Maria Callas

Callas. One of the greatest and most versatile operatic singers in recent history. She sang an incredible variety of rôles; from Wagnerian to light coloratura; from high soprano to mezzo. However it is not just the range of rôles she was capable of singing, but how she sang them that makes her special. Maria Callas had a distinctive vocal timbre which she could colour in seemingly infinite shades. She could also act, a rarity with opera singers still today. She was a joy to listen to and watch. True her voice was flawed, but her artistry was unmatched.

Her voice was "not all molded from the same metallo, as they would say in Italy; and this fundamental variety of tone produced by a single voice affords one of the richest veins of musical expression which the artistry of a great cantatrice is able to exploit...

...the history of the art [of singing] might tend to suggest that it is not the perfectly pure, silvery voice, impeccably accurate in tone throughout every note of its compass, which lends itself to the greatest achievements of impassioned singing. No voice whose timbre is completely incapable of variation can ever produce that kind of opaque, or as it were, suffocated tone, which is at once so moving and so natural in the portrayal of certain instants of violent emotion or passionate anguish."

Stendahl writing about Giuditta Pasta (quoted from The Callas Legacy by John Ardoin)

Maria Meneghini Callas was born Sophia Cecelia Kalos (Christened Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou) on the 2nd or 3rd of December, 1923 in New York. She left the United States in 1937 to move to Greece. Here she studied at the Athens Conservatory. She made her professional operatic debut in a major role, Tosca, at the Athens Opera in 1941 (See list of other debuts below).

She married Giovanni Battista Meneghini in 1949, and he guided her career until their separation in 1959. She went on to triumphant performances at all of the major opera houses. Her last operatic appearance was in 1965 at Covent Garden, again as Tosca. She gave a number of master classes in 1971-72. In the following two years, she toured with Giuseppe di Stefano in recitals of arias with piano accompaniment. She died in 1977 in Paris.

1938 - Stage debut as Santuzza in a student performance of Cavalleria Rusticana
1939 - Professional debut in von Suppe's Boccaccio at the National Lyric Theatre, Athens
1941 - Professional debut in a leading role as Tosca at Athens Opera
1947 - Italian debut as Gioconda at the Arena di Verona
1950 - La Scala, Milano as Aida
1952 - London as Norma
1954 - Chicago as Norma
1955 - Berlin as Lucia
1956 - Vienna as Lucia
1956 - New York Metropolitan Opera as Norma
1958 - Paris (In Gala Concert) [1964 as Norma]

Abigaille in Nabucco (3 in 1949)
Aida (33 in 1948-1953)
Alceste (4 in 1954)
Amelia in Un ballo in maschera (5 in 1956)
Amina in La Sonnambula (22 in 1955-1957)
Anna Bolena (12 in 1957-1958)
Armida (Rossini) (3 in 1952)
Beatrice in Boccacio (c. 10 in 1940-1941)
Brünnhilde in Die Walküre (6 in 1949)
Carmen (studio recording only)
Cio Cio San in Madama Butterfly (3 in 1955)
Constanze in Die Entührung aus dem Serail (4 in 1952)
Elena in I Vespri Siciliani (11 in 1951-1952)
Elisabetta in Don Carlo (5 in 1954)
Elvira in I Puritani (16 in 1949-1955)
Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice (Haydn!) (2 in 1951)
Fedora (6 in 1956)
Fiorilla in Il Turco in Italia (9 in 1950, 1955)
Gilda in Rigoletto (2 in 1952)
La Gioconda (13 in 1947-1953)
Giulia in La Vestale (5 in 1954)
Imogene in Il Pirata (7 in 1958-1959)
Iphigénie en Tauride (4 in 1957)
Isolde in Tristan und Isolde (12 in 1947-1950)
Kundry in Parsifal (5 in 1949-1950)
Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (5 in 1952)
Laura in Der Bettelstudent (Millöcker) (4 in 1945)
Leonore in Fidelio (9 in 1944)
Leonora in La forza del destino (6 in 1948, 1954)
Leonora in Il trovatore (20 in 1950-1955)
Lucia di Lammermoor (46 in 1952-1956)
Maddalena in Andrea Chenier (6 in 1955)
Manon Lescaut (studio recording only)
Margherita in Mefistofele (3 in 1954)
Marta in Tiefland (10 in 1944-1945)
Medea (31 in 1953-1962)
Mimi in La Boheme (studio recording only)
Nedda in I Pagliacci (studio recording only)
Norma (89 in 1948-1965)
Paolina in Poliuto (5 in 1960)
Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia (5 in 1956)
Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana (13 in 1939, 1944)
Suor Angelica (1 in 1940)
Tosca (51 in 1942-1965)
Turandot (24 in 1948-1949)
Violetta in La Traviata (63 in 1951-1958)

Callas also sang a small rôle (Smaragda) in Manolis Kalomiris' O protomastoras (17 in 1943-1944), her only contemporary rôle.
[She was offered the rôles of Magda in Menotti's The Consul and the "lead" in Barber's Vanessa, but she turned down both rôles.]