Berliner Boersenzeitung - Opera diva Maria Callas museum opens in Athens on centenary

EUR -
AED 4.313975
AFN 80.547545
ALL 97.434934
AMD 451.002646
ANG 2.102303
AOA 1077.171324
ARS 1492.791377
AUD 1.789017
AWG 2.116752
AZN 2.0016
BAM 1.955498
BBD 2.367734
BDT 143.357833
BGN 1.959395
BHD 0.442932
BIF 3495.35953
BMD 1.174668
BND 1.502568
BOB 8.102747
BRL 6.532923
BSD 1.172619
BTN 101.493307
BWP 15.744565
BYN 3.837607
BYR 23023.499991
BZD 2.355536
CAD 1.60865
CDF 3393.617337
CHF 0.934453
CLF 0.028651
CLP 1123.958398
CNY 8.403625
CNH 8.419418
COP 4825.831318
CRC 592.408399
CUC 1.174668
CUP 31.128712
CVE 110.52312
CZK 24.57048
DJF 208.817712
DKK 7.463496
DOP 71.148999
DZD 152.157473
EGP 57.684081
ERN 17.620026
ETB 163.190867
FJD 2.634488
FKP 0.868566
GBP 0.874465
GEL 3.18381
GGP 0.868566
GHS 12.28469
GIP 0.868566
GMD 84.57654
GNF 10176.42647
GTQ 9.023227
GYD 245.342064
HKD 9.220266
HNL 30.706252
HRK 7.537617
HTG 153.886205
HUF 396.850416
IDR 19217.339549
ILS 3.93908
IMP 0.868566
INR 101.616219
IQD 1536.162471
IRR 49468.226083
ISK 142.276286
JEP 0.868566
JMD 187.051077
JOD 0.832886
JPY 173.446879
KES 151.506573
KGS 102.553011
KHR 4697.273684
KMF 491.603168
KPW 1057.180577
KRW 1625.077378
KWD 0.358662
KYD 0.977249
KZT 639.001194
LAK 25279.09122
LBP 105069.953557
LKR 353.815291
LRD 235.113646
LSL 20.812382
LTL 3.468491
LVL 0.710546
LYD 6.330021
MAD 10.545169
MDL 19.72395
MGA 5179.199166
MKD 61.550483
MMK 2466.23401
MNT 4213.875517
MOP 9.481134
MRU 46.800763
MUR 53.342135
MVR 18.094285
MWK 2033.385588
MXN 21.777064
MYR 4.958867
MZN 75.131746
NAD 20.812382
NGN 1799.510154
NIO 43.153327
NOK 11.93722
NPR 162.388891
NZD 1.948849
OMR 0.45182
PAB 1.172619
PEN 4.153358
PGK 4.860248
PHP 67.132737
PKR 332.301418
PLN 4.249143
PYG 8783.641829
QAR 4.285208
RON 5.067641
RSD 117.136888
RUB 93.245282
RWF 1695.037905
SAR 4.406914
SBD 9.732239
SCR 16.61843
SDG 705.392672
SEK 11.192362
SGD 1.503815
SHP 0.923105
SLE 26.959075
SLL 24632.212956
SOS 670.196371
SRD 43.067458
STD 24313.263549
STN 24.496212
SVC 10.260413
SYP 15274.076539
SZL 20.804783
THB 38.024448
TJS 11.198868
TMT 4.123086
TND 3.432015
TOP 2.751195
TRY 47.634334
TTD 7.973767
TWD 34.632517
TZS 3004.935362
UAH 49.031718
UGX 4214.987377
USD 1.174668
UYU 47.089976
UZS 14837.70572
VES 141.281363
VND 30711.704452
VUV 140.346654
WST 3.215641
XAF 655.855588
XAG 0.030755
XAU 0.000352
XCD 3.1746
XCG 2.113373
XDR 0.815674
XOF 655.855588
XPF 119.331742
YER 283.036769
ZAR 20.868289
ZMK 10573.429114
ZMW 27.351771
ZWL 378.242735
  • RBGPF

