MARIA: Callas Remembered

by Nadia Stancioff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1987

Stancioff, a PR-woman, was Callas' sometime employee and steadfast friend during the diva's last eight years (1969-1977). Here, in a gossipy but relatively tasteful memoir/profile, she recalls those years in detail--and also sketches in Callas' earlier life, with interview quotes from some new witnesses (e.g., Callas' sister) as well as some sources already tapped (including Stancioff herself) by Arianna Stassinopolous' full-length biography. There's little that's significantly different in the story that Stancioff pieces together--though lots of small details (sometimes more banal than juicy) emerge in the chatty, semi-persuasive testimony from friends, relatives, and colleagues. Everyone exclaims over how terribly fat and insecure young Mary Kalogeropolous was; nearly everyone agrees that her mother was pushy, insensitive, and selfish; there are the familiar disputes about her Met audition, about her attitude (quite adoring for a long time, apparently) toward paternal husband Meneghini--seen by Stancioff as ""a potbellied, unsophisticated little gargoyle."" The ugly Onassis drama is also familiar, but this version features direct quotes from both Maria (on Jackie: ""How could she marry a man who had had an affair with her sister?"") and Ari--whose re-courtship of Maria circa 1970 was crude. (""Ah, that feels good! It's great to feel Maria's big thighs again. . .Jackie is nothing but a bag of bones."") And Stancioff's portrait of the older Maria includes tidbits involving shopping, domesticity, stinginess, anti-Semitism, superstitiousness, and jewelry--as well as a few new glimpses into her relationships with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Peter Mennin, and Guiseppe di Stephano. Fans of Callas-the-artist will find virtually nothing of substance, aside from closeups of her non-singing chores in Pasolini's Medea. But aficionados of the Callas private-life soap will want to at least browse through this padded assemblage--which is neither worshipful nor nasty in its view of Maria as gifted, plucky, yet deeply troubled and vulnerable.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1987

ISBN: 0306809672

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION