While the controversy raged, Maria was absorbed in the creation of her fifth heroine under Visconti’s direction. Iphigénie was to be their last collaboration, which neither of them suspected at the time. For once Maria strongly disagreed with Visconti’s interpretation. He had placed the opera in the middle of the eighteenth century in an elaborate rococo style. “Why are you doing it like this?” Maria kept asking. “It’s a Greek story and I’m a Greek woman, so I want to look Greek onstage.” And she went on and on through the rehearsals about wanting to look Greek, even after her glorious costumes, in silk brocade and with enormous trains, had been finished. Visconti considered Iphigénie his most beautiful production with Maria and, although this was not the general opinion, there were some stirring moments. Maria made her entrance during the storm scene that opens the opera; she walked up the high staircase and then raced down the steep steps with twenty-five yards of cloak flying wildly in the wind. “Every night,” remembers Visconti, “she hit her high note on the eighth step, so extraordinarily coordinated was her music and movement. She was like a circus horse, conditioned to pull off any theatrical stunt she was taught.”
Iphigénie was Maria’s twentieth production at La Scala and on June 21 President Gronchi, in recognition of her artistic achievements, conferred on her the greatly coveted honorary title of Commendatore. A few days later, Elsa Maxwell conferred on her the honor of a three-day Maxwell tour of Paris—tea with the Windsors, cocktails with the Rothschilds, dinner at Maxim’s, the races with Aly Khan.
Elsa had met Prince Aly Khan, the Aga Khan’s son, in 1947, and ever since she had been acting as a kind of unpaid propagandist for him, praising his hard work as the heir to the Aga’s spiritual leadership of the Ismailis when all the other papers were concentrating on his colorful playboy activities, and defending him from Rita Hayworth’s charges when she left him a few months after their marriage. Now in Paris, Aly Khan placed himself at Elsa’s disposal as official escort on her Parisian merry-go-round. Having won more than one hundred races as a gentleman jockey, he was the perfect companion for the racecourse. Maria remained impervious to Aly’s notorious magnetism, and could work up little enthusiasm for horses; but for the moment, she continued to be eager to try whatever excitements Elsa produced next.
There seemed to be no end to them. Maxwell, who had for some reason been given the Légion d’Honneur by the French government, was as much at home in Paris as in New York, and Maria was enjoying getting to know Paris and being feted and admired, towed in the wake of one who knew which places were fashionable and at what hour of the day.
The respite from singing had turned out to be almost as exhausting. And there was a long summer of recordings ahead. Also, after twelve years, Maria was preparing to sing in Athens again. But her homeland was not yet prepared to rejoice at her return. Apart from the national reluctance to acknowledge greatness in a fellow Greek, Evangelia’s allegations about her daughter had created a very unpleasant stir that was still echoing. What threatened to turn Maria’s visit into a farce even before she arrived was the attempt of the opposition parties to make political gain from it. They accused the Karamanlis government of getting its social priorities disastrously wrong by agreeing to pay an exorbitant fee to an opera singer when the people were in desperate need. So sensitive and tense was the general atmosphere that the government had arranged for Evangelia and Jackie to leave during Maria’s visit; when Maria landed in Athens, they were already in America.
She arrived totally drained from the previous year, longing for a haven. When she found herself instead in the middle of a storm, she panicked. She did not feel strong enough to confront an audience coldly withholding approval, nor did she feel in good enough form to seduce them into surrender. At the same time she knew that a cancellation would arouse even more hostility. She vacillated, prevaricated and finally decided. Her first return concert at the theater of Herodes Atticus would have to be canceled. Through a combination of Maria’s indecision and the Greek tendency to postpone the delivery of bad news, the cancellation was announced one hour before curtain time. Maria had expected disapproval; what she encountered was rage.
