Going the distance for Maria Callas
German collector donates hundreds of works on the great soprano to the National Library of Greece
Biographies on her tumultuous life, but also novels, poetry collections and plays that refer to her directly or tacitly; children’s books, graphic novels and programs from performances inspired by her; posters too, such as from her only film (Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Medea”), and catalogues from exhibitions of her costumes; there are also stamps and several musical and lifestyle magazines, and even dissertations from foreign universities among the 1,800 or so pieces on Maria Callas that German collector Benedict Gagelmann recently donated to the National Library of Greece.
“When I started reading biographical information about Callas, it struck me that there was no bibliographically reliable information about the internationally published literature on Maria Callas, so I began to acquire everything that was published around the world [books] on this subject,” Gagelmann tells Kathimerini.
“It was often exciting to find a copy of a rare publication that had been missing for decades. For example, I purchased three different Korean translations of a Callas biography by Stelios Galatopoulos, which the author himself was unaware of,” he adds.
‘I was impressed by the fact that Mr Gagelmann had even collected proofs of books before they were published. There is even a recent edition in Persian that was published in Iran’
Born in 1948 and raised in a family where music “played an important role,” Gagelmann went to his first opera at the age of 7 and began developing an appreciation for Callas’ interpretive skills in adolescence. His interest in the great soprano grew over time, and especially after her death in 1977, when he began reading about her life, a process that woke up the collector in him.
“For over 40 years I collected everything that was published worldwide in the way of Callas books,” says Gagelmann, explaining that he set certain rules on this journey, such as avoiding magazines whose stories on the Greek opera singer were less than 10 pages long.
“It would be a very extensive, interesting but separate task to compile the internationally published reviews of Callas’ performances. The Italian Callas collector and Callas author Bruno Tosi had such an idea and planned four volumes for it,” says Gagelmann, turning back to his own initiative.
“I’m turning 75 this year and it was important to me to find a new home for my Callas collection. What better place than the Greek National Library?” he asks.
The NLG was also fascinated by the collection, which is already in the process of being catalogued.
“It was a revelation,” says archaeologist Kyriakos Grigoropoulos from the library’s Department of Manuscripts. “I was impressed by the fact that Mr Gagelmann had even collected proofs of books before they were published. There is even a recent edition in Persian that was published in Iran; it may be the only one on Callas in the broader Muslim world. It is, overall, an impressive collection for its breadth and also the collector’s commitment. It reflects his desire to entertain a passion and to carry out a journey of knowledge and documentation. I also think it depicts Callas’ incredible resonance too, her legend, as it survives to this day,” he adds.
