CIGAR

 Ari Onassis, rich as a Greek shipping magnate,

 was a true cigar aficionado, 

rarely seen without a habano between his fingers.

MARIA CALLAS : MARRIED TO GIOVANNIE BATTISTA MENEGHINI : FROM SUCCESS IN ITALY TO ARGENTINA : SHE WANTED A BABY MORE THAN HER CAREER

Maria Callas and  Italian, Giovannie Battista Meneghini: The couple were married from 1949 to 1959. They met when she began to succeed in Italy as an opera singer. Giovanni was an older man and quite rich - an industrialist. He took control of her career, gave her love and career support - at least at the beginning, and sent her off to South America, but denied her a child she wanted. In fact, their marriage might not have been sexual. During their marriage, Maria went by the name Maria Megneghini Callas.  

Married in a traditional way, to Giovannie Battista Meneghini, Maria considered herself her husband's property. He remained in Italy when she began her work in the opera in Argentina in 1951. In Italy, early in her marriage, Maria intended to be something of a homemaker, collecting recipes and setting the table. She wanted a baby but Giovanni said to become pregnant would mean loosing a year of her career. She wanted a baby anyway and was reluctant to continue to sing. Still, the opera singer fulfilled her contracts. 

Hard on herself, Maria didn't like her own voice and dowdy looks. She didn't shave her legs. She walked without gracefulness. Her weight continued to be an issue. 

On top of all that self-loathing were the selfish manipulations of her mother and sister. Her mother was typically unsympathetic, accusing her of not caring about her own family. They said she owed the public. Maria's mother continued to emotionally abuse her, claiming that Maria owed it to her to give her "joy." Her father worked various jobs and was accused of being a lay-about by her mother but Maria ignored his faults while her mother hammered the point that he was a good-for-nothing. Then there was her mother's illness and lack of any health insurance. While her parents remained married in name only, Maria dreaded the idea of actually having to live with either of them again. It's clear that they wanted her to not only have a career, but earn the money to support them, and didn't care about what would give her personal joy. Mother wanted a monthly allowance but Maria gave gifts and repaid loans. Mother wanted Maria to buy them a house and upgrade their lifestyle. Her sister's demands added to the pressure. Marie was emotionally blackmailed by her family. She thought her mother was still able to earn herself a living, if only she chose to.

In 1950, Mexico City, Maria suffered heart palpitations, breathing issues, sleeplessness, and other ailments. Was it all psychological?  

Maria Callas would give another decade to the marriage and her career but the tangle of divorce may have been initiated because she met the man she considered, in today's way of thinking, as her soul mate, the one she was meant for : Aristotle Onassis, the Greek born, Argentina based multimillionaire who had worked his way up into shipping. A megalomaniac with disturbing ideas about women and how women should be treated, "Aristo" would increasingly become Maria's reason for living as he career declined.

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GLASS

 

MARI CALLAS BECOMES FAMOUS - NAZI OCCUPIED GREECE and THE LIBERATION CHALLENGE HER PERSONALLY : HER ATTITUDE ABOUT LOVE

From Chapter 3 and 4 of Lyndsy Spence's audiobook... My notes!  (In this we learn about Maria's take on love and marriage.)

Maria Callas, living in Greece, was already considered an artist and local star in 1943 when she sang at a benefit concert. Recognize in the streets, there was constant speculation about what man would become hers. She dealt with a seriously dysfunctional family, the demands of her superiors and the jealousy and gossip of her rivals at the opera. It is known that she had a romance with a man who she had known for a year, the son of a multi-millionaire who wined and dined her. Maria, whose sister was a Mistress being Kept by a man who supported her and her mother as well, did not want to feel obligated to return the "favors" in a sexual way. Her career was the most important thing to her. Like all of us, Maria was living through history, and in the Spring of 1944 the Nazi occupiers of Greece owned the National Opera. As she succeeded there were rumors that she was involved with an officer or a collaborator. She was in a terrible position. Sleeping with the enemy could put any woman in danger. Any woman living in that time and place was in danger of rape. The Greeks thought the German women were whores and the Germans were thought by the Italians to be barbarians... In tears due to accusations, she threatened to resign from the National Opera. But in October of 1944, came Liberation when the British and American troops came into Greece and Greece-based groups like the National Liberation Front and National People's Liberation Army took part in getting rid of the Nazi Germans. Dating but nothing serious, Maria, her family - most people, faced one of the worst winters in history.