When finally, five nights later, exactly thirteen years after she had sung Fidelio there, Maria made her entrance on the stage of the ancient theater, she faced an icy wall of hostility. But now she was ready to use that hostility as a challenge, to ride it out and dissolve it with her magic. Her last aria was the Mad Scene from Hamlet and the ecstatic applause that broke at the end demanded an encore; the whole occasion acted as a detonator for all the accumulated tensions of the past week. It was even interpreted, by those for whom there is a political motive behind every “Bravo,” as a vote of confidence in the Karamanlis government.
Back in Milan, the pattern that Maria’s life had followed for over ten years now—an excess of work and tension leading to anxiety and exhaustion—now approached a dangerous collapse. She was thinner than she had ever been, her collarbones protruded whenever she wore an open dress, and her blood pressure was worryingly low. Her doctor advised the cancellation of all her engagements, artistic and social. Maria decided that canceling her visit to the Edinburgh Festival with La Scala so soon after the Athens cancellation would be disastrous. And canceling her visit to Venice for Elsa Maxwell’s ball would be such a pity—such a glamorous occasion to have to miss!
Edinburgh was cold and overcast when she arrived to open the operatic season at the festival with Sonnambula. The first performance suffered from her run-down state, but as Harold Rosenthal, who saw her on the fourth night, said in Opera: “Dramatically her interpretation is a tour de force. By her very nature Miss Callas is an imperious figure more suited to the great tragic roles of the lyric stage, and yet, although Amina is a Giselle-like figure, the soprano was able by her personality to make us believe in the figure she created.”
Dramatic interpretations, tragic roles and Giselle-like figures were all to be drowned in the torrent of publicity that surrounded Maria’s “cancellation” of her fifth Sonnambula. “Another Callas walk-out” was how it was presented in the British press. The facts were very different. Maria had never agreed to a fifth performance; she had clearly told Ghiringhelli that she would sing only four. Perhaps Ghiringhelli simply assumed that if it were announced, Maria would have no alternative but to stay on and sing. He assumed wrongly. Maria had had enough, and she was not going to sing a performance that was not part of her engagement just to save La Scala’s face. The lord provost of Edinburgh and his wife, warmly wishing her good-bye at her hotel, understood. The music critics understood: “One was glad for her sake when she departed for the warm south.” But the world press, that overzealous guardian of artistic morality, neither understood nor forgave her, especially as departure for the warm south meant Venice and the grand ball Elsa Maxwell was giving in Maria’s honor. It was clear that whether or not Maria broke an agreement, she certainly chose not to sing but to attend instead the party in Venice, a decision the press found outrageous. If she was too exhausted to sing, how could she not be too exhausted to spend all night at the ball? The newspapers were full of photographs of Maria at her most radiant, confident and polished. Maxwell herself, often insensitive and indiscreet, boosted her own ego at Maria’s expense. “I have had many presents in my life . . . but I have never had any star give up a performance in an opera house because she felt she was breaking her word to a friend.” Maria, so quick to imagine betrayal, could not see it when it lay bare before her.
For the moment Elsa could do no wrong. Maria desperately needed someone in her life to play the part of the all-good, all-comforting mother figure, and Maxwell was delighted to oblige. The surface of society, titles, money and gala balls constituted Elsa’s only reality. Maria was a noteworthy and beautiful acquisition, and Maxwell, with her cultural pretensions, knew perfectly well that she could afford to exchange quite a few counts and maharajahs for the cachet that Maria added to her column and her parties. Moreover, the effect of the
coup de foudre Maria had dealt her that night at the Waldorf-Astoria still continued. So she kept delving into her social repertoire to produce all sorts of toys that would keep Maria, for a time, fascinated and involved.
In their competition with opera houses around the world for Maria’s energy and time, Maxwell and the beau monde had one great thing on their side: novelty. Maria had already sung 22 Sonnambulas onstage, as well as 52 Traviatas, 41 Lucias and 73 Normas; and she had in the decade since 1947 created another 28 stage roles. She had not been to as many grand balls. Alexander wept vain tears when there were no more worlds to conquer. For Maria’s fans, the world of international café society may not have appeared as important as the world of international opera, but for Maria it was something new.
