• March 25, 1974
• Vol. 1
• No. 4

For Callas and Her Claque, a Moment of Glory

By Sally Moore

In the world of music 1974 will be long and lovingly remembered as the Year of the Return Tour—and especially for the comeback of Maria Callas. Bob Dylan started it, triumphantly, but his young audiences seemed uncharacteristically calm. Looming ahead next month is the Frank Sinatra return which surely will be stunningly professional and electrifying. But the emotional peak of this eventful year will almost certainly prove to be the current cross-country sweep of Callas, even though—or perhaps because—she is past her vocal prime. Now one-third through a three-continent royal progression, she is, at 50, reducing evening-gowned grownups to groupies in the most sophisticated concert halls, reviving hope that opera will survive, after all.

This is a tribute to the tempestuous Callas, La divina, the soprano with no peer as an actress. Before she launched forth four months ago in London, Maria told her impresario-manager, Max Gorlinsky: "Don't bother me with the critics. Don't show me a single review. I am singing for the public." The tour has mellowed even the critics. In Boston one of the sternest and most respected of them, Michael Steinberg, cheerfully violated the cardinal decorum of the profession and applauded publicly. As Detroit News reviewer Jay Carr explained the phenomenon after her visit there last week: "For years audiences were nourished by Callas. Now the audience, it seemed, was carrying her, repaying her with the love she has so indisputably earned, shutting out the harsh present, supplying with their mind's ears what Callas could no longer supply with her voice." In New York's Carnegie Hall, where she canceled out her original appearance 90 minutes before the curtain, she came on three weeks later, pale and nervous, and begged the audience: "Bear with us." "We are with you," someone cried back, and the whole celebrity-packed house, torn by her vulnerability, shot to its feet. Giuseppe di Stefano, the tenor friend who encouraged her to make this grand tour, and who sang with her, was simultaneously and ironically being accused by one New York reviewer of "making an artistic mess."

For Maria Callas, the 22-city American tour was a risk. Even she admits her once strong voice is now mostly gone. But what remains is that indomitable self-will that was for years the nemesis of operatic managers and that caught the heart of Ari Onassis. The Callas fable is true. She was a fat little pharmacist's daughter from New York who grew up to marry an Italian millionaire 30 years her senior. Then she left behind her husband and worldwide following for an odyssey with Onassis.

Maria's admirers accused Ari of ruining a majestic career, just as some before had blamed her feminine vanity for reducing what they thought was her proper singing weight of 210 pounds. In the end she lost Ari too, to Jacqueline Kennedy. Today Callas maintains that there is no more romance, only her music. "One marries only once," she says. "I've had one husband and one lover, and that's enough." As for Jackie, Maria smiles with new softness: "If she makes Ari happy, then I approve."

Without Onassis, Callas still has her own la dolce vita. Her face is still lovely, her figure svelter than ever. Home is a luxurious eight-room apartment in Paris. She makes the rounds of couture houses there but still buys her concert gowns from Biki, her chosen Italian designer. On tour she travels with the wardrobe and jewelry befitting the world's grandest prima donna. Included in her entourage are a traveling manager, a personal maid, two poodles (with their calico beds) and a humidifying machine the size of the Ritz for her throat. When she needs it preperformance, there is a platter of steak tartare or an injection of Vitamin C.

This is the face that may once have launched a thousand Greek tankers, but that is nothing compared to the exultation of coming out of retirement and winning the world's uncritical adoration. What is there anywhere to equal an audience overwhelmed at Carnegie Hall and shouting out: "You are opera!"