Despite her career, the budding star was in danger of starvation. Having money didn't help because it was worthless. She saw a man die of starvation in front of her. National Opera members who had been collaborators were executed. Women who were collaborators - or suspected to be - had their heads shaved and were raped as punishment... The National Opera was closed. Then the Communists came into the mix and threatened to kill Maria and her mother and sister.  At one point they were down to a box of beans.

So there was Maria, who had struggled with eating and her weight, starving and afraid. Her mother found a job working as a Greek-English translator. But they were living in the "red zone" a dangerous area, and it was easy to be accused of something and pay the price, fair or not.  They lived without heat or electricity, behind drawn curtains, and burning rags for some heat during that brutally cold winter.  Finally a boy disguised as a vendor came to the house to bring Maria out of the "red zone" and into the British white zone. She left and the boy returned for her mother.  In the "white zone" she was able to wash in hot water and eat.  Though in 1945 peace was somewhat restored half a million refugees came into Athens.

Because Maria Callas was raised without a father in her life, there is speculation that this lead to her looking for a father figure in her romances.  She did begin a romance with an opera star who was about fifteen years older than she but denied going to bed with him.  He was married and already had a mistress as well, with whom he had two children. She was on friendly terms with both his wife and his mistress!  Sexual freedom was not a problem for him but she said she was an old fashioned woman.  In an ethereal way, Maria thought love was a kind of purification of the soul.  When he asked her to be his mistress, Maria declined. As she saw it a man might have more than one woman but a woman only had one man... She said she was not about to take him from two women and that she had to have to love with head and heart and only then could have sex. Her mother had a far away husband and a lover.  Her sister was a mistress. What was to happen for Maria? Despite the limitations that this friendship-romance presented, it ended badly, suggesting that Maria and the man were emotionally passionate.

When Maria was demoted at the National Opera and took a pay cut, something jealous rivals at the opera wanted, she secretly plotted her way back to the city of her birth - New York - and sought to make her dream of performing at the Metropolitan Opera true.

She had been secretly writing with her father since 1942 and when he became an American citizen, so did Maria. So, while she accepted the National Opera of Athens and signed a year contract with them in May of 1946, in August she went to the American Embassy where she was recognized as an American.  Still, she had to fund her travel somehow. So she leased a theater and did a farewell concert to earn the money.  She left with a couple dresses and not a cent in her pocket.  A loan from the United States government paid for her travel.

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MARIA CALLAS : HER TEACHER-MENTOR NEGOTIATES FOR HER BUT INSISTS SHE IS TOO FAT : THE YOUNG MARIA LIVES THROUGH WARTORN GREECE

Chapter 3 of Lyndsy Spence's book, Cast a Diva, delves on the very beginnings of Maria Callas' professional career and with the demands of her teacher-mentor at the Athens Conservatory, where she was as a scholarship student of sorts. Because she still needed income, Maria later stated - though the teacher-mentor later denied this - that lodging with the woman meant paying for the roof over her head with housekeeping and dog walking duties. While the Diva-in-training dreamed of someday singing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where she had been born, her teacher threatened to dump her as a student if she did not improve her appearance. Loose weight, dress better, fix your hair; these were the expectations.  After all, she was being groomed to be a star.

This same teacher-mentor advocated for her to have income from the Greek National Opera, where she was signed for two years. Maria was to have a job - a steady income - and have her voice protected as she studied by not appearing in their productions. It was a way to get her in and expose the student to the behind-the-scene ways of the opera. Her contract was negotiated as she continued to study at the Athens Conservatory and live with her teacher-mentor. The teenager's career was being carefully managed or she was being controlled.

Her first advocate, her mother, Litsa, complained that Maria only spent her income on music, pastries, and ice cream and was out of control of her eating, just as her teacher-mentor arranged for her to have hairdressing, manicures, and dress making. 

Then war interfered in everyone's lives.In late October 1940, when Maria was about seventeen, the Italians invaded Greece and the Greco-Italian War began. Maria and her family thought to flee to Cairo, Egypt, but Maria was an American citizen and not allowed to leave Athens, which was relatively safe. She was called "That American Bitch" as she began to realize her own talent and fight for herself. She did get parts in the opera in Athens, despite her teacher-mentor's pleas that she be "protected." Then World War II began when in 1941 Germany invaded. When there was a bombing and air-raid sirens went off, the sensitive Maria would vomit. They stayed in Athens.

Still under the age of eighteen, having conspired with her mother to lie about her age, Maria did not report to the Conservatory when she was sexually assaulted and almost raped by a fellow student (never identified).  At home her mother was not sympathetic, only mentioning that if he had raped her then she would have had to marry him and end her career.

