Maria Callas: What made her the greatest opera queen?

Maria Callas: What made her the greatest opera queen?

The fascination with Maria Callas, years after her passing, remains as profound as it was during her career. It is truly as if she emerges from the grave to captivate our imagination, and she never lets it go. Today, sales of her recordings consistently outperform those of other artists. Over 30 books have been written about her, far more than about iconic figures like Nijinsky or Laurence Olivier. The question is: why? It is a complex query, rooted in her immense theatrical persona, which was inextricably reflected through her voice. But it is also about something else, because there was not only Callas, the artist, but Maria, the woman. And the story of Maria, the woman, is equally intriguing—truly one of the greatest tragic love stories of our time.

“I am, I mean, I am unprotected. I have been unprotected all my life. Perhaps, as I discovered, I am often misunderstood, hated, and attacked. And I could not resist; I had to sit and take it in absolute silence. It is painful; you hate it because it is unjust, and the world is full of injustice. I will bear a little of the story,” she once remarked.

Maria was actually born in Manhattan on December 2, 1923, at a hospital on Washington Heights, in the Upper West Side, and was named Maria Cecilia Sophia Anna Kalogeropoulos. Her father had a pharmacy here in Greece, but I believe he did not find great success in the end, so he took his wife and his first daughter to the United States. He changed the name from Kalogeropoulos—which is extremely difficult to pronounce—to Callas. Her mother was pregnant then, and Maria Callas was born one year later. Due to increasing tensions at home and at school—specifically Public School 189—she was not particularly happy. Despite that, her American upbringing was always a very strong influence. She constantly played popular music and would sing along with whoever was on: Frank Sinatra, Cole Porter. “Hernando’s Hideaway” was a big, important song. I mean, she really admired that. She loved Mexican songs and would harmonize with that type of thing—the poignant Mexican love songs. She loved going to the cinema, and what she loved most were cowboy movies, Westerns. I think she loved to get lost in those kinds of stories in films. She would talk out loud all the time while we went to the movies. She would say, “Oh my God, oh look, look what’s going to happen!” All these comments were loud, and the people behind her would say, “Shhh, shhh!”

But when Maria turned 13, her mother decided she had had enough of her father. They later separated, and in 1937, their two daughters were moved to Athens. They lived there in a state of poverty at 61 Patission Street. When she left her father, the impact on the shy and introverted Maria was profound. For years, she wore loose, faded clothes. She would say that her mother was always making these little dark dresses with white collars. It was her obsession. She said, “Oh, my mother is always making these little dresses with white collars.” And when I met Maria’s sister, Jackie, I said, “How were you always wearing such beautiful, elegant clothes, and your sister always looked like—not a bad person—but I mean, she was in a very bad state?” Well, Jackie said that, you know, a lot of the clothes were made by their mother, but Maria did not have the figure to wear them. And so, she looked fat. Should a mother be a good mother to her children, yes or no? There is no getting away from that. It is a responsibility. It is not doing anything special; it is her duty. Not a responsibility, it is her duty. That is where I am stiff like a German, if one could call it German. An ordinary mother? There is nothing extraordinary about that. Oh, how wonderful this mother is! She must be wonderful; otherwise, I would not have children. If you do not even trust your mother, whom do you trust?

The plan was, of course, that she must become a singer, she should become an artist, anyway. Usually, parents say, “Well, I sacrificed myself for you, but you will do what I was supposed to do in life.” But her mother had the common sense to send her to the conservatory here in Athens, where she attended classes for a famous teacher, Elvira de Hidalgo, with her best friend and fellow student at the time, Zoe Vlachopoulou. When she came to Mrs. Hidalgo’s class in 1939, she was a tall, fat girl with dark hair, beautiful eyes, and great self-confidence. Based on her appearance, I did not think she would be able to sing. But when she opened her mouth, my mouth fell wide open. And Hidalgo? She was stunned. It seems Maria learned everything quickly. By the end of her first term, she was speaking Italian and French fluently. She was extremely intelligent, highly musical, and played the piano well. She was always the first to arrive at class and the last to leave. She listened to all my students, often for five hours at a time. She was fascinated by the idea of reaching the high notes. She asked me about her future, and I said, “If she continues like this, she will be able to achieve everything, everything.”

