Born in New York in 1923 of Greek parents as Cecelia Sofia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulos, Callas made her true debut at the Athens Opera on July 4, 1941 as Tosca, going on to sing Santuzza and Leonora during the next three years. In 1945, Callas returned to New York where she was heard by Zenatello who engaged her for La Gioconda in the Arena at Verona. This successful appearance under Serafin was the start of her real career, and she was soon in demand in Italian theatres for such heavy roles as Aida, Turandot, Isolde, Kundry and Brunnhilde. Her versatility was shown in Venice in 1949 when, only three days after singing Die Walkure's (The Valkyrie) Brunnhilde, Callas stepped in for an indisposed colleague in the florid bel canto role of Elvira in I puritani.

   Gradually, under the guidance of Serafin, she focused on the earlier Italian operas. Her repertory included Violetta, Gilda and Lucia, Rosina, Amina and Norma, Nabucco, Il trovatore, Don Carlos, Un ballo in maschera,  I vespri sicilani, and memorable revivals of Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck's Alcese and Iphigenie in Tauride, Cherubini's Medee, Spontini's La vestale, Rossini's Armida and Il turco in Italia, Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Poliuto and Bellini's Il Pirata.

     Her greatest triumphs were won in Norma, Medee, Anna Bolena, Lucia di Lammermoor, La traviata and Tosca. Many of these roles she repeated in the major opera houses of the world, where her fame reached a level that recalled the days of Caruso and Chaliapin. Her debut at La Scala was in Aida in 1950; her first appearances in London (1952) Chicago (1954) and New York (1956) were in Norma.

     Maria finally made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on October 28, 1956 as Norma in Bellini's Norma. Unfortunately for Maria, Time magazine had done an interview with Maria's mother, the woman Maria blamed for robbing her of her childhood. Maria had last seen her mother in Mexico in 1950 and had vowed that she would never meet or speak with her again (a promise she took with her to her death). The Time article portrayed Maria as an ungrateful daughter and the New York public reacted coldly when Maria's Met debut came. In fact, the legendary soprano Zinka Milanov received more applause when she took her seat than Maria did when she made her entrance. By the end of the final act, though, the New York public surrendered and Maria received 16 curtain calls.

     The next time Maria made headlines was when she was scheduled to sing in a gala performance of Norma at the Rome Opera House on January 2, 1958. The performance was to be attended by Italy's president, Giovanni Gronchi and his wife. Unfortunately, Maria had been seeing in the New Year by drinking champagne and staying out very late at a fashionable Rome nightclub.  Maria, against the orders of her doctors, went on stage but her voice was in ruins. At the end of the first act, half the audience jeered while the other half sat in shocked silence. Maria escaped through a back exit, and an announcement had to be made that the performance simply could not go on.

     On September 3, 1959, Maria announced that she would be parting from her husband. She began a 9 year love affair with Aristotle Onassis. The couple was expected to marry but in the end, Aristotle married Jackie Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's widow, on October 20, 1968. His death on March 15, 1975, is considered to be one of the major factors behind Maria's death.

     Callas' dramatic powers aroused immediate excitement. There was authority in all that she did, and in every phrase that she uttered. Her voice was an impressive instrument with its penetrating, individual quality. During the 1960s, she withdrew gradually from the operatic stage and gave her final performance as Tosca at Covent Garden in 1965.

     In 1971-2 Maria Callas gave an extensive series of master classes mainly in New York and in 1973 and 1974 she emerged from a long period of retirement to make a concert tour with her former colleague, Giuseppe di Stefano.

     Maria Callas died in Paris in 1977 aged 53. She left behind many remarkable recordings of recitals and complete operas which remain as a testament to her artistic genius, and the epitome of the operatic soprano. For her admirers her performances remain definitive.

   Michelle Krisel, the artistic director of the Washington Opera, called her "the performer who changed the standard by which all opera singers are judged." Leonard Bernstein went further, describing Callas as "the greatest artist of the world."   Italian musicologist Attila Csampai summed up her career, "During the ten years of her unquestioned reign, between 1949 and 1959, she bestowed upon the lost souls of the world -- disoriented and bewildered by the war -- more music, more art, more humanity and warmth than any other individual of this century."