Publications
Her fans called her La Divina – the divine – and Maria Callas seemed to heartily agree with this description of her. “I have been touched by the hand of God,” said the singer, who was hailed by her devotees as the greatest soprano.
A new biography, drawing on her previously unpublished letters, makes exactly the opposite claim, however: based on all the suffering and betrayal she endured in her glittering but turbulent life, it might seem to some that Maria was cursed.
She was regularly drugged by her violent lover, Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, so he could sexually abuse her; swindled by her husband and father; and blackmailed by a mother who tried to force her into prostitution.