Training with Hidalgo, I was immediately taken—engaged, shall we say. I held a contract with the Greek National Opera, which had begun working six months earlier at that time, stipulating that I was not to sing anywhere else. Hidalgo made sure that this contract was fulfilled. I had a sum of money, and this would have given me the chance to study without having to go to work, because that was during the war. It was a terrible time. Hunger, seeing people dying in the streets, walking everywhere because there was no transport at all. Maria would go to the conservatory four times a day, a long distance, back and forth, on foot. And if you had the money to buy food, you got it; if not, you did not. Then you had to sell everything you had. Precious items had to be sold to black market dealers to buy food. She was pushed in a way, but Maria had to do what she did. Although she had been singing since she was fourteen, her first appearance in the opera was at the cinema, the Pallas, because the National Theater did not have an air-raid shelter. She sang in Boccaccio by Franz von Suppé. One year later, incredibly enough, she sang Tosca. But her first big public success was in the opera composed by d’Albert, called Tiefland, conducted by Maestro Zoras. She was only 21 years old. There was no electricity, and we would sit at night with oil lamps. But every ten minutes, the lamps would go out. But Maria insisted on cleaning them and lighting them again. “We must rehearse, rehearse, rehearse,” as she said.

I think the secret was in her will. Callas was born with all kinds of flaws. Maria did not exist. Maria was born a beautiful woman, but she was fat, obese, and ungraceful, considering the shape of the body with which she started her life, which was more like a huge elephant. Her voice was not beautiful at all. And yet, she made this the most expressive, the most honest, and the most sincere instrument for the music she interpreted for all the singers of her time. We would sit at the table and have something in front of us, and she would say, “Oh, Nadia, what is this? Mmm, it looks so delicious. Is this some Greek specialty or Turkish, or whatever?” I mean Turkish, because we were in Turkey at that time. I would say, “Well, I do not know.” And she would say, “Well, can I taste a little?” And so, she would pick a little from your plate, then pick more, then pick from… something very close to that. And finally, she ate almost everything on your plate. And she tried everything she could. She drove me crazy. She loved ice cream. The moment we finished eating a meal, she would turn to the waiter and say, “Would you like to have any kind of ice cream?” And if the waiter said yes, we have vanilla and chocolate. Well, that was not good enough. She wanted all kinds of different flavors. The more, the merrier.

I went to one of these gatherings, and here came this extraordinary, bold lady. It was huge. Everything was enormous. Big eyes, a big mouth, big teeth, I mean, beautiful. A big nose, and somewhat hairy, somewhat big. A big bust. I admired that. She looked like the Statue of Liberty. Because of her success in Greece, it was inevitable that we would lose her sooner or later. And in 1947, she was invited to Verona, in Italy, to sing in La Gioconda under the supervision of the most famous musicians. An influential opera conductor of his time, Tullio Serafin. I had the opportunity to recommend her because I was invited to open that season with Faust. The director of the Arena, Verona, was in New York at that time, and I went to visit him. Thank him for the contract and so on. And he said to me, “But I really want to open the season with ‘Gioconda.’ But there is no Gioconda in the world,” he told me. And I said to him immediately, you know, “I think I have a Gioconda in my pocket.” It was very important that she met Tullio Serafin there, who understood her potential. He understood her music, her talent, and her voice. He would call her “the great singer.” The word “Vociaccia” is a bit insulting; I mean, he meant an ugly voice, but the word “grande” means a big voice, a great voice—a great and somewhat ugly voice. Maria, the woman. But if the voice of Callas, the artist, had been transformed, the body of Maria, the woman, did not exist.

At this very time, Audrey Hepburn was filming “Roman Holiday” in Italy. Maria suddenly announced that she wanted to become as thin as Audrey Hepburn. It was absolutely amazing, but in one year, she lost 37 kilograms, which is about 80 pounds. She was still a very small woman, but her flesh was hanging on her like an empty sack. She made huge efforts. Gymnastics, massage, and so on, in order to reabsorb all this loose flesh. She never succeeded in dealing with her ankles. In fact, one of the reasons she never wanted to perform Carmen was that she would have to show her feet and ankles in the dance. And she did not want to do that. Maria, the woman, now wanted to be equal to Callas, the artist.

