ASMA KHALID, HOST:
One hundred years ago today, a soprano was born in Manhattan. She would go on to turn the opera world on its head.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OMBRA LEGGERA")
MARIA CALLAS: (Singing in Italian).
KHALID: Maria Callas was celebrated and controversial, and though she died 47 years ago, her legacy still looms large. There are recent biographies, another biopic starring Angelina Jolie and a new giant box set of CDs. On this 100th anniversary, NPR's Tom Huizenga explores why Callas still commands attention.
TOM HUIZENGA, BYLINE: With Maria Callas, you must start with that unmistakable voice.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ECCO RESPIRO APPENA")
CALLAS: (Singing in Italian).
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
CALLAS: It is a matter of loving my kind of voice or not. Some people say I have a beautiful voice. Some people say I have not. It's a matter of opinion.
HUIZENGA: Even Callas herself realized how polarizing she could be in that vintage tape from the WQXR archives.
WILLIAM BERGER: It's biological. People have literal gut reactions to voices.
HUIZENGA: William Berger writes books about opera, and he's a producer for the Metropolitan Opera.
BERGER: It's so scary, in a way, when we hear her sing Lucia or Tosca because she's finding the aspects of the role that are not just pretty.
HUIZENGA: And singing notes that aren't so pretty when the drama calls for it, like in Puccini's "Tosca," when she resorts to stabbing her assailant, encouraging him to die.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOSCA, ACT II, FINALE")
CALLAS: (As Tosca, singing in Italian).
HUIZENGA: To understand Callas' genius, you have to listen to the spaces in between the big showstopping arias where she created new depth in characters, making her performances for William Berger mythic, almost like rituals. Callas became mythic herself, the artist who rose from poverty, sacrificed everything for her art and died brokenhearted at age 53. Still, she inspires top singers today, like Angel Blue, who sings many of the roles Callas sang, including Tosca.
ANGEL BLUE: I was listening to her, actually today sing "Vissi D’Arte," and the way she sings it, it's just entirely honest. So every emotion that is humanly possible comes out of her.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VISSI D’ARTE")
CALLAS: (As Tosca, singing in Italian).
HUIZENGA: Angel Blue says Callas is like a great actor, willing to tweak lines in an unconventional way to make the drama real.
BLUE: In "La Traviata," she says, (singing) ah, gran dio, and she does this sort of tilt coming up gran dio, and you hear that feeling in her voice. She's saying, oh, God, why is this happening to me?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA TRAVIATA, ACT III")
CALLAS: (As Violetta, singing in Italian).
BLUE: When I listen to Maria Callas, I can hear her life story.
HUIZENGA: A story both tragic and triumphant. Born to immigrant Greek parents who squabbled and separated, Callas moved to Athens from New York in 1937. She threw herself into opera, singing her first lead role at age 15. In 1947 in Italy, her international career took flight. The first recordings came two years later.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CASTA DIVA")
CALLAS: (As Norma, singing in Italian).
HUIZENGA: Throughout her life, Callas, the ferocious artist, collided with Maria, the vulnerable woman. And that was a contradiction biographer Lyndsy Spence couldn't resist. Her book is called "Cast A Diva: The Hidden Life Of Maria Callas."
LYNDSY SPENCE: Her story, in my opinion, has been hijacked by people who don't know very much about Maria, the woman, and I really wanted to get to the bottom of who Maria, the person, was.
HUIZENGA: The Maria Spence found was someone who, beyond the tabloid stories and high fashion lifestyle, was not so different from us. She loved watching Westerns and collecting recipes.
SPENCE: And I felt towards the end, this is just an ordinary woman with an extraordinary talent.
HUIZENGA: And an even more extraordinary sense of determination.
SPENCE: She was the greatest for a reason. She put the work in. It wasn't just luck. It wasn't a publicity machine. And she deserves all of the accolades that we're giving her, even today.
HUIZENGA: Despite the accolades, Callas suffered - a disastrous love life, a few overdoses, and her voice began to show signs of wear uncommonly early. That was fodder for the Callas detractors, who speculated that her weight loss in the early '50s led to vocal problems. And yet here she is in 1964, near the end of her career, singing Carmen with savvy, technique and personality to burn.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SEGUEDILLE")
CALLAS: (As Carmen, singing in French).
HUIZENGA: Through all her hardships, from hunger during World War II to being bullied by the men in her life, Callas became the game-changing opera singer and a cultural icon, a touchstone for Angel Blue.
BLUE: Maybe Maria Callas is that woman who really did live for her art and really did live for love.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VISI D’ARTE")
CALLAS: (As Tosca, singing in Italian).
HUIZENGA: In the end, true love may have eluded Callas, but her art, says William Berger, endures.
BERGER: I don't see how Maria Callas can ever be forgotten. She's become part of the communal unconscious, and that is a marvelous thing.
HUIZENGA: Tom Huizenga, NPR News.
Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.