Cast a Diva E-Book

Lyndsy Spence

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 590

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

'Call it 'charm', call it 'magic', call it 'Maria'' - Dorle Soria 'The new face of Maria Callas … is even more dramatic than how History (with a capital H) has already painted it.' - Vogue Italia Maria Callas (1923–77) was the greatest opera diva of all time. Despite a career that remains unmatched by any prima donna, much of her life was overshadowed by her fiery relationship with Aristotle Onassis, who broke her heart when he left her for Jacqueline Kennedy, and her legendary tantrums on and off the stage. However, little is known about the woman behind the diva. She was a girl brought up between New York and Greece, who was forced to sing by her emotionally abusive mother and who left her family behind in Greece for an international career. Feted by royalty and Hollywood stars, she fought sexism to rise to the top, but there was one thing she wanted but could not have – a happy private life. In Cast a Diva, bestselling author Lyndsy Spence draws on previously unseen documents to reveal the raw, tragic story of a true icon.

Leseprobe

Cast a Diva

Put a human note into your story, please do. Because I am rather human at times.

Maria Callas

Front cover: Europress/Shutterstock

Back cover: Fotocollectie Anefo

First published 2021

This paperback edition first published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Lyndsy Spence, 2021, 2022

The right of Lyndsy Spence to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 75099 778 2

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

1 Displacement

2 Destiny

3 Survival

4 Liberation

5 Rejection

6 Transition

7 Success

8 Prima Donna

9 Metamorphosis

10 Scandal

11 Submersion

12 Falling

13 Detour

14 Consequences

15 Pendulum

16 Malevolence

17 Cipher

18 Intermezzo

19 Lucidity

20 Fable

Epilogue

Notes

Select Bibliography

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the following individuals and organisations: Adam A.R.; Aine Lagan; April Ashley; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Colin Jones; Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Cosimo Capanni; Daphne Dennis; Dimitris Pyromallis; Dr Brigitte Pantis; Dr Michael Paroussis; Elizabeth K. Mahon; Floria Di Stefano; Graziella Chiarcossi; Joe Oliver; Isabella Giacovazzo; Lainie Reed; Laura Mobley Greenwood; Maria Callas Alumni Association of the Music School of Kalamata; Mark Beynon; Nadia Pastorcich; Nathan Coy; New York Public Library; Nicos Haralabopoulos; Nuri Lidar; Pietro Dall’Aglio; Professor Mario Giacovazzo; Renzo Allegri; Sara Allouche; Serge Mafioly; Sound Archive at Stanford University and Vanessa Porras.

A note on images: all images are from the private collections of Cosimo Capanni, Dimitris Pyromallis, Nicos Haralabopoulos, Nuri Lidar, Renzo Allegri and Sara Allouche.

Author’s Note

After a season bursting with prima donnas, it is clear there is nobody like our Maria. You have ‘It’, call it ‘charm’, call it ‘magic’, call it ‘Maria’.

Dorle Soria, 1961

Maria Callas was the greatest opera singer of the twentieth century, and to this day, she is unrivalled – La Divina Assoluta. But in her private life, her voice, unless she was singing, was seldom heard. She confided in those whom she trusted, not for sympathy – she was too proud – but in a bid to be understood. Dismissing her troubles, they said Callas was too strong, and undermined her suffering. I wanted to give Maria, the woman, a voice.

1

Displacement

I will storm the Gods and shake the Universe.

Medea, Euripides

The story of Maria Callas does not begin with her birth but the sadness which preceded it. ‘I’ve had to help myself,’ she said. ‘Since I was a child, I knew I had to help myself.’1 A replacement child, she was to alleviate her mother’s grief after her 2-year-old son, Vasily, died in the summer of 1922. The cause of death was either typhoid or meningitis; the symptoms of both illnesses were much the same: a fever and a rash. Having consulted with an astrologer and the phatoe – a device similar to the Ouija board – her mother believed the unborn baby would be Vasily reincarnated.

Some claim that trauma is inherited from our forebears and their experiences shape our DNA. At the time of Maria’s conception, which was calculated by messages from the spirit world, her parents, George2 and Litsa3 Kalogeropoulos,[1] lived in the close confines of their apartment above his pharmacy, unable to share their grief. As the only pharmacist in the small town of Meligalas, in the Peloponnese, his vocation provided a comfortable life for his wife and eldest child, Yacinthy, which included two maids and a cook. There was also a handyman, Christos, a handsome young soldier and Litsa’s favourite servant. To Christos, she spoke for hours, exorcising her regret, ‘My father was a general, God rest him. And I … I married a pharmacist.’

