How many people in history have left such a strong mark that their name and their life is the subject of discussion 50 years after their death? A few… Within this short list, her name is also included Maria Callas. The woman who used history both for her art and for her personal life.

Its Prime Time and Pavlos Tsimas brought to the surface the unknown aspects of her life. He brought to light the truth behind the legend of Maria Callas.

In a large investigation in Greece and France, the show and Pavlos Tsimas revealed Maria Callas who… was not known to the general public. It presented a different, unknown aspect of her career, her personal life, her relationship with the country she called home and her family, until her death in Paris.

Fanny Ardant: In Maria Callas there is something that goes beyond opera

Matthaiopoulou: There are singers better than Kallas but they don’t have this sacred flame

Frangoulis: “I must have been 14 years old when I heard Maria Callas for the first time and indeed my aunt, my mother, that is, who
growing up, he told me “we are hearing the voice of the greatest soprano in the whole world and I would very much like you to keep it in your mind and in your soul
this voice, because she really sings with her heart.”

Matthaiopoulou: “There are very good female singers. And some, in some operas, better than Callas. But they don’t have that thing,
this sacred flame. Something that came out of the guts, the guts and shocks you.”

Nikos Charalambopoulos: Maria Callas brought a revolution in opera

Alexis Costalas: The voice of Maria Callas grabbed you and said listen to me here

Kostalas: “I first heard it from records. And I didn’t like it. Because until then I liked opera, but I had learned those ethereal voices, the soprano coloraturas that chirped in the stratosphere of the voice and accompanied your dreams, accompanied your conversation. They didn’t bother you. Calla’s voice was not like that. Calla’s voice grabbed you and said “Listen to me here”. It was a dark voice. He had a tumor. He was worried. He was angry. She had a need inside her. And I started to like it when I started to understand what he was singing.”

The dramatic life of Maria Callas and the traumatic relationship with her mother

The first unhappy years of Maria Callas in her career and her transformation

In 1937, with America in the midst of the great crash, the mother leaves George Kalogeropoulos in New York and returns with her two daughters to Athens. Maria who then introduced herself as Marianna, was a chubby, ungraceful girl with thick myopic glasses who had to overcome her looks with her voice and hard study to enter the world of music.

They rejected her when they saw her, gaped when they heard her. And not only in Greece, but also in her first years on the big stages of Italy. And then, aged 31, in 1954, Callas decided to create a new version of herself. She loses 36 kg in a few months. It transforms.

The studies of Maria Callas at the Athens Conservatory

He was first enrolled at the national conservatory of Manolis Kalomiris, with Maria Trivella as a teacher. She was the first to spot her extraordinary talent and gave her lessons for free. And then at the Athens Conservatory, she finds the teacher of her life, an experienced bel canto singer, who undertakes to give her lessons, always for free because she was very poor.

The Greek years of Maria Callas in the occupation

Kallas was hired at the Lyriki at the age of 17 in the spring of 1940. Her Greek years are really the years of occupation. At that time, the lyrical theater gave performances once a week for the occupying forces. But also at Maria’s house, on Patision Street, where her family initially hid two British soldiers, her mother started inviting Germans and Italians and Maria had to sing to entertain them, in exchange for some food.

Dimitris Tiliakos: Maria Kallas brought back the ancient drama in the context of the Lyric Theater

The brilliance of Maria Callas in Italy and her traumatic return to Greece

Maria Callas’ love affair with Aristotle Onassis

The following year, 1958, Callas made her first appearance at the opera in Paris. Among the spectators of the recital, Aristotle Onassis. Shortly afterwards, he invites her on a cruise with Christina with her husband and manager, Meneghini, and Churchill. It is the beginning of a great love. And an even bigger drama.

With Onassis by her side, Callas will return to Greece in triumph. Epidaurus 1960 and 1961. For the first time an opera is staged in the ancient theater. Norma and next year Medea.

The return of Maria Callas to Greece and her performance in the ancient theater of Epidaurus