I think I was lucky with that. I heard about the fourth, maybe fifth, performance of Gioconda in the open air, and on the largest stage in the world. And the wonderful thing was the scale of the singing, the entire range of the voice, the edge, the way she controlled everything. The battle was two-fold. First, with the voice, to make the voice carry out her orders. In other words, if she were a military commander, how could you make the troops do what you planned to do? And the other, of course, was always with the audience. I saw it when she had an easy audience, so to speak, in England, but one saw it in front of a very difficult audience in Italy. I mean, an audience that was full of excitement, full of reactions; it was worth the enthusiasm. It is worth getting into the state of excitement that the Italian audience can enter, but it was hostile at times. And I saw her fight a battle with the audience and win it.

What I learned from Serafin is that you must serve the music because music is so immense and can wrap you in a state of constant anxiety and torture, but that is our first and primary duty. He always found a reason for something. What he said that I liked is: when one wants to find a gesture, when you want to know how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer already saw it. If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and your ears—and I say soul and ears, because the mind must work, but not too much—also, you will find every gesture there.

Immediately after my first appearance in Italy, no agent would give me a job because I was not that popular. It was something new to listen to, and they hated anything that took them away from tradition. Every four or five months, I had a role. Many people were saying, “Well, her high notes are beautiful but her middle notes are not.” And others say: “All the middle notes are beautiful, but the top is not good.” In other words, they would not agree. What I liked is that they used to say that, “Well, she knows how to move on stage.” She always lived in complete fantasy, because, first and foremost, she was completely blind, you know. When she was on stage, she was living in a kind of fog. She could not see anything. So, she would dream in her fantasies—the dream, the dream on stage, completely dreaming. And that is why her character changed entirely. She showed the character that was supposed to be. Something magical happened. It is easy to say Callas was magical, but there was something supernatural that happened. You know, I do not know how to describe that; find the right words for that, but she was possessed.

She literally changed the face of opera. It was a recurring joke between us to divide the history of opera into eras: BC and AC, Before and After Callas. Callas brought something completely new at that time, and she finally brought the drama into the opera and what it meant, what was intended by the origin of opera. When Monteverdi and all the Camerata Fiorentina, let’s say, invented this new expression, it was melodrama. It was a lyrical performance, and that meant you were performing. It was a singing actor. And then, with the evolution of singing, the nineteenth century, all the new composers indulged in singing “bel canto.” And little by little, they lost the power of drama in the performers. It became a kind of exhibition of beautiful sound. And it was a betrayal, in fact. Callas, with her dramatic power, returned to the origin of opera, what that meant.

So, after her big success in Verona, it was inevitable that she would be invited sooner or later to the most important opera house in Italy, La Scala, in Milan. Serafin was there, and so were Toscanini and Giulini, and, of course, Antonio Ghiringhelli, the superintendent of La Scala, a kind of general manager. He was a wealthy businessman and a person of great stature. Someone who felt married to La Scala, and I would say, and he did not accept the demands of arrogant divas who disrupted his marriage. He wanted Maria, but only on his terms. She wanted and demanded to be recognized as the star she was. A dead end. But after another victory in La Fenice in Venice, where, among other things, she learned and sang the main role in I Vespri Siciliani in just four days, because… and that is the singer “the eel” completely. And also, after some pressure from his old friend Meneghini, Ghiringhelli could no longer ignore her.

In December 1951, she appeared for the first time in I Vespri Siciliani. Perhaps these were her greatest years. And here she fell under the influence of the great director, Luchino Visconti. Luchino entered Maria’s theater around 1954 with a great bang. And among all these authorities, glamor, and all this “bull,” everything was there to make her the most charming lady on stage. And it certainly succeeded; it inspired her a lot. And she never admitted it. She did not want to admit it. But as Serafin shaped the musician in Maria, so Visconti shaped the actress. Luchino could do anything with Maria, dramatically. She was like a schoolgirl around him, one with a terrible crush. One evening, some people tried to disturb Maria. There was an anti-Maria group in the upper balcony. They started making terrible noise during the most difficult part of the song. But, as is usually the case, at the end of the first act, the fans threw flowers. But some of them seemed a bit heavy when they landed on stage. Were they plastic? Marble? No, they were vegetables: radishes, celery. “Quick,” I said, “pick them up and leave the flowers.” But Maria, even though she could not see well, has the ears of Dionysus. She already knew that what was thrown was more than just flowers, so she picked up some radishes and showed them to the audience. Then she made a sweeping bow. Naturally, it was a great victory. They were found kissing each other in her dressing room, you know, with passion. But he played this kind of game with his big ladies because he was a very attractive man. Women loved him very much, and he had a history of stormy love relationships with great ladies. So, every now and then, there was this situation in which he found himself intentionally. In order to conquer his women, he only had to… give them the full treatment once. I was completely spoiled by him even before we started working together. Because he was the great master, he treated the prima donna lavishly, and I felt that. He made sure to point that out, and I enjoyed it completely.