Maria stayed at the ball until the small hours. It was a performance, and Maria performed without sparing herself. She even sang the blues; sitting on the platform, she sang “Stormy Weather,” with Maxwell at the piano. Maxwell’s ability as a pianist had been one of the ropes on which she had hauled herself to the top. She had started in a cinema, pounding out tunes twelve hours a day for the silent films. Then, after the First World War, she made a name for herself in Europe by playing the piano at parties and singing numbers from the latest Broadway shows, or some of the not unattractive songs she had written herself. And now in the summer of 1957, she had achieved the summit of her piano-playing career, accompanying Maria Callas.
“I have never,” Maxwell wrote in her column, “given a better dinner and ball in my life. It had a flare of such joy and happiness. Even two princesses who hated each other were found exchanging smiles, while another comtesse who couldn’t remain in the same room with Merle Oberon stayed until 5 A.M.” Maria was the guest of honor and, perhaps more than anyone else at the party, she was much looked at, much talked about, much admired. And doing more than his share of looking and admiring was the second most glamorous Greek present: Aristotle Socrates Onassis. His wife Tina, in a Jean Dessès dress and a spectacular tiara, was one of the most beautiful women present. Tina’s lovely eyes seemed at times to look at the world through lowered lashes, but nevertheless she did notice very early on that her husband’s glance was, as if magnetized, pursuing someone around the ballroom. She followed his gaze—to Maria.
It did not take Ari long to find himself a seat next to Maria. Nor did it take Tina long to move next to both of them. In his wife’s presence, Onassis offered to place a motorboat with two sailors at Maria’s disposal for as long as she stayed in Venice. And for the next seven days, from the Lido to Harry’s Bar, from Harry’s Bar to Florian’s, from Florian’s to his yacht, the Christina, anchored at the mouth of the Grand Canal, he always somehow maneuvered himself next to Maria. The courtship had begun with yachts and motorboats, but, as yet, no trumpets and fanfares. Still, it did not escape general attention, though it totally escaped Meneghini’s, that Maria had been singled out for Onassis’ very special treatment. Maria herself felt pleasantly flattered and generally excited by this new life—but for the moment no more.
Back in Milan, the condemnation of Maria that followed the Edinburgh affair had become almost universal. Even close friends, such as Wally Toscanini, were infected. Wally was so furious with Maria that, for months after her return to Milan, she refused to talk to her. Maria insisted on a public statement from Ghiringhelli, setting the record straight over her supposed cancellation. Ghiringhelli refused, and Edinburgh was permanently added to the growing list of highly publicized Callas cancellations, as far as the press, the public and even some of her friends were concerned. Maria was due to open the San Francisco Opera season on September 13. Her doctor was against it, but then he had been against the Maxwell ball. At this moment in her life Maria was prepared to disregard her doctor’s orders for a grand party that she hoped would refresh and relax her, but not for another first night that she knew would be another trial, more anxiety and tension.
There were not many days left before the much-publicized opening night, when Kurt Adler, the director of the San Francisco Opera, received a telegram from Maria canceling her appearances for September, but offering to honor her contract for October. Maria was being driven, along a very circuitous road, it is true, away from her achievements and toward new experiences in search of herself. But, looking at Maria’s behavior from Kurt Adler’s standpoint, it is not at all difficult to understand his reaction. He exploded with rage, canceled all her appearances, flew Leyla Gencer from Milan to take over Maria’s Lucia, engaged Leonie Rysanek to sing Maria’s Lady Macbeth and referred her case to the American Guild of Musical Artists. So another “court hearing” was in store for Maria. On the surface it was a question of deciding whether it would have been possible for her to honor her commitments, but symbolically Maria was in the dock for a much larger crime. There was an element verging on religious fervor in the worship of Maria’s art, which meant that when she did not display the dedication of a high priestess, the faithful felt betrayed. So when Kurt Adler saw press photographs of Maria at Elsa Maxwell’s ball and then received a telegram canceling her opening performances, the rage of the professional was exacerbated by the feeling that sacrilege had been committed.
