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| Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend |  | Author: Arianna Stassinopoulos
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $16.94 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 1271891
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 383
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.4
ISBN: 0671255835
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.10924
EAN: 9780671255831
ASIN: 0671255835
Publication Date: February 1981
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Legendary soprano Maria Callas, whose singing was as sensational as her life, is the subject of this biography by author and columnist Huffington. Huffington tells of Callas' transformation from a shy, chubby girl into one of the greatest opera singers of
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Not a New Book December 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Isn't this the same bio written several decades ago under Huffington's maiden name? Has this been expanded?
Although that book had many interesting facts and a lot of rehashing of the same old same old story of Callas, the view of the woman and the career were from a feminists's point of view. I'm not criticizing that at all. Certainly Callas totally screwed up her career and life due to Onasis and I believe it is widely known and understood that the only thing Callas could really do in life was music. Had she been truly self-actualized, she would have lived much longer and had a longer career. Her singing career was essentially over by 41. Everything that followed except for the Juilliard Master Classes was grasping for straws.
If this is the same book, I'm not putting it down and some of the insights are interesting but my god, how many biographies must we have on one single musician?
 To Err is Human...to Forgive, La Divina... February 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Don't you think it'd be GREAT, if Amazon listed the book's true author as Arianna Stassinopoulos instead of Arianna Huffington? I mean, really. Oy.
 Good beginning and ending - boring in the middle February 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book is very good, but in some parts can be quite dull if you are not an Opera fan or musician. The beginning up to when she becomes famous is exciting, and the end as she is no longer quite so famous, is interesting. But the middle is redundant. Arianna goes through detail after detail of each and every performance. That to me is not exciting to read. But because I was curious about the whole Onassis/Kennedy/Callas triangle, I waited. It is important though to read everything to understand her personality. This woman was a wonderful person and a great legend, but she definitely suffered I would suspect from Histrionic Personality Disorder. Onassis is definitely a complete dick, not that this is a surprise, he reminded me a lot of Diego Rivera when it came to women as his possessions. They might have been friends had they known each other - although I suspect thier politics were different. I also purchased a CD to hear Maria sing and often played it while reading, quite a beautiful experience. I was not an Opera fan prior to buying this book. I only bought it after seeing the movie from Netflix - Callas Forever - a Historical Fiction. Curiosity got the best of me and now I am a fan - of Maria.
Excellent biography. Read it when it first "came out!" September 10, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The number one recall I have about this book still haunts me to this day... her abortion. Onasis giving her the choice, him or the child.
Haunting. Horrible.
Above all, this book was a major "undertaking" for the author which she executed superbly! What a story! What a book!
a page-turner August 5, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
(To the reviewer before me: Now we're two.)
I have not read any other biography on Callas, but I listen to her avidly (her La Wally aria is particularly addictive) and have her Tosca performance on DVD as well as the documentary Maria Callas: Life and Art. But Callas's music alone has always made me wonder about her. Such deeply mined emotions in her singing, such ferocity, such purity, such power. How does she get all these in her performances? Where does she mine them? Zefirelli has compared her to Michelangelo, Bernstein has called her the greatest artist in the world. This book answers these questions and explains why. I have to say that it is a compulsive page-turner, even now in the twenty-first century where opera is no longer mainstream. There's always something interesting in each page. At the same time the biographer doesn't belabor a particular episode or detail in Maria's life as to make it boring or overly dramatized. And Arianna Stassinopoulos is no Kitty Kelly: everything seems very well-researched and reliable.
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