Maria Callas: The Woman behind the Legend
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Price: $14.29
You Save: $10.66 (43%)
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Callas Maria
Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristole Onassis
 List Price: Price: $99.98 DescriptionPacked with newly uncovered secrets, this account of the romance of Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis and opera diva Maria Callas reveals their full story. Drawing from the private papers of Callas, the author tracks their relationship, from Onassis's pursuit of Callas throughout Europe to the strange covert courtship conducted prior to his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy.
MARIA CALLAS: Sacred Monster
 List Price: Price: $10.24 You Save: $24.76 (71%) Description "I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not the devil, either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like so to be judged." This is the authoritative biography of one of the great icons of the century, Maria Callas, the most brilliant and controversial singer-actress of modern times. Written by a music scholar, opera critic, and, toward the end of Callas' life, a close friend, Sacred Monster is an account of the singer's triumphant and tumultuous public career and her private life. "There are two people in me, Maria and Callas....Their difference is only that Callas is a celebrity," she remarked. The celebrity Callas defined an age of opera. The private Callas is a source of lasting fascination. Sacred Monster is not only the definitive portrait of one of the greatest artists of the century, it corrects the many misguided books about Callas that have appeared since her death in 1977 at the age of fifty-three. Galatopoulos writes about Callas objectively -- recognizing her flaws, her temperament, and the signs of premature vocal deterioration. He re-creates the triumph of intelligence, hard work, musical talent, grit, and fierceness that enabled Callas to rise to superstardom. He recounts her sometimes stormy relationships with the conductors, managers, and fellow stars, and with her family, husband, and lover. Galatopoulos attended more than a hundred of Callas' performances and he describes not only the brilliance of her many triumphs, the disappointments of her setbacks, and the poignance of her premature decline, but also her legacy, which resides in her continuing influence and her extensive and valuable discography. Callas chose to share many of her most frank judgments about her professional problems with Galatopoulos. Perhaps most dramatically, in this book, which might almost be called "Callas Has the Last Word," Galatopoulos sets straight the soap opera portrait some have drawn of a shattered and reclusive woman abandoned by her lover, Aristotle Onassis. In fact, Callas and Onassis resumed their friendship shortly after his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy. This portrait of Callas shows her in retirement every bit as forceful and engaged as she was on stage. Maria Callas: Sacred Monster is lavishly illustrated. One hundred pages of photographs show Callas' roles in a visual documentary of the period 1947 to 1965, a truly golden age of opera. Many of the images have never before been published. A complete survey of Callas' recordings and a list of her performances are also included. Maria Callas is a biographer's dream. Born into poverty, she turned herself from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan, and in the process became the most celebrated diva of the 20th century. She breathed life, drama, and passion into an art form that had hitherto remained the preserve of an intellectual elite, and was single-handedly responsible for turning opera from an arts-page sideshow to front-page news. Her bust-ups with the New York Met and her disastrous love life--culminating in a tragic obsession with Aristotle Onassis--were as enthralling as her voice, and there was a depressing inevitability about her mysterious, early death in 1977 at the age of 54. It's hardly surprising, then, that there have been any number of books written about Callas. Most have been little more than well-researched clippings jobs. Callas spent nearly 30 years in the public eye, and there is any amount of material about her on public record. What separates Stelios Galatopoulos from the rest of her biographers is the wealth of previously unpublished material from which he draws. He is stronger than most on Callas's early years--particularly the German occupation of Greece during the Second World War--which is a period many writers try to ignore, as Callas was accused by many Greek patriots of having been a traitor to her country by continuing to perform for the Nazis in the Athens opera house. Galatopoulos is quick to absolve her of any charges of collaboration. This is probably a correct assessment, though he falls short of labeling Callas and her mother as the ruthless careerists and opportunists they undoubtedly were. Herein lie both the strength and weakness of the book. Galatopoulos was a close personal friend of Callas; as such he was privy to her most private thoughts and he offers us some fascinating new insights into her husband, Giovanni Meneghini; her lover Aristotle Onassis; and her mother. What he doesn't always do, though, is maintain a critical eye. Whenever he deals with anything controversial, he is happy to give Callas the benefit of the doubt. But all this is really a minor quibble. Overall, Galatopoulos does a superb job in re-creating the opera world of the 1940s through to the 1970s and he excels in his assessment of Callas's artistic achievements. Maria Callas: Sacred Monster may not be the final word on the diva, but it's as close as it comes. --John Crace
Maria Callas Remembered: An Intimate Portrait of the Private Callas
 List Price: Price: $12.60 You Save: $4.40 (26%) Product Details
DescriptionYears after her death Maria Callas remains one of the most renowned and compelling of all divas. Although much has been written about Callas the prima donna, the consummate stage magician, and the tragic lover of Aristotle Onassis, this is the first account of Maria the woman by someone who was close to her. Stancioff, a longtime friend, shares memories of the Maria who gave impromptu concerts of Beatles hits and Mexican ballads; of the Maria who starved herself to conform to the image of a celebrity but would go into rhapsodies about a plate of pasta. And to her own warm reminiscences, Stancioff adds the insights of Maria's friends, colleagues, and family. The figure that emerges is intriguing, infuriating, mystifying—and endlessly fascinating.
