Callas and “fags”
Callas with a “fag” and a poodle.
I was intrigued and also a little alarmed to see the Telegraph headline “Paul Ryan, Maria Callas and the splendour of custard.” It always hurts to see Callas’s name dragged in the mud, and then: custard? WTF?
Anyhow, this is what the writer claims of Caruso and Callas: “The possessors of the two most famous voices in operatic history were both smokers. Maria Callas made no secret of it: she didn’t mind being photographed with a fag in her hand.”
As far as I know, Callas was never much of a smoker. There is a posed shot of her and di Stefano from the 1950s showing them with beer steins; in the photo, Callas is holding an unlit cigarette. And there is the image in today’s post of Callas with a cigarette during the Medea shoot.
Arianna Stassinopoulos wrote of Callas during the Onassis years: “She never really smoked, though she did have an occasional cigarette when others were smoking around her.”
Was she really more of a smoker than that?
Actually, no. In letters, and during conversations with friends, she always said that cigarette smoke made her throat dry and she didn’t like it. Apparently, while being with Callas, Onassis smoked less because she disliked it.
Thanks, Olivier!
I’m always amazed that journalists feel free to make up stuff about Maria Callas. Now, maybe they make up stuff about everyone else, too, and I just don’t notice, but Callas seems to be a target more than others.
That certainly sounds true. Do you remember where you read it, by chance?
To be followed shortly by “Newt Gingrinch, Anna Moffo and the beauty of blancmange”.
LOL!