I do not know if I am really always on this rule for him or for others, but he would make me find out how to act. He taught me something without knowing it: that the less I move without a clear reason or a deep reason, the more that represents my own personality. It might seem clichéd, but it is really hard not to notice it. The life of Maria Callas is like a fairy world. The story, after all, was the classic ugly duckling that became the swan. I mean, look at how she started her life. It was with a voice that no one really wanted or understood, and it was in a body that no one certainly wanted. And there were also huge psychological obstacles she had to overcome since early childhood. The overbearing mother who wanted her love and did not really get it, and the sister’s jealousy. All these things had left a clear mark on her, which she exercised throughout her life, primarily on stage. And the really interesting thing is the emergence of this artist, this swan, shall we say? And the high cost. That Maria, the woman, paid for it. The reason for my life, in truth, and the woman Maria is a special blessing. And that means to be a happy wife and to achieve success in my marriage. I am very proud of that. This is the main thing in a woman’s life. I feel it. Giovanni Battista Meneghini, who was a middle-aged industrialist, like her mother, he saw in Maria an opportunity to achieve his own destiny. And they married shortly after, and Meneghini’s money provided the support and bought the time Maria needed to build her career. Battista Meneghini had enough intelligence to understand that his work would not be complete until this woman became elegant, with style and taste. And he is the one who said, “Make her a lot of clothes, make her look good.” She, being somewhat stingy, perhaps I would not have cared about that. He realized that this transformation would lead to the appearance of a new Callas. I always thought… the hindsight of Meneghini as a scourge and a person who hung on to her and all that, I have always thought this is a wrong and unfair view. I think he made a great contribution to her. I think he gave her confidence, I think he gave her the background, I think he gave her the advice, I think he was a very smart Italian businessman, a Latin businessman, and I think she needed that. And I do not know to what degree she was involved with him, but I think she was involved to a large extent. I think she was… I think she was what could be considered a good relationship for several years. These are all Maria Callas’s letters, thousands. I have thousands of letters and documents of various kinds. Would you like to hear one? Let us see. “Finally, I arrived at my destination after a trip.” And at the top was written: “My dear lover, adorato, adorato.” These are love letters… letters overflowing with love, which contain love and very few other things. As for the other things, they are just incidental. The main part of all these letters is love. That was when we left for Buenos Aires, and she was crying like a child, leaving Meneghini in Genoa. And I remember this. Perhaps that was the only moment I saw Maria Callas was truly touched, truly sincere, truly caring about someone. She was crying and feeling despair about leaving Meneghini, because he represented her. Not only her husband, he was her father, her brother, the security she found in life.

It is I, the young, the old, the few, and I would like to thank everyone for participating in this event. I will go and start. He was a very loving husband. He adored her. And perhaps, like all worship, it was too stifled inside her. And what is worse, because of this love, he made her commit many mistakes. Some lawsuits. No need for newspapers and the like. And he provoked her, sometimes backstage in front of a colleague. And as you know, when you are under the pressure of performance, when your nerves are under immense strain and immense pressure. When someone approaches and says: “As you know, we did this, and we did this, and this other person said that this person would explode,” there is no other way. And sometimes she became very abusive. As for the singers she did not respect, who were late, who did not give, who did not try, and who were less professional than her. It was very difficult to be as professional as her, but I think people… who were less than that, she did not like. I remember her extreme anger at the singer I suggested, but much younger than Maria, who sang wonderfully in the role of Nereus, the maid. In Medea, who sang on the first night the song she gave. Maria was somewhat leaning, and she gave a song to try to console her, and she sang it to this leaning body, and then collapsed somewhat towards the body at the end. There was huge applause after the song, then she turned to the audience and smiled and acknowledged the applause with a bow, and Maria was very angry because of this. And after that, because she went out of her character at that moment. I had to remind her that this was a singer; I had to defend her, this is the singer I suggested, that is why we got her. “Yes, but I could have acted that way.” But she is not very experienced. The second year or something of that sort. She sang very well. “I do not care if she sings well.”