Nadia Stancioff was Maria Callas's friend during the diva's unhappy final years, starting as a publicist for Callas's film of Medea. Interviewing people who had known her earlier, Stancioff sought to explore the woman from the inside--"Maria," not "Callas." Though the result offers no real information we haven't seen before, it is delivered in a personal voice that makes this memoir (first published in 1987) worth reading. There's plenty about Callas's appearance and love life, but the tone is chatty rather than trashy. The events that Stancioff herself was there for were not especially significant (she was present, however, when Onassis paid his first visit to an agitated Callas after his marriage to Jackie Kennedy). More valuable are the stories she hears from colleagues, fans, and the singer's elusive sister. The one subtle, and indeed moving, touch is something the author doesn't do: she declines to resolve the contradictions people tell her. Maria's mother pushed her into singing; it was Maria's own desire. Maria's family was kept in luxury during World War II by her sister's boyfriend; Maria ate out of garbage cans. In the '40s, the Met offered her roles that she turned down; there was no offer. The stories aren't reconciled because Callas can't be: she exists only in the kaleidoscope of other people's impressions. Stancioff's own Maria is a difficult woman--capricious, superhumanly insecure--to whom she is utterly loyal. The unanswered questions surrounding Callas's death have been discussed elsewhere, such as in Maria Callas: Sacred Monster. As speculated on by the chorus of voices here, the mystery is particularly unsettling. Neither Callas nor, perhaps, anyone who cared about her was in control of what she left behind. It's a sad end to the tale of a tortured woman whose aura is as strong as ever but who was, ultimately, no more knowable than any of us. --David Olivenbaum
Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis
 List Price: Price: $12.52 You Save: $14.43 (54%) DescriptionThe love affair of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis scandalized and fascinated the world from the moment it began in 1959 during a cruise on the fabled yacht Christina. In the decades since, dozens of books have been written about the incandescent diva who transformed opera and the Promethean tycoon who revolutionized international shipping, but none has focused on the tempestuous relationship between them, which is widely thought to have collapsed following Onassis' celebrated marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968.Now, Nicholas Gage, author of the acclaimed international best-seller Eleni and a former investigative reporter for the New York Times, gives us the first and only full account of this fateful romance, presenting startling new information he has uncovered. Gage was able to persuade the couple's associates, relatives, and close friends--some of whom had never spoken before--to share their most intimate recollections. He also gained access to some of Callas' most private papers, which provide an utterly new view of her personal life. His narrative shows us that the Callas and Onassis relationship, far from being a passing dalliance, was in fact the deepest and longest-lasting emotional commitment either of them ever knew. Gage meticulously reconstructs the events leading to the affair, from Callas and Onassis' first meeting at a masked ball in Venice in 1957 to the tycoon's pursuit of her throughout Europe, culminating in the 1959 cruise. It was during this three-week summer holiday, hosted by Onassis and his wife, Tina, that Aristotle and Maria's daily encounters ignited passions before the alarmed eyes of the crew and other illustrious guests, including Sir Winston and Lady Churchill. We follow the couple through the ensuing press hysteria and the rancor of their shattered marriages; the days of bliss and battles on the island hideaway of Skorpios; the agonizing deterioration of Callas' voice; and the strange covert courtship Onassis conducted prior to his marriage to the widow of the American president, a surprise that stunned the world once again and nearly destroyed Callas. Within days of his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy, Onassis was back at Maria's door. Although they were never to marry, the relationship between the tycoon and the diva, Gage reveals, would continue and deepen, through tragedies and trials, until the end of their lives. Penetrating the mass of published misinformation concerning his subjects, Nicholas Gage gives us the most reliable account ever of these legendary figures, a brilliant dual biography of two icons of the golden age of glamour. Greek Fire is an operatic spectacle of desire and loss, certain to transform our understanding of some of the most compelling personalities ever to capture our imagination. Nicholas Gage's meticulously documented and consistently absorbing account chronicles the stormy love affair between Maria Callas (1923-77) and Aristotle Onassis (1906-75). Gage sees the soprano who reinvented the art of opera and the tycoon who transformed the shipping industry as kindred spirits, drawn into romance by a deep connection to their Greek origins and a shared sense that, despite all they had achieved, something was missing. They found that absent element in a once-in-a-lifetime passion, which Onassis betrayed by marrying Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968. Gage appears to share the view of the tycoon's Greek coterie, who viewed this marriage as an act of hubris that inevitably led to financial and personal reversals which embittered Onassis in his final years. But he doesn't blame the tycoon for Callas's decline, pointing out that by the time they met, she was already experiencing severe vocal problems and was eager for respite from her taxing performance commitments. In any case, her career and his business dealings take a back seat here to Gage's evocative portrait of his subjects' outsized personalities and the jet-set society in the gaudy postwar years. Some of the new information is revelatory, particularly Gage's persuasive contention that Callas bore Onassis a son who died hours after his birth in 1960. At other times his investigative-journalist approach seems too weighty for this highly personal story of love, rage, and big, big egos. Fortunately, these lapses don't seriously mar a text distinguished by smooth prose, the seamless interweaving of several narrative strands, and a warm sympathy for its genuinely tragic protagonists. --Wendy Smith Callas Maria News
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Daily MailBreakdancing at 73: The popping pensioner who wows Britain's Got Tonight seems to be the night for unusual acts, as Maria Callas returns from the dead to audition for the judges. Margaret Warda believes she is possessed by the spirit of the legendary opera singer. As she explains to the judges: 'I am a vessel for