Litsa was five months into her pregnancy when George sold the pharmacy and bought three passages to America. Infuriated, she said that only paupers emigrated and did not consider the political situation: during the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, there was an influx of more than 1 million refugees. Furthermore, Vasily’s illness and subsequent death were embedded in his psyche, and it was common knowledge that the refugees had brought with them an epidemic of viral diseases. Instead, she claimed it was due to his affair with the mayor’s daughter, who became pregnant. Years later, she wrote to Maria, ‘Your good father is notoriously two-faced and a hypocrite, and he comes out on top. I shall tell you a great secret of your father’s, which I have been keeping to myself all these years.’4

On 2 August 1923, the family arrived in New York and were greeted by flags flying at half-mast and newspaper headlines of President Warren G. Harding’s death. A superstitious woman, Litsa burst into tears and called it a bad omen.5

There were 50,000 Greeks living in New York, and they, particularly the lower classes, were considered ‘a menace to the American [working] man’.6 Attempting to fit in, George simplified their name to Kalos and changed Yacinthy’s name to Jackie[2] after an immigration officer mispronounced it. Their new home was a modest apartment at 87 Sixth Avenue7 in Astoria, Queens, and they had only one friend,[3] Dr Leonidas Lantzounis, an orthopaedic surgeon who had left Meligalas with $15 in his pocket. Soon, George’s optimism declined, and his salary from teaching Greek at a high school could not pay their bills, and within months they ran out of money.

It was into these circumstances that Maria was born, on 2 December 1923, at the Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan. Disappointed that her baby was a girl, Litsa turned her head to the window and for four days refused to look at her. She had wanted another blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy and instead was presented with a daughter with raven hair and black eyes.

Although George had a similar response, he suggested they name her Cecilia, but Litsa refused and chose Sophie. They eventually agreed on Maria, but throughout her childhood she was called Mary or Marianna.8

Furthermore, the day of Maria’s birth was uncertain: Litsa said it was the third, George argued it was the fourth, but Lantzounis, who had driven her to hospital and became the child’s godfather, claimed it was the second. She was registered as Sophie C. Kalos, with her birth date as 3 December, but other documents listed it as the second.9

Maria liked the fourth, as it was St Barbara’s Day, the patron saint of artillery – an appropriate prophecy for her life. As Maria grew older, she resented Litsa’s recollection and viewed it as a sign that she was unwanted. Whether it was intentional or not remains unknown, for Litsa embellished her memories of the day with a record-breaking snowstorm, although meteorological records indicate the weather was dry but cold. In her memoirs, she wrote, ‘I could hear snow slapping against the window like the palm of a wet hand, and across the avenue I could see white sheets of snow sweeping through Central Park.’10

In some ways, Litsa’s behaviour could be explained by her grief and, perhaps, postnatal depression. Before going to New York, she considered leaving George and returning to her mother in Athens, but thinking she was pregnant with a son – the highest status for a Greek mother – she forgot her plan and stayed with her husband. In America, however, she was isolated and lonely, with only Jackie, then 7 years old, for company. Therefore, the arrival of Maria shattered her illusions and placed her precarious mental health under further strain. ‘It is a cruel thing,’ Maria later said, ‘to make a child feel unwanted.’11

Maria’s earliest memories were of upheaval as she moved nine times in eight years,[4] to cheaper apartments in neighbourhoods in upper Manhattan, and she attended as many elementary schools.[5] It offered her little opportunity to make friends, as Litsa disapproved of their working-class neighbours and would not let her daughters invite others to the apartment. Their final address was 561 West 180th Street in Washington Heights. Half a century before, it had attracted rich New Yorkers who had built their European-style castles on its rocky terrain, and in the late 1920s, it was a leafy suburb with open spaces, medieval-style architecture, and a large Greek community.

Differences that had been tolerable in Greece were now magnified in New York. Litsa resented George’s origins as the son of peasant farmers whom, she said, had no ambition. She chided him for his position as a sales assistant in a pharmacy and his modest salary, which barely covered their expenses. From her perspective, she deserved better and claimed to have aristocratic lineage: her (dyed) blonde hair was proof of such noble bearing.

