Thirty years on, a voice that has stood the test of time
Today we are going to go back to another September 16, more than 30 years ago, to a great finale on which the curtain has never fallen. Cries of «Bravo» were heard as Maria Callas’s coffin emerged from the Orthodox Church of Aghios Stefanos in Paris’s 16th arrondissement on the Tuesday after her death. Many of the diva’s hundreds of admirers had tears in their eyes as they said farewell to the woman whose heart had broken out of loneliness. The mourners at the funeral included her sister Iakinthi (Jackie), her niece, Princess Grace of Monaco and her daughter Princess Caroline, her close friend Vasso Devetzi and the then prefect of Thessaloniki Costas Pylarinos, a devoted friend of the opera. The Greek government was represented by then Culture Minister Constantine Trypanis. Also in attendance were directors of the opera houses of Rome and Paris. Greece’s president at the time, Constantine Tsatos, and Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis had sent wreaths, as had Christina Onassis and Milan’s La Scala. In her comfortable home on Paris’s Avenue Georges-Mandel, given to her by the love of her life, Aristotle Onassis, Callas had found herself alone at the end. Her early marriage to Giovanni Meneghini had been her first step on the path to fame. The older industrialist, who loved opera, took the overweight Greek girl with the beautiful voice and made her the star of La Scala. The unique richness of her voice allowed her to interpret the greatest roles. At the height of her fame, she met business tycoon Onassis, who was enchanted by her voice and her dark beauty; their affair began during one of the famous cruises on Onassis’s ship the Christina, when the guest list included Winston Churchill, his wife Clementine and daughter Sarah, Meneghini and Onassis’s wife Tina. The famous couple were followed by paparazzi to dinner at Maxim’s, or taking guests around Epidaurus. When Callas sang at the Herod Atticus Theater, Onassis sat in the audience with a bouquet of flowers on an empty seat next to him, an expensive bracelet and ruby necklace entwined among the roses. The affair ended when Onassis suddenly married Jacqueline Kennedy on the island of Skorpios. Now, 30 years later, Callas’s voice is heard everywhere; young people are discovering her. Greece will always be proud of Maria Callas, who was praised as no other singer in the great opera houses of the world and who risked and lost her voice and career for a great love. The Culture Ministry has declared this year to be «Maria Callas Year.» A series of tributes has included a performance of Cherubini’s «Medea» at Epidaurus on July 14 as part of the Athens Festival, featuring the Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonazzi. The most recent was a tribute at the Pnyx Hill on September 9, held by the City of Athens’s cultural department, with a performance by soprano Dimitra Theodosiou of arias made popular by Callas to the accompaniment of the city’s symphony orchestra and a mixed choir. The event was sponsored by the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, Eurobank and the Mytilineos Group, communications sponsor Kathimerini and Skai Television and radio stations Skai, Athens 9.84, and Melodia. Meanwhile, Vasso Papantoniou, chairman of the board of the Maria Callas Opera House and Academy has announced an exhibition by Nikos Floros, «Opera Costume Sculptures» curated by Katerina Koskina, this coming Wednesday, September 19, at the Melas Mansion in Kotzia Square.