Rome Opera makes headlines with a show that did not happen. Or at least, the soprano Maria Callas refused to continue after the first act. Arriving before the opening, and here Maria looks fine. And listening to her singing Bellini is Norma, and a sparkling audience has gathered. Screen stars of the Italian screen, like Anna Magnani, she is a very fiery person when she wants to be, and Silvana Pampanini. The hostess Elsa Maxwell in the American society must think this is almost equivalent to one of her great parties. A fashion show inspired directly by “Who’s Who,” with enough material to keep the shiny magazines happy for weeks. You do not know if you are looking at the dresses or the faces, although some faces you cannot miss, of course. 3,000 people from artists to aristocrats, from dancers to diplomats. The audience on the first night was more brilliant than ever in the Eternal City. Everyone is here to listen to Maria Meneghini, Callas, the soprano. To crown this occasion, it was the President of the Italian Republic himself, the elderly Giovanni Gronchi. But even the President has to settle for just one act. Then Maria Callas says she does not feel well. So as not to disappoint you, our photographer attended a rehearsal. Perhaps he had an idea of what would happen that night. He took me down, and her voice was perfect. It is known that she went out before. So if you want to make sure you hear her, do not wear all the clothes. Just go to the rehearsal. It is usually kept until the end of those days. “Mrs. Callas, why did you come suddenly?” “I do not think I came suddenly at all. I came here for this concert, which will be held at St. James’s Church for the Mountbatten Foundation. Suddenly, completely.” “In what song are you singing?” “Well, I do not think many people did that.” “Why? It seems you arrived very quietly this time.” “I usually try to arrive quietly.” “Well, you are singing with Sir Malcolm Sargent, right?” “I accompanied him. Yes, and with Yehudi Menuhin. So, I assume Sir Malcolm is one of the conductors with whom you have a very good relationship.” “I am. I am always on good terms with all the conductors.” I do not want this to happen. In fact, many unfair things have been said about Maria. And her cancellation record was not as the world portrayed it at all. She canceled her appointments relatively rarely. She was too professional to cancel a concert. But equally, the question asked was: Did she really feel that the compatibility between them was correct? To enable her to provide a performance at a high level. That she thinks she must give because she had no desire to wrong the audience, and she had no desire to wrong herself. And she was always determined, when she went out on that stage, to give the audience, stated roughly, value for money. She would say, “Here I am, and this is the way I perform and how I sing.” And if she felt that she would be one or two grades less than her high standards that she considered, then… perhaps she might be in difficulties with it.

I was born a fighter, not out of necessity, or rather, not out of a love of fighting, because I hate fighting. I am sick in my stomach after that. But if I have to defend myself, I have too much pride to say, “Well, there is no way out. Go and defend yourself.” I thought that I would become great if I could enjoy freedom of movement. In other words, stability, happiness, being able to perform better under the best conditions, in the best state of mind, all that. Well, that was a lie. This is not true. The more famous I became, the more difficult things were. It is freedom of the press and not our freedom. Do I have the freedom? No. I cannot justify myself. I cannot live a normal life. It is a long, lonely life. I, I, oh, oh…