She was a fantasist – her father, Petros Dimitriadis, had been an army general in Constantinople, who, after being invalided, gambled with disastrous results to increase his pension. Their home was sold to pay his debts, and in 1913, Litsa and her family moved to a rented house in Athens. It was rumoured she had only married George because she was pregnant and her real ambition was to be an actress. Her behaviour, such as her heightened sexuality – or what Maria called ‘her shameful conduct’12 – pointed to a chemical imbalance.

However, George was not blameless, he ignored the difficulties he would face in learning English and the high cost of living. He was jealous of Litsa, whose provocative behaviour attracted the male gaze, if nothing else, and reacted furiously if she spoke to another man. When everything seemed hopeless, Litsa swallowed poison and was found by Maria and Jackie, on the apartment floor, vomiting after having her stomach pumped.13 George committed her to a psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital, a public institution with 500 beds for the city’s mentally disturbed. Using his connections, namely Leonidas Lantzounis, the incident was not reported to the police (as Litsa had broken the law by attempting suicide and would have faced two years in prison).

At a young age, Maria became aware of the cyclic changes to her mother’s behaviour – possibly hormonal, ‘Hormones make our characters,’ she later said14 – and how it corresponded to the phases of the moon.15 However, far from understanding, George offered no support and called his wife ‘that crazy woman’.16 There were great highs, which preceded Litsa’s dark moods, during which time she would be imaginative and playful. On their weekly outings for chop suey at a local Chinese restaurant, she pretended the inexpensive meal was a stately banquet, and at home, she taught the girls how to tango and foxtrot. Nevertheless, Maria knew she could not trust those fleeting moments when Litsa was ‘the most magical person on earth’.17

As in Greek culture, the man was head of the family, but the woman was head of the house and raised the children as she saw fit. For as long as Maria could remember, Litsa poisoned her mind against George, lamenting him for being lazy, poor and unambitious. He was vain and self-centred; he dyed his hair and moustache black; he lied about his age;18 and he seldom interacted with his daughters. Sometimes he asked Maria and Jackie questions about school, but they were too embarrassed to engage with him.

At a young age, Maria knew her father was a womaniser, but she did not resent him, for she would also look for love and attention wherever she could find it. She remembered how her father loved Greek music and played it on their phonograph, but Litsa would charge into the room and turn it off, replacing it with operatic arias. As her parents fought, Maria sought comfort from Jackie and looked for the reassurance that neither parent offered. However, Jackie was equally unhappy and, at the age of 10, contemplated suicide.

Litsa wanted to control her children in every way, from insisting they wear hats, even though Jackie, in particular, hated it, and hitting them if they disobeyed her. The two girls shared a bed, and if they left it unmade, Litsa would take their clothes and throw them in the hallway of their apartment. If she suspected they were lying, she would put pepper on their lips; she had also used pepper to stop Maria, then a baby, from crying.

Only once did George intervene, when Litsa hit Jackie over the head with an umbrella, and on another occasion, he criticised her parenting style, ‘I had several times to say, “It’s not good to treat daughters this way”.’19 His new job as a travelling salesman took him away from home, which was a welcomed respite from his responsibilities toward his family. Nevertheless, Maria idolised him and thought they shared the bond of victimhood. ‘I always sided with my father,’ she said. ‘I was his favourite when I was a child … or maybe always.’20

All her life, Maria believed Litsa suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia; a secret she could not share.21 There were traits of instability in Litsa’s family: one of her brothers committed suicide at 21, and her sister became a nun at the age of 12 and died of cancer five years later – both were religious fanatics, prone to extreme behaviour. Sometimes, Litsa fuelled her unhappiness by attending church and returning home embittered by the affluent families there. The narcissism, the highs and lows, and the swift changes in Litsa’s character certainly pointed to a borderline personality problem. ‘They don’t do enough for mental illness these days,’ Maria later said. ‘All this stress on cancer, but they don’t spend enough money for the mentally sick.’22

Five years after arriving in New York, George obtained a licence to practise pharmaceuticals. With no money to open a pharmacy, he asked Leonidas Lantzounis for a loan of $10,000 – which he made no effort to repay – and opened the Splendid Pharmacy at 483 Ninth Avenue at Thirty-Seventh Street, in Hell’s Kitchen. Also helping herself to Lantzounis’s loan, Litsa took the children to her rich cousin’s home in Tarpon Springs, Florida, where they stayed for six months. Years later, Maria recalled the days swimming in the sea and playing with her cousins as the happiest period of her childhood.

