MY OWN PERFUME

AUDREY  has everything, her own perfume,L'Interdit (" Forbidden") created exclusively  in 1957 by French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy,they met on the set of Sabrina and he fell in love. Audrey is charming, knows how to cast a spell,became his muse and lifelong  friends,year in, year out Audrey inspires Hubert,wears his designs, of course compliments of  Givenchy Haute Couture. I love Biki and Alain Reynaud but don't get anything free and no perfume, it would be nice to have my own  Eau de Toilette,CASTA DIVA,that would be the day. Her Interdit is fresh and very chic.Audrey told me that they created it together with Perfumer Francis Fabron,essences de  bergamot and rose, and jasmine and lily of the valley.Audrey won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1953 the year she took the world by storm , Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck !
 Had a  string of successes  Breakfast at Tiffany's,written for Marilyn who turned it down ,Sabrina and Paris When it Sizzles. The woman has everything,fame,fortune,a son and respect .

THE DICTATE OF MY HEART

THE DICTATE OF MY HEART

10 September 1959

 I lost my voice the day I left Titta,as a soprano I need daily practice,care and stability that Titta provided.Had I not  given up everything for Ari I would be singing today Juliette,Ophelie,Dalila and Carmen,the mezzo parts of French opera,French like Italian was created for singing.

La Maxwell showed me her realm,offered me to be her lady-in-waiting,I wanted to be queen of Ari's jet set,and be his woman.

After the Gala of the century,Eurovision's extravaganza,the French offered me their kingdom,L'Opera de Paris,to sing anything,everything I wished,at the same time Ari offered me to be his woman.I couldn't have both,being his mistress was a full time occupation,to be at his beck and call. .

I was in love with the man and his kingdom,a pharmacist's daughter in the world of the Rich and Famous.During the cruise I made my mind to follow my heart,to give up everything for him,I was blind,a fool,the only way to keep him was to keep my identity,to remain in the limelight,he wanted La Callas,not the woman.He destroyed my life,my voice,my destiny.

LA TEBALDI AND I

In the early 1950s, there was an enormous controversy and rivalry between  Renata Tebaldi and me.She was an Italian lyrico spinto soprano and sang nothing else. The contrast between my voice with its unconventional vocal qualities and Tebaldi's classically beautiful sound resurrected an argument as old as opera itself, namely, beauty of sound versus the expressive use of sound.

In 1951, Tebaldi and I were  booked for a  recital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although we agreed that neither would perform encores,Tebaldi took  not just one but two, and I was incensed.It began the rivalryand it got worse and worse and became very  personal indeed

--- "I have one thing that Callas doesn't have: a heart"

I answered back in Time magazine

--- It's ridiculous to compare our voices, it's like  "comparing Champagne with Coca Cola .We can be rivals only  when Tebaldi sings Norma or Medea one night and Lucia and Anna Bolena the next, as far I am concerned La Tebaldi would never be able to do what I did at the Venice opera in 1949. Signora Tebaldi essays only late Verdi and verismo parts.Not surprising the signora has a ESSAYS ONY sIGNORA tEBALDI 

According to John Ardoin, however, these two singers should never have been compared.^[16] Tebaldi was trained byCarmen Melis, a noted verismo specialist, and she was rooted in the early 20th century Italian school of singing just as firmly as Callas was rooted in 19th century bel canto.^[16] Callas was a dramatic soprano, whereas Tebaldi considered herself essentially a lyric soprano. Callas and Tebaldi generally sang a different repertoire: in the early years of her career, Callas concentrated on the heavy dramatic soprano roles and later in her career on the bel canto repertoire, whereas Tebaldi concentrated on late Verdi and verismo roles, where her limited upper extension^[31] and her lack of a florid technique were not issues.^[16] They shared a few roles, including Tosca in Puccini's opera and La Gioconda, which Tebaldi performed only late in her career.

Yes we were rivals, and we didn't like each other, nothing personal I only wanted to dethrone her as the Prima Dona Assoluta of Italy and she didn't like what I stood for,for her as for every one before and after her, singing was singing, acting on stage and acting with the voice was for the birds.I agree that she  had little things going for her and I said so publicly

-- "I admire Tebaldi's tone; it's beautiful,also  has some beautiful phrasing. Sometimes, not always I actually wish I had her voice.and I like her sound judgement" At one point of her career she wanted to essay La Gioconda and asked  Francis Robinson of the Met to recommend a recording so she could listen and learn. Being fully aware of our rivalry, he recommended Zinka Milanov's version. A few days later, he went to visit Tebaldi,  to find her listening to my recording. She then looked up at him and asked,more than her singing I admire her sound judgement.

 ----"Why didn't you tell me Maria's was the best?". The rivalry was very good , because it created much publicity and  enormous interest about us, very good in the end.

