Maria Callas

From Barnes & Noble

Some opera devotees believe that Maria Callas's interpretation of Bellini's Norma surpasses all others, because the role gave the New York-born soprano a singular opportunity to air fully the mercurial and tragic aspects of her own personality. Certainly, the radiant contradictions of this woman still fascinate us almost a quarter of a century after her death. Anne Edwards, dubbed "the queen of biography" by Kirkus Reviews, explores Callas's life, from her early years as the ugly-duckling daughter of Greek immigrants to her meteoric singing career to her front-page affair with Aristotle Onassis - an affair that ended when he discarded her for trophy widow Jacqueline Kennedy. One cannot read this biography without imagining an opera to do it justice. But who would sing the title role?

Publishers Weekly

Edwards (Katharine Hepburn), author of several biographies of iconic women, including Princess Di and Judy Garland, delivers a fresh, highly engrossing take on one of history's most legendary divas. Even those with little interest in opera or celebrity will be swept into this tale of an "awkward, fat girl" who became the "slim, lionized diva who... changed the face of opera forever." While there are more than 30 biographies of Callas (1923-1977), Edwards's perhaps most handily pierces fable with fact. (Most notably, she produces evidence refuting Nicholas Gage's claim in his recent Greek Fire that Callas had and lost a son by Onassis.) Edwards chronicles Callas's life from her humble beginnings as a pharmacist's daughter in Astoria, Queens, New York, to formal music training in war-torn Greece to phenomenal triumph in the world's most renowned opera houses. She also provides descriptions of opera plots, costumes and sceneries, and admirably captures the economics, passions and egos that drove the major players in Callas's life, including her most famous paramour, Aristotle Onassis, and her publicity-seeking, self-martyring mother. "There was something of Norma Desmond and Sunset Boulevard about Maria's life after Onassis and her voice died," Edwards writes, describing Callas's lonely final years. Edwards recounts, too, the star's death at 53, her dispiriting funeral ("A high wind rose just as the ashes were being offered to the blustery sea, and some of them flew back and landed on the clothes of the mourners") and the grifters who swooped in to feed on Callas's financial remains. Edwards's riveting book is sure to prompt new interest in Callas's dramatic life. Two 8-page b&w photoinserts. Agent, Mitch Douglas. (Aug. 20) Forecast: Certain to lure Callas cultists, but its appeal is likely to be much wider; several of Edwards's biographies have been bestsellers, and this one, too, has strong commercial potential. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Best-selling celebrity biographer Edwards (Ever After: Diana and the Life She Led) contributes to the spate of recent books on the stormy soprano (David Bret's Maria Callas, LJ 10/15/98; Stelios Galatopoulos's Maria Callas, LJ 3/15/99; and Nicholas Petsalis-Diomidis's The Unknown Callas, LJ 3/15/01) with this stimulating but ultimately disappointing effort. She begins well, detailing Callas's personal as well as professional development from her childhood in New York and her formative years in Greece to her triumphs of stage and recording. The singer's relations with her family and her husband, G.B. Meneghini, are integrated with descriptions of her approach to her operatic roles and the care with which she exercised her musical gifts. However, once the diva meets Aristotle Onassis in the late 1950s, her story as told here becomes a tabloid recitation of gossip about their love life and extravagances before descending into lurid descriptions of her mood swings and reliance on drugs. Edwards tries to debunk certain myths through documentation from New York's Museum of Broadcasting and Metropolitan Opera, among other sources, but this does little to redeem her narrative, which is also marred by infelicitous word choices, sentence fragments, and the pretentious use of French expressions where plain English would suffice. Edwards's name recognition may create demand in public libraries, but this is not an essential purchase. (Illustrations not seen.) Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A serviceable account of the star-crossed diva-but it has much competition. Perhaps the greatest prima donna of them all, Callas rose to stardom despite a horrific upbringing. Evangelia Callas, the stage mother from hell, was determined that her daughter would reap the money and social status that fate had denied her. She alienated Maria from her loving father and pimped Maria's sister as a mistress. All this was acted out against the terrible backdrop of German-occupied Athens. Evangelia's determination was not misplaced, however. Maria, although pimply and overweight, showed phenomenal talent from a young age. Owing to excellent training, great intelligence, fine acting abilities, and a limitless capacity for work, Callas eventually became the best-known opera singer in the world. Sadly, she did not enjoy success for long. Her voice deteriorated when still quite young. Manipulated and exploited by many (especially by her lover Aristotle Onassis), her career was over by her mid-40s and she was dead of a drug overdose at 53. Edwards ("Ever After", 2000, etc.) tells Callas's story efficiently and readably. There is, however, a dated, sensational quality to her writing, reminiscent of scandal sheets of years past. She also engages in that hoary British tradition of making fun of the "nouveau riches "of America, as if Albion has never been graced with that species. An air of sloppiness and haste pervades: needless repetitions of opera plots, and astonishingly poor word choices (she twice confuses "enervate" for "energize," and she writes that Robert Kennedy's assassination occurred "at a fund-raising affair"). Or consider this howler: "designer Piero Tosi (named for an ancestralforebear, the seventeenth-century castrato)." Edwards is a storyteller, not a cultural analyst. Once Callas is cremated and the last scandal is dealt with, she gives us a single perfunctory paragraph commenting on Callas's impact and then ends it, rather like a college term paper written the night before. Good fun for nonspecialists, but aficionados will want more substance. (16 pages b&w photos)