Returning to New York, Maria was hit by a car after running across the road to greet her sister. ‘I’m seized by sudden tender impulses,’ she said, ‘and feel ashamed of them immediately afterward.’23 Dragged to the end of the street, she escaped with minor injuries and a concussion. However, Litsa claimed it altered her behaviour: she had grown moody and viewed her sister as a rival, perhaps a feeling inspired by their mother declaring Jackie more beautiful and competent. To attract attention, whether good or bad, she interrupted Jackie’s piano lessons by climbing under the pianola and working the pedals with her hands. Soon, she was also taking lessons, which George considered a waste of money.

Four months later, the American economy crashed, and George was forced to close his pharmacy. Far from being sympathetic, Litsa berated him for losing his business and blamed him entirely for the Wall Street Crash. To make ends meet, they rented a room to a Greek-Turkish couple, Callespe and Otto Canar, and humiliated by their circumstances, Litsa claimed the lodgers were her servants.24

Having become obsessed with bettering her circumstances, she saw in her daughters the ability to earn money. Around that time, Maria began to imitate the opera records that Litsa borrowed from the library. The first recording she heard was Tosca, although she called the heroine ‘a clown … I don’t like her very much’.25 She taught herself arias from Carmen and learned the piano score and lyrics to ‘La Paloma’, her untrained voice attracting a small crowd beneath the opened window. A Swedish neighbour overheard her singing and offered to give her free voice lessons for two months.

Determined to turn Maria into a child star, Litsa was desperate to find a good voice teacher, although she could not afford it. ‘It’s a big destiny and it’s terrifying,’ Maria said. ‘Mine is a big destiny.’26 To pay for the $10 lessons, Litsa tried to pimp Jackie out to their landlord. However, Jackie refused and found work as a dressmaker’s model, her salary going into the household. Maria turned to her three canaries and studied their throats, mimicking their muscle control and pitch.

Then, Litsa considered it a good omen when she saw a newspaper advertising a children’s talent contest hosted by Jack Benny for WOR radio station. Accompanied by Jackie on the piano, Maria sang ‘La Paloma’ and ‘A Heart That’s Free’ and won the second prize – a Bulova watch – the first prize went to an accordion player. There were further radio performances, and while Maria enjoyed the attention, she came to resent Litsa forcing her into a singing career. She could not recall a favourite toy, nor did she play as the other children did. Instead, she had to memorise arias and practice her scales. ‘Children should not be given this responsibility,’ she later said. ‘Children should have a wonderful childhood. I had not had it. I wish I could have.’27

A theory exists that Maria applied for talent shows under the names Anita Duval and Nina Foresti, as her father disapproved of her singing on the radio. There is a recording from 1935 of Foresti on Major Bowes Amateur Hour, introducing herself in a Mid-Atlantic accent and singing ‘Un bel di’ from Madama Butterfly. The judges rated the performance as a ‘D’ and noted a ‘faint possibility for [the] future’. According to Maria’s former secretary and friend, Nadia Stancioff, she admitted to using aliases: ‘When I was a kid, I took part in a singing competition … I called myself Anita Duval … Afterwards, I switched to Nina Foresti. I thought that sounded more like an opera singer!’28 It contradicts what Maria told another friend: ‘The Butterfly piece is not true – I always called myself by my own name.’29

Evidence proves that Nina Foresti was the stage name of a young Italian-American woman named Anita Duval, who gave her address as 549 W. 144th Street in Washington Heights. In Foresti’s application (dated 11 March 1935) for Major Bowes Amateur Hour, she wrote:

My musical studies were begun when I was four years old. I studied piano [for] many years but as my family was in very comfortable circumstances, my music was not considered seriously. I was sent to finishing school, studied languages and singing all as social accomplishments only. One day in 1930, upon our return from a cruise, we found our ‘comfortable circumstances’ had vanished so I have been giving piano instruction. However, I always loved to sing so I continued my vocal studies and have sung in concerts and made my debut as Nedda, in Pagliacci, but as an amateur. My voice is admired but opportunities are so few and I find that corner – from amateur to professional – a very difficult one to turn.30