--- Her voice is very different,is really something unusual, from now on she stayed near the radio every time  that there was something on radio by me.

Vocal decline[edit]

MOTHER, DEMENTIA AND GENIUS

The apartment house in Athens where Callas lived from 1937 to 1945

I was born Sophia Cecelia Kalos at Flower Hospital in Manhattan, on December 2, 1923.My parents George and Evangelia Kalogeropoulos  immigrated from Greece that same year,they were  unhappy living togrther, had nothing in common.He had no ambition or dream,took life and things as they came,had no interest in the arts. Mother was a go-getter,ambitious, had  dreams of stardom.for herself, to be an actress,unfortunately  had no talent,was an actrice manquee.To make things worse Father was a  philanderer,their married life was an unhappy one from day one,things.came worse when my brother Vassilis  born in 1920 died  two years later from meningitis. Father decided to immigrate to America, to New York City  to start a new life, a decision which Mother greeted with hysterical shoutings,an early stage of  her dementia .We sailed to New York in July 1923, moving first into an apartment in Astoria, Queens.My parents were desperate to have a son, when I was born Mother's despair  was so great that she refused to look at me for four days.My birth was the final blow to their marriage.When I  was 4, Father opened his own little pharmacy, and we moved to our new home on 192nd Street in Washington Heights.,I  grew up was lonely,unhappy  so spent time  playing the pianola and singing, One day Mother when listening  to me ,with her maternal instincts, had a stroke of genius, sensed my musical gifts,so began pushing and pulling.I became her second victim,made me to sing to everyone, everywhere. Father and Mother fought ,argued day and night, it was hell at home for the four of us, in retrospect  I believe Mother  was sexually frustrated,has an excess of sexual hormones that were not satisfied, Father refusing to come near,talk to her.In 1937 Mother decided to move back to Greece so her family could finance my musical training, and to get away from a husband that she hated and despised,.Another stroke of genius from a madwoman,History will say that my mother was the first person behind the genius.

My relationship with Mother got worse during the years in Greece,Jackie was outgoing and  pretty,Mother and everyone  loved and preferred her. I was the ugly duckling, fat and clumsy,unpopular. It was cruel  to make me feel ugly and unwanted when I was a child, and I'll never forgive nor forget her for taking my childhood away. 

During  Word War II Mother pushed me to go out and sing for Italian and German soldiers,I never slept with them,never slept for money or food during the Axis occupation of Greece. I have not  forgotten nor forgiven her for using me for that kind of prostitution.After I met Titta who loved and respected his own Mom, for him she was a Madonna, to please him I took Mother with me  on my first visit to Mexico in 1950, but things got worse between us, we had nothing in common and there was no love lost between us,living together only  brought back  unhappy memories,reawakened the old angers and resentments,so after leaving Mexico, the two of us never met again.E Finita La Commedia.

In Athens I received my musical training, the best in the world as far as I was concerned. In the summer of 1937, Mother took me to audition for Maria Trivella at the  Greek National Conservatoire,At first sight Madame Trivella was not impressed , I was fat,wearing thick glasses and shabbily dressed..

Whatever I sang she liked it , years later after I became La Callas she said  :

  ----" The tone of her voice was warm, lyrical, intense, it swirled and flared like a flame and filled the air with melodious reverberations like a carillon. It was by any standards an amazing phenomenon, or rather it was a great talent that needed control, technical training and strict discipline in order to shine with all its brilliance".

Maria Callas with her teacher Elvira de Hidalgo in 1954

Madame Trivella agreed to tutor me for free, waiving her tuition fees, but no sooner had I started my lessons and vocal exercises than Madame Trivella felt  I was not a contralto, as she had been told, but a dramatic soprano. So she  began working on raising the tessitura of my voice and to lighten its timbre. 

---" Mary was a model student,fanatical, uncompromising, dedicated to her studies heart and soul. Her progress was phenomenal,she studied five, six hours a day,every day.After six months, she was good enough to sing the most difficult arias in the international opera repertoire with the utmost musicality".

On April 11, 1938, for my public debut, I ended the recital of  Madame Trivella's class at the Parnassos music hall with a duet fromTosca.

I studied with Madame Trivella for two years before Mother decided to move me to the Athens Conservatory,so I auditioned for Elvira de Hidalgo. I sang  "Ocean, Thou Mighty Monster" from Weber's Oberon.
Elvira recalled hearing "tempestuous, extravagant cascades of sounds, as yet uncontrolled but full of drama and emotion".
She agreed to take me as a pupil immediately, but Mother asked de Hidalgo to wait for a year, as I would be graduating from the National Conservatoire and could begin working, bringing home some  much needed income.. On April 2, 1939, I sang  the part of Santuzza in a student production of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana at the Olympia Theatre, and in the fall of the same year Mother enrolled  me at the Athens Conservatoire in Elvira de Hidalgo's class.

