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Her legend is traduced by the narrative she was abandoned by a man and went on a downward spiral: she was not self-destructive but highly self-aware, as I found when writing a novel about herAlthough she was born a hundred years ago, Maria Callas remains the best-selling classical singer of all time. But when I tell people I have written a novel about her, the reaction comes with a sigh: “Oh Maria, such a talent, but what a tragedy.” All because Callas was left by a man. In 1968, the singer’s lover of nine years, the “Golden Greek” shipowner Aristotle Onassis, ended his relationship with her in order to marry the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. The story of Callas, much like the storylines of the romantic operas in which she starred, goes that she was betrayed by the man she loved before going into a decline that ended in her death eight years later.Callas is not alone in being mythologised as the great female singer who dies unhappy and alone: Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, the list goes on. There appears to be something irresistible about the idea that a woman of huge talent should be crucified by her success, that she has no right to expect to lead a happy and fulfilled life. With Callas, as with Garland, the emphasis is always on the way down, never the glorious prime. Renée Zellweger won an Oscar for her portrayal of Garland at the very end of her career, while Angelina Jolie is set to star as Callas in the forthcoming film Maria, set during the singer’s final days in 1970s Paris, where she died of a heart attack. Continue reading...