LOVE AND HATRED IN ATHENS

LOVE IN ATHENS

Fat and poorly dressed ,I attract men,the rich and the famous,they were jealous!

---- How do you do it?

---- Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ignore
--- What ?
--- C'est le coeur qui dicte,le c.. qui decide

--- I don't speak Chinese

--- It's Spanish

In the spring of 1943,I met Mangliveras during the rehearsal of Tiefland at the Olympia Theatre, I was twenty he was fifty-five,the most popular tenor of Greece,was married,lived with another woman and their two children.Love at first sight for both of us.I can't love a man unless I can use him, it's the dictate of my heart.
Why did I chose Vangelis,I could have got more from Sigaras,twenty-four,good looking,charming with lots of money,his old man who opposed our union died at the right time,when Takis wanted to marry me.

I liked him, loved him and had I married him I would become a rich Greek housewife and a part time soprano.

Vangelis and I wanted to shake the world of music,sang our hearts out,lived our love for all to see.There and then under the Greek skies ant the Parthenon,I realised that I could develop my latent,histrionic talents in my own unique way,through feelings,emotions. Love,despair,hatred all the gamut of the human spirit were at my command .I could colour my voice in a thousand ways,and anger motivated me,,I became the temperamental diva.

---La Callas is temperamental,so what,it's better that than Maria... Who?

With the success of Tiefland,my rivals,slandered,intrigued, spat their venom :

---You seduced him to get the part of Marta.
--- User ! You did it to move ahead
--- Go back to your country !

I was born in America of Greek parents,moved back to Athens when I was thirteen, the blood that runs through my veins is Greek,I was no stranger in their land,my land.

Never shall I forget their hatred
Never, ever.