At the height of her career, everything was going fine for her. She was one of the most famous women in the world. But there was this, what do you call it? The flawed defect that you find in classical Greek tragedy. Until this time, it was all work and no play. She had her love from Guini, her husband, he is, if you will, her security. But with her big weight loss, she turned herself into a glamorous and attractive woman. And for the first time, Maria, the woman, wanted a real fulfillment. That was the critical moment in her life when she fell in love, but the man she fell in love with was a suspicious character. He was a man who collected famous women. It is rumored that he paid $10,000 for one night with Eva Peron, and he wanted to collect Callas. She was ready to be collected. After all, this was the period when Maria, the woman, wanted to be on equal footing with Callas, the artist. “Oh, it is very easy for the newspapers to say, ‘Oh, this terrible Callas, she earned so much money in one night. Oh, she is somewhat volatile.’ But that is not the case. What should I say? The general manager who was supposed to, I warned him and told him that I would be sick, and if there is weakness, and if there is not, what will happen? And that these people say, for example, something like the role.” I told him, “I am not well. Now, perhaps something will go wrong.” What is the person who is my double? No one can double Callas. The work is alone. It is the creation. So, you have to be alone to be able to do it. But on the other hand, when you work, it would be very nice to be able to go home and have a good time, an honest shoulder to rely on. I said that to my husband.

I will sing a song today, a song that I have been missing a lot. So, I will sing a song today, a song that I have been missing a lot. She dedicated her life to music, to the stage, like a priest in religion. And this continued until the moment the door of high society was open, open to her. At this moment, of course, the temptation for her was very difficult, because, certainly, it was an emotional problem, but also a possibility, in a moment of her life, to live a human life. She was very puritanical; she was… very, as you know, it was very strange, and sometimes very moral. But the reason was her shyness. And in the end, she never faced a man, and she never fought with him. I mean, an affair with a man ends in a wonderful sexual or emotional relationship. It did not… happen, and it never happened, until it fell upon us as a people. He was considered a very prominent figure. And he had this beautiful Christina, who became a kind of showcase for him, and he had a showcase for a celebrity. Churchill was there all the time, but generally, big and important people did not go there. When Churchill was old and retired, he was just a memory. He had nothing to lose. He went on a cruise with Onassis. And other people were really nervous. I remember Grace Kelly, a princess, and the relationship between Grace and the Rainier family was not good at all with Onassis. When he did the big exciting thing with Maria, then it was huge… great publicity, great publicity for him. No room to deny that really. She made him more famous and respected than he was, and gave him prestigious positions. In fact, he ended up with full acceptance in Monte Carlo, and so on. I mean, he… he could have lived without that because he had enough money and power, but he wanted more, he wanted to be accepted. “Please, I am sorry, I cannot talk to you. When will you go? Huh? When will you go? Miss Callas? Maybe in the spring of today. You do not see me. It is the afternoon. Tell me. How do you feel about the upcoming lawsuit?” “I am not giving any interviews.” “You will find it. It is.” “Miss Callas, you will have the evidence tonight. You will see.” “What is there? Did you have any trouble in Dallas?” “Dallas is real. Give me that.” “The only reason you are not leaving is that George is red-colored.” “I am sorry. I am sorry. Stop her. Tell us this. We will all annoy you. Take one. I am sorry. Give me an interview if you please. Did you have any argument at all with Dallas? Is that the reason you cut? What do you expect? Stop her.” “What do you expect to accomplish? You are going to.” “Please stop that. You expect to save me. You are not saving me in Dallas. I said please.” “Oh, good. Talk to me, it has been much longer than that. Talk to me. Oh, take it easy, man. And why not? It is nice to smile. We try to express our opinions. We can express ourselves, I do not like that. We do not mean to speak our own language.” “It is ridiculous, so that will not happen. It is much better. It is much harder for my photographers than this video.” “Well, just stop. You are a little hysterical. Watch this trip. And hopefully, we see these romantic couples leaving each other every night. Is there no romantic conflict for separation?” “I am sorry. What is that? When will it end? Have you spoken with Mr. Onassis? I have spoken to all my friends. I will not answer more questions. That is all, gentlemen.”

“No! You must. Before you do something, realize that there might be consequences. If you are honest, it is a high price to pay. You will pay the price and pay and pay, really. But if you are going to meet many dishonest people, many weak people who will try to bring you down. Quickly, too many, honestly, this is the high price to be paid.” Glory goes to people’s heads, not my head. Glory terrifies me. You are completely uncomfortable there. But the other people around you, they get drunk. It is wine that goes to the head. Because I, unfortunately, have seen them always betray me, almost. Everyone does it. “You have given up your nationality, is that true?” “That is true.” “And you are taking back your Greek nationality?” “I have already obtained the Greek nationality.” “What is the reason behind that, Mrs. Callas?” “The real reason that I can say is that I am a free woman, you see. Because, oh… during, um, with Greek law, whoever has not married after 1946 in the church, is not married. So, do you understand?” “I understand completely. Now, do you have any intention to marry Mr. Onassis?” “Oh, these are not questions to ask. No, now, I am a free woman. I am very happy to be so. That is why I had to give up my American citizenship, unfortunately. You understand.”