Such attitudes are crazy-making to us in Western culture in 2024, but are not unfamiliar to all of us who have experienced some form of sexual harassment during our careers. 

Her world was small. At the conservatory other students called Maria fat and ugly and boys teased her as unattractive. Her mother continued to sew Maria clothing. Maria might have been eating out of garbage cans. In the 1941-1942 era there were food shortages, rationing, hunger. The family ate bread. This too could put weight on and gave Maria the appearance she was not famished. Olive oil and potatoes were procured on the black market by the man who was Keeping her sister and the family. There was always rumor about who was a collaborator because someone had food. People began to die of starvation and eat horses and donkeys.

The Nazi's took control of the National Opera and then Maria lost her contract and income. She had borrowed money from them and then later that year she was reinstated and given the opportunity to be an understudy. Those who had been so mean to her were kept out of the loop.

It was snowing and cold and there was no heating fuel.  The Red Cross reported it. Jews were deported from Thessalonika. 

Yet, opera went on, three hundred miles from Athens, in Thessalonika, where there was begging and prostitution. Maria's virtue was suspect.  So was her sister's and mother's.  Were they involved with Italian officers? Maybe Maria fell in love with an officer? Or perhaps Maria simply was gifted and had not succeeded against all odds without being touched? It's believed that she came home with money for singing for the Italians, though her own mother assumed it was from prostitution.

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THE MARIA CALLAS ROSE

Yes, a rose was developed and named after Maria Callas.  

Also known as the Miss All American Beauty

it is described as full had having at least 41 petals,

a hybrid with an intense perfume, 

and a bloom up to six inches.

 

MARIA CALLAS : WE REVISIT THE GREATEST OPERA SINGER - DIVA and MISTRESS OF SHIPPING MAGNATE ARI ONASSIS

Mistress Manifesto, as a Google Blog, began in 2009 and, before I got up to speed, I chose Maria Callas as my Mistress of the Month. These days I feel that this dynamic woman deserves more and better coverage, especially as actress Angelina Jolie chose to portray her in film. So I will repost a couple items from the past and continue on with the book Cast a Diva by Lyndsy Spence, which will be the primary references for this month's posts.

Maria Callas was a famous and esteemed opera singer, some say the greatest, called The Queen of the Opera during her career, who had a soprano voice and three octave rang but is also known for her dramatic vocal interpretations. She was  born in the United States as an American to Greek immigrant parents but thought of as Greek because of her heritage and because the she went back to Greece with her mother and sister as a pubescent teen and there began her voice training. (Eventually she would give up her American citizenship and become a Greek citizen again while desperate for a divorce.) As a teen, she had entered talent contests and appeared on amateur hours, was made to lie about her age, and borrowed records from the library to imitate other opera singer.

Beyond a stellar career, Maria Callas is known as the Mistress of the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, a reportedly fiery relationship. Did she want to marry Ari?  I've always heard that to be true and it's something we will certainly explore. Onassis was married, divorced, and went on to marry the ultimate prize perhaps, the widow Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, wife of the assassinated United States President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, though they divorced famously as well. Maria had also been married, to an older man who took advantage of her and had been divorced. Maria was Onassis' mistress before and, other books have stated, during his marriage with Jackie. 

Cast a Diva - The Hidden Life of Maria Callas by Lyndsy Spence, is not the first book I found interesting by author Spence. She also wrote a book about Doris Delevingne called The Mistress of Mayfair, which I reference here when I elected Doris to be Mistress of the Month in August of 2018. This month however, I will be posting based on chapters as I'm listening to the audiobook while also taking notes.  Cast a Diva is reviewed on various book sites on the Internet as presenting Callas as a feminist icon; wonder if I will agree with that notion.  That said, Maria Callas has also been associated with tragedy - personally and publicly.

Image from Wikimedia

I think Maria Callas was distinctively beautiful.

MARIA CALLAS

Maria Cecelia Sophia Anna Kalogeropoulos

1923 (New York) - 1977 (Paris)

The early years of the life of Maria Callas were not easy or simple and had a profound effect on her psychology. Her parents were Greek immigrants to New York City in 1923. Maria's pharmacist father had career difficulties as an immigrant and her parents did not get along. It's suggested that her father was a womanizer or that her mother, "Litsa" thought herself and her family to be above his in status. Maria's mother decided that her two daughters were essential to her survival and the three of them went back to Greece in 1937, basically ditching her husband and their father. So Maria had little to no parenting by her father from that point. Her husband, Giovanni Battista Memeghini was an older man, and so was Aristotle Onassis.I can't help but wonder if she was vulnerable to older men because her father was so distant.

Maria's mother was emotionally abusive to her and there were serious questions about her mental health with suggestions that she was unstable, a narcissist, had borderline personality disorder or even schizophrenia. A brother had died and her mother wanted another son so Maria was an unwanted daughter. Maria had an older sister, Yakinthi, and their mother forced the girl into a relationship with a man, to become a Mistress to someone who would not only Keep her but financially help the whole family. This man supported all three of them for some time. This sacrifice on her sister's part also lead to a tangled and difficult relationship between Maria and her sister. With career success, Maria Callas found herself supporting her mother, and contributing to the support of her father and sister as well. They cared little for her personal happiness.

It could be said also that Maria's mother believed in her and promoted her as a child and had the ambition that Maria would someday support them all and free her sister from a dutiful pairing. Mother recognized that her daughter, Maria, had exceptional singing talent.  Her mother begged for singing lessons for Maria, demanded she give her all to practice, and she allowed Maria to go without any education past about the eight grade. No doubt in my mind is that this lack of education and constant focus on vocal training instead of academics was part of the deep insecurity Maria felt. In 1939 Maria Callas began to study at the Athens Conservatory and the perfectionistic Maria had a fabulous career for some time.

Perhaps though, it was Maria's weight, along with the fraught relationships she had with her mother and sister, that caused the Opera Diva even more emotional issues as a young woman. The Diva was self-conscious of her myopia and acne, and it's said that she only felt loved while singing. Yet, Maria tapped into her wild range of emotions and feelings as an opera singer, and was unafraid of having an "ugly" voice if it was appropriate for the mood of a song. It was her ability to interpret the drama of a scene that, along with her exceptional voice, brought the audiences to tears and ovations. She said she wanted her voice to reflect "the atmosphere and thousands of colors."

Maria Callas married a rich industrialist, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, and was married for a decade from 1949-1959 to this husband who acted as her agent and manager. The Italian divorce laws at the time would make it near impossible for her to escape this marriage and this man's machinations. Like her family, in particular her mother, he proved to be only interested in her career and the fame and money that could buy them a good life.

There was Maria and then there was Callas, a private woman and a celebrity. She disagreed with feminism and the end of gender roles.  "I failed to fulfill myself as a woman" she said, referring to her desire to have a child never fulfilled. 

During this month, I will not focus on the details of Maria Callas' opera career, though I realize that many a opera fan or Maria Callas fan is interested in those details. I assure you that the book does follow her career closely. For our purposes here, we want to focus on her relationships with men, and how it is that she chose to remain faithful to the unfaithful Aristotle Onassis. How is it that she was considered his mistress?  Was it simply because he would not marry her?  Because she clearly could support herself well but he was richer? Was it his attitudes towards women in general, which most modern women would find to be revolting?   Her relationship with Aristotle Onassis, whom she called "Aristo" was an extreme example of emotional and psychological abuse and domestic violence. Years went on in which an Italian divorce was not granted. Both Aristo and Maria at times lied to the press that they would marry and then claimed they were joking.

Maria Callas died at the age of fifty-three after a life typified by the highest highs and lowest lows. It's quite possible that using a certain drug illegally - though is some parts of the world it was legal - meant a slow suicide. She had withdrawn into her apartment, was estranged from her family and husband, and after her death her mother, sister, and husband would split her clothing and furniture among themselves.

Stick with me as we learn together about the life of this stellar personality and talent, through the vision of author Lyndsy Spence!

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DECLARATION FOR MISTRESSES : Answering the Question WHAT DO YOU DO?

"I'm prepared to give a brief answer when asked What Do You Do?"

Often, soon after someone asks you what your name is, they ask "What do you DO? They usually mean for work, how you make your living in this world. We are all so involved in what it is we do, that being unemployed even for a short while can be an embarrassment and we are always living for our resumes, where that streak of unemployment can be used against us.

But I, and many other people in today's world, are not at all embarrassed or ashamed of taking time off from employment, and perhaps LOVING WHAT WE DO has benefits, particularly when it comes to our mental, psychological, and physical health, beyond money.

Doing what you love and making money at it is the ideal. 

I suggest that you be prepared to answer the question of "What do you DO?" by giving an answer that covers both what you do for money and what you do for love if the two are not yet the same.  Your answer is a one sentence PR moment!

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