As much as she received critical acclaim, she had passionate detractors; and as much as she had devoted fans, there were those who severely harassed her on stage.<\/p>\n
This divided opinion extended from her professional career into her personal life.<\/p>
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A troubled early home life<\/h3>\n
Her relationship with her mother was never a happy one. As the story goes, her mother (Litsa) didn\u2019t even want to see Maria for four days after she was born.<\/p>\n
The reason simply being that she was hoping for a boy.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n
According to Callas, her mother exploited her gifts for money from a very early age, and during the lean Second World War years, she forced Callas to go on dates with Italian and German soldiers in the effort to bring in some money.<\/p>\n
A friend has said that Callas did not offer favours<\/em> to the soldiers.<\/p>\n Her mother\u2019s preferential treatment of Callas\u2019s beautiful, charming and slender sister didn\u2019t help either.<\/p>\n This would certainly have contributed to the soprano\u2019s dramatic loss of weight in 1953-54. She went from being a full bodied and heavy woman to a slender, almost too thin and “glamorous” celebrity.<\/p>\n There is speculation that the sudden weight loss was responsible for the premature deterioration of her soprano voice in the early 1960s.<\/p>\n Despite Callas claiming that she had many reasons for the rapid weight loss, the tragic implication remains quite clear: insecurities instilled by her mother at an early age had tremendously negative effects on the singer in later life.<\/p>\n Callas was also seen as a tempestuous diva, full of demands and drama. A TIME cover story in 1956, released shortly before her debut at New York\u2019s Metropolitan Opera, tainted her reputation.<\/p>\n Besides her notoriety for being difficult to deal with, the story presented her in an unflattering light with regards to her relationship with Litsa, and painted a portrait of a vicious rivallery with her adored contemporary, Renata Tebaldi.<\/p>\n On the opening night of the opera Norma<\/em>, she met with an extremely hostile audience (well, one half of the audience). Some went as far as throwing vegetables.<\/p>\n Truly abhorrent behaviour.<\/p>\n A sensationalist press, in the early 1960s, were quick to seize on her alleged (at that stage) affair with the Greek shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis.<\/p>\n This was before he married Jackie Kennedy. To add yet another layer to the spectacle, Onassis was reported to have continued seeing Callas after he married the ex-first lady.<\/p>\n Despite the negative publicity from an ever eager press, her fans, both then and now, see her as a complex figure. Many would say that her passionate, imprudent nature is precisely what made her great.<\/p>\n Maria Callas sings L’amour est un oiseau rebelle <\/em>(“Love is a rebellious bird”) from Bizet’s Carmen<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/albertonrecord.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/35\/2019\/07\/7.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe weight loss<\/h3>\n
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Callas\u2019s private life \u2013 a very public affair<\/h3>\n
Her God-given voice<\/h3>\n