Cent years ago he was born Maria Callasand the regret for the voice of the century deepens with the passage of time. In 1947 they made their debut at the Verona Arena a girl from Pesaro who survived polio, Renata Tebaldiand a young Greek woman from whose mouth the voice of God seems to come out: Maria Callaswho plays the Mona Lisa by Ponchielli.
In the audience there is a billionaire thirty years older, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, who proposes that she follow him; for six months she will take care of her maintenance, her wardrobe, her artistic growth. Callas gives herself completely to him and marries him, even if he does not want and perhaps cannot have children. She loses weight impressively.
Elsa Maxwell, the viper of Hollywood, introduces her to Aristotle Onassis: the tycoon, 17 years older. Meneghini and Callas are his guests on the yacht Christina. Arì wants her, she is infatuated with him; the husband is disembarked; the two most famous Greeks in the world get engaged.
Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Callas finally glimpses love, sex – she confides to a friend that she experienced her first orgasm with Onassis – and jet set. She lets go and declares: “Yes, Arì and I are going to get married”.
The next day Onassis denies everything: “Callas was joking.” The billionaire doesn’t want to marry her, he doesn’t want more children. Maria gets pregnant anyway, he chases her away, furious. The child, Homer, is stillborn.
In 1963 it was she who disembarked from the Christina: the American first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, was to come on board. In October 1968 Maria learns that in three days the man she loves will marry Jackie: the widow of the most powerful man in the world will become the wife of the richest.
Maria collapses. She isolates herself in her Parisian house. She had said: «In operas I have played heroines who die for love so many times, and this is something I can understand. I would have done the same in their place.”
Now it’s really in their place. AND she dies like the first heroine she played. Next to her body there is a note: “In these proud moments you alone remain with me”. It’s a verse from Mona Lisa. Only the first word is missing: “Suicide”.
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