In this post I'm conscious of developing some strong opinions about Maria Callas and her life. - Missy
In 1962, Maria was thirty-eight and had devoted her life to developing her operatic voice and her career. She wanted to be married to Aristo but was also always conscious of trying to have some control over her public image and the media. He played her like a yo-yo. When she said that God had given her two big crosses to carry, she meant her mother and her husband. I'd add to that her father, her sister, Aristotle, the media, personalities associated with the opera including competitors, the courts, and people in the record making business, her ongoing struggles with weight and appearance and low self-esteem. There seemed to be no part of her life was peaceful.
Maria Callas began to give less than stellar performances, and to face that her career as a singer would be ending, yet there were options for recording (making records) and the possibility of staring in a film which also faltered. She would give her last opera performance at the age of forty-two.
This began an era in which Onassis wrangled to keep control of the principality of Monaco while Prince Ranier III prevailed. Onassis spun his web of deceit not only on Maria Callas, but on Princess Lee Radziwill, as he aimed to have the ultimate trophy wife - Lee's sister, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Aristo believed that all women had sex for money and it was only a matter of how much. He gave mistresses bracelets worth thousands as a goodbye gifts. Eventually he would give such a bracelet to Lee.
Maria Callas may have been a hypochondriac or she might have dealt with sexist doctors who made little of her complaints. She had surgeries for abdominal hernias and, in 1963, there's a possibility that she had another pregnancy or abortion, though this may have just been a rumor as she gained weight.
As her Mother continued to create embarrassment for her in order to financially gain from Maria, Maria and Aristo both seemed to have spoken to the media in ways that were not just from concern about reputation, but also to manipulate each other. They were co-dependent in this way and also, eventually, in the use and overuse of prescription drugs. While Mother was clearly unstable and wicked, something I felt conscious of as I listened to the audiobook is that Maria herself is cast as having to live with so much turmoil but is not outright called mentally ill or unstable herself. I think she was, and I say that conscious of stereotypes of women, strong women, women who have earned their status and money, who are demanding. Was she independent? Emotionally she seems needy and dependent on the approval of Aristo.
Maria would eventually be emotionally blackmailed into providing some financial support to both her parents, and her mother was willing to attempt suicide to accomplish this. However, Maria seems to have been a hysteric; she too would attempt suicide a few times over Aristo.
Staff, including those aboard his ship, the Christina, were aware of Maria and Aristo as a couple, how they went from holding hands to have arguments, how he sailed without her or got her off the ship because another woman was taking a cruise with him. He would sometimes have Maria on board with her rivals, such as Princess Lee Radzwill, and then make a show of ignoring her. He disappeared for long periods of time when he did not contact her. Perhaps one of the most evil things Aristo did to Maria was play on her insecurities about her body, her weight, and her loss of weight, as she likely developed an eating disorder to become thin and then he'd claim to be attracted to bigger women. At one point she was keeping track of what she ate, each gram of food, knowing that the tiny feminine Princess was his ideal. (Actually he liked androgynous women.) Author Lyndsy Spence writes that Onassis was also a good customer of the prostitutes of Parisian Madame Claude.
Though Maria was capable of self-support and earned well enough to afford Swiss clinic cures, an elaborate and plentiful wardrobe, world travel, and the support of her parents, Aristotle Onassis was significantly richer. Like a Classic Mistress, Maria was gifted a Paris apartment, though she lived with him in his. She wore the clothes he bought for her. Because her career decline coincided with her desire to be available to Aristo when he called upon her to cruise, she came and went as he wanted, often waiting for his attention. As the press demanded to know where the relationship stood, at different times both Maria and Aristo claimed they would marry and then said it was a joke.
Their relationship was co-dependent. It was also volatile. Aristo provoked Maria and manipulated her. She screamed at him in front of friends and business associates. Before Onassis screaming had been limited to what she wanted out of the operas she performed in.
Maria lied to herself about her relationship with this destructive and cruel man, who wanted to even the score with Robert Kennedy, the Senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy. Had Aristo used Princess Lee to get to Jackie?
Even as he courted the widowed Jackie after the assassination of her husband, JFK, and showed her his private island Scorpios, Aristo did not let Maria go. It's my feeling that her adoration for him was something he needed.
When her voice cracked during a performance and she started over, Onassis went backstage to congratulate her on her courage. As she attempted suicide in Paris, he found her and walked her around the apartment to keep her alive. But he had provoked her. That was when she found a love letter and gift of jewelry meant for Lee.
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