    -1.1200

    73.88

    -1.52%

  • SCU

    0.0000

    12.72

    0%

  • CMSD

    0.0400

    22.89

    +0.17%

  • SCS

    0.0700

    10.58

    +0.66%

  • NGG

    -0.0800

    72.15

    -0.11%

  • RELX

    -0.9800

    52.73

    -1.86%

  • BCC

    1.7100

    88.14

    +1.94%

  • GSK

    -0.2600

    37.97

    -0.68%

  • RIO

    -0.7300

    63.1

    -1.16%

  • CMSC

    0.0550

    22.485

    +0.24%

  • AZN

    -1.0200

    72.66

    -1.4%

  • JRI

    -0.0600

    13.09

    -0.46%

  • BTI

    -0.3700

    52.25

    -0.71%

  • BCE

    -0.2300

    24.2

    -0.95%

  • VOD

    -0.0900

    11.43

    -0.79%

  • BP

    0.0700

    32.2

    +0.22%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0400

    13.2

    -0.3%

Opera diva Maria Callas museum opens in Athens on centenary
Opera diva Maria Callas museum opens in Athens on centenary / Photo: - - AFP

Opera diva Maria Callas museum opens in Athens on centenary

A quarter of a century in the making, Greece's capital Athens on Thursday opens a museum honouring legendary soprano Maria Callas, billed as the first of its kind in the world.

Text size:

Designed to mark the centenary of her birth, the museum showcases over 1,300 exhibits including Callas's school scrapbook, inscribed books and sheet music, opera dresses and photographs, organisers said.

"The great diva, Maria Callas, returns home," Athens mayor Kostas Bakoyannis said Wednesday at a media tour of the venue.

"We are very proud of this first museum that combines technology and lived experience," he said.

A listed four-storey building from the 1920s that previously housed a hotel, the custard-coloured museum near central Syntagma Square took over a decade to complete at a cost of 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million).

The collection began 24 years ago, when the city acquired some Callas items at a Paris auction.

"This is a museum for all the senses," said Konstantinos Dedes, one of the project supervisors.

The tour begins on the second floor, where visitors step onto a forest scene as Callas -- silhouetted on a stage at the back wall -- sings an aria from Bellini's opera Norma.

It was one of the defining performances of an illustrious career spanning more than three decades which saw Callas dubbed "La Divina" -- the divine.

Another room recreates the night view from the diva's balcony in Paris, complete with flowing curtains.

There is also a recording of Callas giving a masterclass at the Juilliard School of music in New York in the early 1970s.

- 'Don't overact' -

"You don't have to overact," she sternly tells students, urging them to make use of their face and eyes.

Among the collection's top exhibits are the soprano's personal photo album, her backstage mirror and her prescription glasses, which she almost never wore in public.

There are also monogrammed matchbooks given to her by airlines and hotels on her final world tour in 1973-74, and the menu of the fateful Venice party in 1957 where Callas met Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

She ended up divorcing her Italian industrialist husband Giovanni Meneghini for Onassis, who later left her to marry former US first lady Jackie Kennedy.

Dozens of Greek institutions and private collectors, among them the late artists Alekos Fassianos, Dimitris Mytaras and Panayiotis Tetsis, have made contributions to the new museum, the city said.

Some of the items have been donated by Milan's La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Arena di Verona, where Callas made her Italian debut in 1947, it said.

"We aimed to charm those who don't know (Callas) and don't listen to opera... and help them understand what made her stand out," the museum's exhibition designer Erato Koutsoudaki told AFP.

Tickets cost 10 euros.

Born in New York to Greek emigre parents in 1923, Sophia Cecilia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulos lived in Athens from 1937 to 1945 after her parents separated.

"As soon as my mother realised my vocal qualities, she decided to turn me into a child prodigy," Callas later wrote. "But child prodigies never have a real, genuine childhood."

The building in Athens where Callas briefly lived with her mother and sister is to become a music academy, Bakoyannis said Wednesday.

After attending singing classes at the National Conservatory, she made her professional debut with the Royal Opera of Athens in 1941.

Callas retired after a final stage appearance in Sapporo, Japan in 1974. She died in Paris of a heart attack in 1977, aged 53.

Her ashes were scattered in the Aegean Sea two years later.

A biopic of Callas starring Angelina Jolie, titled Maria, is due to be released next year.

(O.Joost--BBZ)