Maria’s critics were growing in number and the criticism was always the same: self-indulgence, failing to meet professional obligations, betrayal of art. Up to 1957, Maria had renounced every aspect of her life that did not directly contribute to her work. She was no longer prepared to make this sacrifice. From now on Maria was to come before art. If it was a betrayal, then it was for the sake of another loyalty—the loyalty to herself. But the fact that along the way it included absorption into Elsa Maxwell’s circle made her new behavior much harder for her public to accept.
For the time being, Maria’s next important commitment was the final hearing of the Bagarozy lawsuit. She arrived in New York on November 5, and twelve days later it was announced that the Callas-Bagarozy case was over. Ironically, after all the summonses, hearings, unpleasant publicity and strain on Maria’s nerves, the case was settled out of court. “I am tired of being a courtroom character,” was Maria’s only comment. The terms were not made public, but there is little doubt that they were no better than they would have been had Maria followed Nicola Rossi-Lemeni’s example and setttled years earlier.
Four days after the announcement of the settlement, Maria was in Dallas inaugurating, with a benefit concert, the Dallas Civic Opera Company that had just been formed by Lawrence Kelly of Chicago and the conductor Nicola Rescigno. She was rested, in excellent voice and looking her most glamorous. At 117 pounds she was slimmer than she had ever been, and her clinging silk dress made her look slimmer still. After the intermission, she wore a dramatic black velvet dress and finished the concert with the Tower Scene from Anna Bolena.
She returned to Milan and to the rehearsals of Un Ballo in Maschera. The minute she set foot in La Scala she knew that the Edinburgh incident had not been forgotten. The tension in the air made the rehearsals almost unbearable. Her first Ballo at La Scala should have been an occasion for celebration. After all, ten years earlier, she had auditioned for the part of Amelia there, was assured by the artistic director that she would be considered and then waited anxiously for days for a phone call that never came. Now, Maria, the unchallenged Queen of La Scala, was being given her own production directed by Margherita Wallmann; but it was not easy to celebrate when the queen was in disgrace. Ghiringhelli, the only man capable of telling what had really happened in Edinburgh, still refused to make any public pronouncement. To add to the tension, her relationship with di Stefano, who was singing the hero, Riccardo, was so strained that rehearsing the long, passionate love duet in Act II was an ordeal, even for an accomplished actress like Maria. But there is nothing like the presence of an audience to diffuse backstage tensions and ignite the performance. The opening night, on December 7, was broadcast and remains one of her most exciting Verdi performances. When compared with Maria’s 1956 recording of the opera, this live
performance has an added dimension of intensity and power. “On records,” she herself had said, “one has to reduce everything to a minimum, because everything is so exaggerated in sound.” On the stage there was no need for restraint. Maria was electrifying. And Gianandrea Gavazzeni, who conducted the five performances, described Maria’s musical gift: “I feel she was born with some kind of sixth sense. One of her great gifts was to differentiate styles of expression—Rossini from Bellini, Donizetti from Verdi. Even Verdi from Verdi. She had a strange, burning inner quality. You only need hear a note or two to recognize her voice. She was always different, yet always herself.”
Immediately after the fifth and final performance of Ballo, Maria left Milan for Rome to begin rehearsals for the production of Norma that was due to open at the Rome opera house on January 2, 1958. She saw 1957 out by singing “Casta Diva” on Italian television and she saw the New Year in at the exclusive Rome club, Circolo degli Scacchi. Even more significant for the events that would unfold in the first days of 1958 was that she was seen seeing the new year in and drinking champagne and staying up late. How late “late” was soon became a matter of dispute: some said one twenty, some two, some three and some were heard whispering four.
Maria Callas Page 21