--- De Hildalgo had the real great training, maybe even the last real training of the real bel canto. As a young girl—thirteen years old—I was immediately thrown into her arms, meaning that I learned the secrets, the ways of this bel canto, which of course as you well know, is not just beautiful singing. It is a very hard training; it is a sort of a strait-jacket that you're supposed to put on, whether you like it or not. You have to learn to read, to write, to form your sentences, how far you can go, fall, hurt yourself, put yourself back on your feet continuously. De Hidalgo had one method, which was the real bel canto way, where no matter how heavy a voice, it should always be kept light, it should always be worked on in a flexible way, never to weigh it down. It is a method of keeping the voice light and flexible and pushing the instrument into a certain zone where it might not be too large in sound, but penetrating. And teaching the scales, trills, all the bel canto embellishments, which is a whole vast language of its own.^[11]

De Hidalgo later recalled Callas as "a phenomenon... She would listen to all my students, sopranos, mezzos, tenors... She could do it all."^[13] Callas herself said that she would go to "the conservatoire at 10 in the morning and leave with the last pupil ... devouring music" for 10 hours a day. When asked by her teacher why she did this, her answer was that even "with the least talented pupil, he can teach you something that you, the most talented, might not 

WHO AM I ?

La Divina  , American-born Greek soprano and the greatest opera singer of the 20th century. My bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic gifts set me apart and above.I sang  classical opera seria, bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini and  Verdi and Puccini; and, in my early career,  Wagner and Beethoven. 

They called me La Divina because of my  musical and dramatic talents ,l was born in New York City and raised by an overbearing mother, received my musical education in Greece and established my career in Italy. Forced to deal with the exigencies of wartime poverty and with myopia that left me nearly blind onstage, I endured struggles and scandal from day one of my career.

I turned herself from a heavy woman into a svelte and glamorous one after a mid-career weight loss, which might have contributed to my vocal decline and the premature end of my career. The press exulted in publicizing my temperamental behavior, my rivalry with Renata Tebaldi andmy love affair with Aristotle Onassis. My dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the soprano in the popular press, my artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein called me "the Bible of opera"^[2] and  Opera News wrote of me "I am the definition of the diva as artist—and still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists."^[3]

THE MAN I LOVED

THE DICTATE OF MY HEART

10 September 1959

 I lost my voice the day I left Titta,as a soprano I need daily practice,care and stability that Titta provided.Had I not  given up everything for Ari I would be singing today Juliette,Ophelia,
Dalila and Carmen,the mezzo parts of French opera,French like Italian was created for the voice.

La Maxwell showed me her kingdom,parties day and night and costume balls, offered me to be her lady in waiting,at a price , to be her consort in and out of the boudoir, to be her woman.

Had I not  given up everything for my man,I would  be singing today the French repertoire,French like Italian was created for the voice, and their mezzo parts were perfect for me at that stage of my career.

After the Eurovision Gala,the French offered me their kingdom,L'Opera de Paris,to sing anything,everything I wished,at the same time Ari wanted me to be his woman,offered me his  kingdom,an island in the Aegean sea..I could have had both, however being his mistress was a full time job,at his  beck and call.

I was in love,a pharmacist's daughter living in the kingdom  of the Rich and Famous,during the cruise I made my mind to follow my heart,to give up everything for him,I was blind,a fool,the only way to keep him was to keep my identity,to remain in the limelight,he wanted La Callas,not the woman.One of the richest man of Europe worth at tat time some five hundred millions,$ 500.000.000. I thought he loved me ,he destroyed my life, my voice,my destiny.

CALLAS' DAYS

ANNA BOLENA  :V Days
It happened in April, the year 1957.I was determined, I wanted a role and nights that remain in the human consciousness,my V Days,C days.It happened to be Bolena,Luchino's Traviata and Sonnambula were sublime, near genius,not good enough,I wanted to act and sing a part that no one,no one can act and sing and made history.

On the first day of rehearsal I sensed that Bolena was going to be it.It was Visconti's fourth Scala production for me,Gianandrea Gavazzeni conducts,Giulietta Simionato,my Jane Seymour was very good but not good enough to eclipse me,Nicola Benois' designed magnificent sets in all shades of greys to complement music and my etats d' ame,Anna Bolena's last days,a wounded Queen,a mother in 

despair,a woman in love who dies from the hands of a king who swore her eternal love.A 

Queen judged by history,I wanted to do her justice,pride and splendour in everything she did,to sing and act with fury,beyond anyone's capability,past,present or future.I prayed, did pray to God, it opened my channesl,felt the emprise,the power rising within me .

Night after night I was possessed by demons,demons of  Music, my Bolenas belong to the history of Opera .