The story in the New York Times saddened me. The personal belongings of Maria Callas, the most influential and certainly the most famous singer of the last century, are being taken on a world tour. Then they will be sold at auction (url: http://www.leftbid.com). Up for sale are Callas’s paintings, furniture, photographs, old envelopes stuffed with yellowing clippings. There are the great soprano’s shoes, old contracts, favorite tape recordings (symphonies by Sibelius and Saint-Saens, Chopin waltzes, some Vivaldi). There are haute couture party dresses, handbags, stockings, shoes, hats and wigs. Also a couple of brassieres. Even three plaits of Callas’s own hair (might they be cloned one day?).
Callas’ life was dramatic, filled with wonderful singing, bad decisions and tragic mistakes. She abandoned an elderly husband who adored her, took up with Aristotle Onassis, lost her voice, and finally was abandoned by Onassis in favor of the just-widowed Jackie Kennedy. Callas died in sad splendor, alone and mostly friendless, in Paris in 1977. After cremation, her ashes were stolen, hidden, rediscovered again (how does one identify ashes?) and finally sprinkled into the Aegean Sea.
I was a fan of Maria Callas. Her recordings changed the way I thought about music. I was in the standing room section of the old Met the night she made her debut in 1956, and I heard her in every opera she sang there. As her voice faltered and shriveled, I witnessed the crumbling of an icon. By 1966, the Callas career was finished, and she was making stabs at directing and coaching young singers.
In 1971 my path crossed hers. I was a music critic at Time Magazine when rumors started flying that the great Callas was going to teach some masterclasses at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia (this was a year before the Juilliard classes). The editors at Time decreed she be sought out and interviewed.
Callas proved difficult to snare. At first she would not do it at all. Then she would, but she wanted approval of the story before it appeared. This was wholly against Time’s philosophy. Then Callas asked for approval of the quotes before they appeared. Time refused this too, but by now Callas was clearly interested. The issue was finally settled when Time gave Callas approval of all quotes, but not in context. By now I had my own back up. I firmly resolved that, when I finally met the tigress, I would not address her as “Madame” but as “Miss.”
Fifteen minutes before the decreed time, I walked into the lobby of the Hotel Carlyle in Manhattan. At exactly five minutes before Doomsday, I reported to the desk. Two minutes later I was at Miss Callas’ door.
I was met by a whispering, elegantly dressed woman. Also present was John Covenay, the Angel Records official whose cadaverous look and ghostly voice had earned him the soubriquet “The Undertaker” in the press world. There was a long hallway carpeted in thick white carpet. There were paintings, lots of flowers. I was asked to wait a moment. I stood, looking toward the other room where Maria Callas sat talking on the phone, her back to me.
Suddenly I heard her say, “I have to go now. My guest is here.”
Impact. I had been called “reporter,” “critic,” “interviewer,” “writer.” But never before had I been called a “guest.”
Callas rose and walked toward me. She was surprisingly tall (I am 6 feet, and I remember thinking she was my own height) and her wonderfully big Greek nose showed signs of having been surgically tampered with. I don’t remember her hair, but I can report on her costume: it was a black velvet dress, floor-length, with long sleeves and a high neck. Around her neck dangled a heavy, barbaric-looking gold chain that looked as if it had been dug out of some ancient tomb. She looked me over, a slightly amused glint in her eyes, and said in her nasal Bronx voice, “So you’re Mr. Jones.”
“Yes, Miss Callas,” I said.
The famous eyes flew open and she looked at the others. “They’re sending me such handsome ones now!” she exclaimed, her hands opening in a gesture of delight. She seized both my hands in hers and briskly led me to a sofa, then pushed me down onto it. She curled up on the other end, her feet under her, smiled at me and said, “Yeeeees?”
I was defused, floored, annihilated. The tigress had become a kitty. There was something infinitely feminine and vulnerable about her. I wanted to put my arms around her, hold her tight, and protect her from the world. I also wondered what might happen if I made a serious pass at her. (Push that thought away!)
I no longer remember all the things we talked about. The upcoming classes in Philadelphia, certainly. Onassis, certainly not. At one point, though, the conversation wandered to Tosca, and an extraordinary thing happened.
“Do you remember in Act One when the soldiers drag Scarpia away?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, and she rattled on while my mind did flip-flops.
“Excuse me,” I said. “You mean in Act Two when they drag Cavaradossi off to prison?”
She looked briefly annoyed. “No, no! In Act One. They drag Scarpia out.”
I was thunderstruck. Here was the most famous Tosca of the century, and she couldn’t remember the story of Tosca!
I’ve puzzled over that moment for a quarter of a century. Did she really not know the opera? Was it because she was not on stage at that moment? Maybe she didn’t know the story at all, only her part in it. Genius has its own methods, after all.
She was equally cavalier when discussing Norma. Famous high Cs she would mention as “that high note” or “when she goes up.”
My memory of the rest of the interview is gone. I don’t know how it ended or how I left. But I do know that I didn’t tape it because that was one of the strictures she laid down.
That’s not the end of the story. As weeks went by and the Philadelphia classes ran into snags, the Time researcher was on the phone numerous times with Callas. Always she asked about me, and always she referred to me as “handsome.” (Not many people have called me that, but a few have, and as I sink into old age I can warm myself with the thought that Maria Callas was one of them.)
Suddenly the New York City Opera produced Janácek’s The Makropulos Case. It was reputed to be filled with revolutionary techniques, multi-media (new in those days), and it represented the New York premiere of a great but not-yet-famous work. And it was a work that Maria Callas was born to perform.
Furthermore, in 1971, it was not 100-percent certain that Callas would never sing again. There was still a chance.
I decided to phone up Maria Callas and ask her for a date.
She answered the phone herself and seemed genuinely pleased to hear it was me. We exchanged pleasantries, and then I plunged into what must have been a breathless description of Makropulos and the wonders of the upcoming production. “You said you were interested in new ways of performing opera, and I think you should see this.” I took a deep breath. “May I take you to see it?”
There was a silence. Then with obvious caution Callas said, “You know, Mr. Jones, people have been trying for years to get me to sing that opera.”
“Really?” I wheezed. “I had no idea!”
“Yes,” she said. “The composer himself asked me.”
Janácek died in 1928. Callas was born in 1923. Figure it out.
While I sat reeling from her statement, she said, “You know, Mr. Jones, Callas can go to only a few things. Only to opening nights at the Metropolitan, and to premieres. She cannot go to New York City Opera at all.”
I remembered divas I’d seen in the CityOp lobby, buying themselves a drink at intermission and strolling the area alone. Birgit Nilsson. Claudette Colbert. Leontyne Price.
And that was the end of it. Maria Callas never saw the CityOp Makropulos and never knew what a great show it was. She never had a date with me (what would I have done with her!?) And she never knew how much fun she might have had if only she could have stopped being “Callas” for a while.
As to the classes in Philadelphia, they never happened. I heard that Callas auditioned the students and said, “I’ve never heard such rotten singing in my life,” certainly a hard slap at the voice faculty there. My own intervew disappeared along with the Philadelphia classes. Later, New York and Juilliard proved a more positive venue for the Callas masterclasses (indeed they resulted in a powerful play that is currently being done all over the world).
But by then I was no longer at Time, and barely six years later Callas herself was gone forever.