She did not want to talk to people. She hated journalists, photographers. I remember… in 1952, after Mexico, she was my guest at my villa in Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast. And the villa was surrounded by journalists, photographers from Life magazine from New York. She did not want to do an interview. She thought she was pretending. So, I thought, she should feel happy that they come from America to take her picture for Life magazine. In those years, it was the most important magazine. No, she would not see it. She hated doing interviews. She wanted privacy. And she did that. The only thing she got was a full sexual relationship. She did not need this glamor; she had enough glamor. She did not need high society, because she was… wherever she wanted to go, she was welcomed. People would put their fur coats at her feet. She could have had all this luxury, except for this real emotional and physical relationship that Onassis offered. But he was the first man who gave her that, she told me. Definitely, she met his mercy because… it is like a virgin who suddenly, you know, goes to that amazing planet full of discoveries and material life. But she wanted to work. There is no profession, perhaps like music or singing, where you have to work really every day, 12 hours a day; a singer must practice.

So, it becomes a mental habit that you must work on. I got tired of all this café society nonsense and started thinking about singing again. And we found her at that moment in ’63 in Paris, she took my hand when we went down the big staircase. She said, “We must work together again.” Then, finally, with David, it is not just one thing but a double bill. It was, the idea was Tosca and Covington and Norma in Paris and we swapped them. When she came down from the old clothes, standing, stocked, and she was wearing this incredibly pale pink chiffon with white lace hanging over her head. And somehow, everything was as you always thought Tosca should be, and it was never like that. There was no funny cover and there was a lot of old velvet, something somewhat heavy and a stick and all that garbage. And she was extremely weak. My heart jumped. You know, it sounds ridiculous, but it did. I just went, “This is it.” I remember Maria would call me in the morning sometimes. “Tito, I am sorry, but I am not 100% sure today. I do not feel well and I am a bit busy. I must change. Please be ready to follow me, because I am sure I will change everything on stage, moving in the other direction.” Then she was there near the table, and I was singing near my small desk. And she leaned very, very slightly against… a real candle and her beautiful wig with all its curls caught fire. I am short-sighted too, but fortunately I saw some light smoke because she was facing the light, a little smoke rising from her wig. She did not move.

Then I headed towards her and I was always singing. It was a duet. And when I approached her and realized that it had just started to catch fire here, the smoke and maybe three seconds, four seconds later, it was a terrible thing. So, I went there, I put my hand on the wig, like a scorpion, trying to touch Tosca, and it slipped from my hand. With a feeling of disgust that the scorpion tried to put its hand on her. Then she turned around. Continuing to sing, then she turned to me and said, “Grazie, Tito.” But she was waiting for me there. Scarpia is the man of screaming. I am a monster, I am Hitler, I am Goebbels. But in the end, he had a real deep wound that needed to be healed, and it never healed. The fact that he cannot be loved. A night with Scarpia can be, for a woman, a little more exciting than the usual routine with the beautiful Roman nail. And little by little, I was conveying to her the idea that Scarpia was somewhat like Onassis. Suddenly I found myself about to say, “He is a kind of Risto, you know, a kind of…” I did not say that, but she read my thoughts and understood where her Scarpia was. So, the whole idea is that when she kills him, she kills her… possibility of love. What do you think? It will be very exciting and all that. And she prepares herself for this amazing but very attractive experience. And while she drinks a glass of water to calm herself down, she sees the blade sparkling, the blade of the knife on the table. She remains in a state of complete shock, she looked at this blade for what seemed like a century. And when he arrives to kiss her, she grabs… the blade and the knife kills. One strike, directly into the heart. This was the leading idea of the hysteria, I mean, the eruption of the murder. I must kill this man on his backside. The success of this performance led to her greatness.