Maria Callas: La Divina Trivia Quiz

Answer: no

Her real name was Maria Anna Sophie Cecilia Kalogeropoulos, born in New York in 1923 into a family of Greek emigrants. In 1929, her father changed the family surname into Callas. When her mother later returned to Greece with Maria and her sister, she switched back to the original surname. In 1945, when back to New York, Maria began using the Callas surname again.

Answer: Athens

In 1938, she entered the Greek National Conservatory, although she was not yet 16, the minimum age to enroll.

Answer: Norma

She first played Norma in Florence, in 1948: she then perfomed it throughout her career, in New York, Rome, Paris among others. Composed by Vincenzo Bellini in 1831 and set in Roman-dominated Gaul, the opera centres on the multifaceted figure of Norma, which requires a soprano to have outstanding dramatic ability.

Answer: La Scala

Callas began performing at Milan's Teatro alla Scala (aka La Scala) in December 1951, and continued till 1958, when a quarrel with the theatre's superintendent made her decide not to perform there anymore. I Vespri Siciliani and Tosca are among the many operas she interpreted in Milan. During that period, she was however also performing in London, Chicago and New York.

Answer: Tosca

Composed by Giacomo Puccini in the late 1890s, Tosca is another dramatic opera on love, jealousy and courage, that Callas sang frequently. In 1964, she had not been performing for a while, mainly due to her relationship with Onassis, but she made an acclaimed comeback when Zeffirelli persuaded her to go on stage again.

Answer: Aristotle Onassis

Callas and Onassis first met in 1957, when she was still married to Giovanni Battista Meneghini. In 1959, they began a love affair. In the following years, she reduced her stage performances to spend time with him, and was expecting to marry him. To this end, in 1966 she changed her citizenship from American to Greek, thus annulling her previous marriage.

But in 1968 Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy, and this was a devastating blow to Callas.

Answer: Pier Paolo Pasolini

"Medea" was filmed in 1969, with the poet and writer Pasolini as a director. Unfortunately, the film did not meet with much success, in spite of Callas' intense performance.

Answer: Sapporo

Her last concert took place in Sapporo, Japan, in November 1974, during a world tour organised by her friend and colleague, tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano. Although the tour was a success, it also - sadly - showed that she had lost most of her artistic inspiration.

Answer: 1977

She died in Paris on 16 September 1977, in unclear circumstances. In the last couple of years of her life, she had been living as a recluse. Her ashes were scattered over the Aegean Sea.

Answer: Both

Her mother, Evangelia, wrote in the 1960s "My Daughter Maria Callas" (in collaboration with Lawrence Goldtree Blochman), while her sister, Jackie, authored "Sisters: A Revealing Portrait of the World's Most Famous Diva" after the death of Maria. Her husband, G.B. Meneghini, wrote "My Wife Maria Callas" in the 1980s, chiefly to correct mistakes about Maria's life.