Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography

Anne Edwards has written several biographies on famous women, among them actress Katherine Hepburn, singer-actress Judy Garland and legendary actress Vivien Leigh. She does extensive research into the lives of these female artists and their lives, both personal and public, giving us the real scoop on who they were as well as providing the reader with an authentic look at the 20th century. Maria Callas (1923-1977) is synonymous with opera. Any real opera fan will know who she was and what she was all about. She was a legend in the opera world and raised the bar for other sopranos that would follow in her footsteps- among them Leonie Rysanek, Joan Sutherland and Shirley Verrett. This biography describes in detail everything there is to know about Maria Callas - her origins as a Greek immigrant living with her parents in New York City, the frustration she endured after being rejected to perform at the Met, her trouble with her weight (even bulimia), her impressive career, her marriages, the last being wed to Aristotle Onaissis the Greek millionaire who would divorce her to marry the widowed Jacky Kennedy. This is truly an intimate biography as the title reveals and we feel as if Anne Edwards herself had lived as Maria Callas herself.Maria Callas was born in Greece. Throughout her life, though she adopted American culture and nuances (even becoming a staunch follower of Audrey Hepburn's supermodel glamour)she remained innately Greek. Her passion, her fire and her temperament was all expressive of her Greek blood. Yes, she was infamous for her diva attitude (and this was before Diana Ross) and she was even known to have struck a reporter/paparazzi when he dared to get her in business, but we like our Maria Callas that way. Can you imagine how uninspired her performances at the opera would have been had she not been a strong woman ? It is her intensity that most attracts us to the great Maria Callas.Never was her Greek soul more pronounced than in her opera performances. This is why people overlooked her flaws- Maria Callas had faults in her voice (at times her tessitura and dramatic vocals can sound too harsh and scratchy,at times her chest voice was so deep she sounded like a man). One can also comment on the fact that she sang only in Italian, never bothering to expand her repertoire into the German operas of Wagner, Mozart or the French operas of Massenet, Bizet, etc. When she sang Carmen, which was written in French, she sang in Italian and she mostly sang Italian versions of otherwise French or German operas. She overcame these issues by truly delivering drama, acting, for she knew that opera was as much about acting as it was about singing. She reigned supreme in the role of Bellini's Norma, caused a great sensation in the fiery roles of Puccini's Tosca, Turandot, La Vestale and most notably as Medea. For Medea, she appeared in one film version, her only film work she ever did. She was said to be the most acclaimed Violetta in Verdi's La Traviat

Not having read any biographies on Maria Callas before, I can't judge against other authors' works on the subjects. ...I really enjoyed this version of Callas' work and art. I will second the ... opinion ... of Anne Edwards omitting dates/years when recounting major events--it did make it difficult to place these events in their proper context/chronology. However, overall I found the book's emphasis on Callas personal life as well as her artistic life to make for a very well-balanced view. I would recommend it to anyone interested not only in opera, but in the life of a great legend! One other shortcoming would be Edwards' lack of attention to the details of Callas' performances--this is not a technical look at her voice, but a general overview of her unique gifts of displaying real emotion through her voice and gestures, both on the stage and in the recording studio.Viva La Divina...

I loved this book and I am reading it for my second time. I am 14, I sing opera, and Maria Callas is my idol!

I'd disagree with those here who ... this book. Actually it's about as good as any one-volume Callas bio available. Its focus is very much on the person, not the artist. And Edwards has an irritating habit of not giving years with dates, so that chronology is sometimes hard to follow. But on the whole I found this book consistently interesting and well researched.

This is not yet another sensational biography of Maria Callas. It was difficult to come with a new outlook of Callas' life and career and Anne Edwards hasn't tried to do that. She has tried, and possibly succeeded in balancing Callas the Artist and Maria The Woman, a feat attempted by many previous biographers, but hardly ever successfully. For a purely musical history of Callas, Ardoin remains the ultimate reference. Also, Edwards omits certain anecdotes inextricably linked with Callas, such as her return at La Scala as Anna Bolena in 1958 (after the Rome walkout) when she hurled her lines at the public and won them over by doing just that, and takes liberties with other stories (for example, she only attacked Ghiringhelli at her last Scala performance of "Pirata", not at every performance ; there are other such examples). It would have been helpful for the serious reader to know where Ms. Edwards got some of her more sensational information (Callas' sexual relationship with Visconti, Meneghini's supposed homosexual proclivities, etc). Was she able to interview Callas' maid and butler, Bruna and Ferrucio, who apparently only agreed to open themselves to Nicholas Gage ? In spite of its imperfections, I would consider this one of the best Callas biographies to-date. Twenty-four years after her death, Maria Callas remains the most fascinating character ever to have graced the operatic stage. Whether she did have a child by Onassis or not won't alter the fact that she was an incredible performer, a magnificent singer, and probably a very decent although troubled and ultimately very unhappy human being.