which she was served a lawsuit backstage in Chicago that became the catalyst for an iconic photo of a furious Callas.

But all of that was surface noise. Long after the newspaper headlines have faded away, her art remains. None of the high-society chatter, nor her high fashion sense, nor the contours of her deeply unhappy personal life, nor her mercurial personality was what made Callas La Divina, "The Divine One." Onstage, she possessed one of the greatest voices of all time. She was an indelible presence whose artistry made her the icon and envy of performers across many genres. (From its inception, "Turning the Tables" — a readdressing of the pop music canon — was not meant to include classical musicians. But such an accounting is long overdue in its own right, particularly considering the extent to which female classical artists are still so routinely denigrated, slighted, dismissed or rendered invisible.)

Vocally, Callas was a chameleon. At the beginning of her career, her richly textured voice was deemed right for weighty, dark-hued Wagner, but she could also dispatch fizzy, frilly roulades in Rossini's Barber of Seville, and take her listeners to the stratosphere in Verdi's Aida.

Although she never sang the role on stage, her recordings as the coy, sexually irrepressible lead in Bizet's Carmen set a standard — as she also did in another, far different signature role when she played the tormented high priestess and mother of two in Bellini's Norma.

Her dedication to the bel canto operas of composers like Bellini and Donizetti also paved a career path way for singers, including the likes of Beverly Sills and Marilyn Horne, to excel in that formerly neglected repertoire. A nickname like "The Divine One" might imply that Callas possessed a voice that was ethereal and sweet, perhaps more like that of a choirboy than of a grown woman, and certainly a technically perfect one. That was not Callas at all. What made Maria Callas La Divina is how she fought, every step of the way.

"Mine is a big destiny," she once told an interviewer. Her divinity was like that of a classical Greek goddess: rife with insecurities, trauma, jealousy and outsized aspirations. And like the deities of myth, she didn't always win her battles. Callas' performances were a high-wire act: Either she thrilled audiences or exasperated them, with little middle ground. She was no stranger to hearing boos, or to having vegetables thrown at her. And she stood on even less sure technical terrain as her voice declined fast and early — while she was still in her forties — before her untimely death at age 53.

But the ultimate goal of Callas' performances was not obtaining plush vocal perfection or a simpering prettiness: it was glory. That singular voice was a penetrating, ferocious weapon that she wielded to extract maximum emotional truth from the roles she played, no matter what the cost. She shaped words and lines with great care, lending dramatic form and heft to even the silliest operatic frippery. She expected her audience to listen with as much intelligence and focus as she put out. Callas was a compelling, magnetic, fiery, impassioned presence — and she gave her characters immortality.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

View this story on npr.org

Sign up for ReCap and never miss the top stories

Delivered to your inbox every Friday.

 

Check out a sample ReCap newsletter.

Thanks for subscribing!

Thank you for signing up for the ReCap newsletter! We'll send you an email each Friday with the top stories from CapRadio.

Browse all newsletters

Most Viewed

Abortion is still legal in California. Here are answers to questions about access in the state.

California tax relief: What’s in the deal

The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. Here's what it means for California.

California’s next cannabis battle may be coming to a city near you

Governor Newsom signs bill to shield patients threatened by abortion bans in other states

We Get Support From:
Become a Supporter

Back to Top

  • CapRadio

    7055 Folsom Boulevard
    Sacramento, CA 95826-2625

    • (916) 278-8900
    • Toll-free (877) 480-5900
    • Email Us
    • Submit a News Tip
  • Contact Us

  • About Us

    • Contact Us / Feedback
    • Coverage
    • Directions
    • Careers & Internships
    • Mission / Vision / Core Values
    • Press
    • Staff Directory
    • Board of Directors
  • Listening Options

    • Mobile App
    • On Air Schedules
    • Smart Speakers
    • Playlist
    • Podcasts
    • RSS
  • Connect With Us

    •  Facebook
    •  Twitter
    •  Instagram
    •  YouTube
  • Donate

  • Listen

  • Newsletters

CapRadio stations are licensed to California State University, Sacramento. © 2022, Capital Public Radio. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Website Feedback FCC Public Files: KXJZ KKTO KUOP KQNC KXPR KXSR KXJS. For assistance accessing our public files, please call 916-278-8900 or email us.