Duval/Foresti was born Annette Duval in Pennsylvania in 1915, to a rich family who lost their fortune in the Wall Street Crash. Graduating from school, she sang on the newly established radio network, WCDA31 and in 1928, performed as Nedda in Pagliacci with the New York Opera, as mentioned in the Easton Lafayette:

Next Tuesday night, October 24, the long-awaited performance of the New York Opera Company will become a reality on the stage of the Orpheum Theatre … Pagliacci will be presented under the supervision and general direction of Maestro dell-Orefice, former coach of Enrico Caruso … The role of Nedda will be played by Nina Foresti, talented American singer.32

After appearing on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, she resumed her position at the department store, Strawbridge & Clothier. What remains interesting is the inclusion of Duval/Foresti’s ‘Un bel di’ on Maria’s recordings for EMI, and that Duval/Foresti never revealed her identity nor sought to correct the error. Given that her opera career petered out in 1935, perhaps she enjoyed being associated with Maria, knowing that her voice has been heard by millions.

In those days, Maria sang arias suited to accomplished singers, and many believed it contributed to the vocal problems from which she later suffered. Dismissing this, she claimed she had matured early, and it correlated with her vocal development. ‘You see, I had my first menstruation when I was ten,’ she said, shocking those who asked about her precocious talent.33

Conflicted between the girl and the artist, Maria’s formative years were marred by an internal struggle to accept her looks, despite her voice warranting her praise. She entered a period of self-loathing: she hated her dark looks, her acne and myopia which forced her to wear thick glasses. Her mother and sister criticised her weight, although medical reports discredit any suggestion that she was overweight: at the age of 11, she weighed 119lb and was 5ft 3in tall. Two years later, her height was recorded as 5ft 7in, perhaps causing her to be self-conscious as she was now as tall as her father.34 Only when she sang did she feel loved.

Toward the end of 1936, Litsa made plans to return to Greece so Maria could study music at the Athens Conservatory. She also claimed that her father’s ghost had appeared, ordering her to leave George. Later, she said it was ‘for love of Jackie … my daughter was homesick for her country’.35 Unsurprisingly, George did not object to their leaving – Jackie sailed first – and fell to the floor, crossing himself, ‘At last, my God, you have pitied me’. He remained in New York, relieved to be separated from his wife and free of his responsibilities toward his children.

Maria remained oblivious to her parents separating. Litsa promised they would return in a year, after she had completed her studies. She did not enrol in high school, and in the months leading up to their departure, she worked in a music shop to save money for their trip.

On 20 February 1937, Maria and Litsa sailed to Greece on the SS Saturnia, with their meagre possessions and three canaries. After two days of seasickness, they emerged from their cabin, and Litsa began to promote Maria’s talents, telling everyone she was a soprano on her way to Athens to begin a promising career. She sang ‘La Paloma’ and ‘Ave Maria’ in the tourist-class lounge, which earned her a small income in tips.

The captain, who was making his inspections, invited her to sing at church on Sunday. However, she refused but agreed to perform at a party in the first-class dining room instead. Accompanying herself on the piano, she wore a simple blue dress with a white collar, powder on her face to cover her spots and, as she would do later, removed her glasses before singing. Finishing with Carmen, she took a carnation from a nearby vase and threw it to the captain, who picked up the flower and kissed it. Reciprocating the gesture, he gave Maria a bouquet of flowers and a doll, the first she had ever owned.

Maria’s first experience of Greece was the balmy climate and scent of Daphne, and the rundown port of Patras, with passengers scrambling to collect their luggage and pass through customs. It was late when they checked into a cheap hotel before catching the morning train to Athens. She had never seen an old wooden carriage and was not bothered by the uncomfortable seats or mediocre dish of overcooked lamb with too much gravy. Looking out of the window, she seemed mesmerised by the primitive landscape of the Peloponnese: the old fortress, the peaks of the Chelmos mountains, and the coves of the Ionian Sea.

In the fourteen years since Litsa had left, everything remained the same, but for Maria, an American-born girl with New York slang and broken Greek, everything had changed. A new identity was founded. ‘In Greece,’ she said, ‘I again became Maria Kalogeropoulou.’36

______________

[1] A note on Greek surnames: the feminine and masculine spelling of surnames are used in their correct context, therefore the spelling may vary.

[2] From herein Yacinthy shall be called Jackie.

[3] George’s brother, Demetrios Kalogeropoulos, had emigrated to New York before him. His name and address, given as ‘NY’, was listed in their emigration papers. However, they seem to have become estranged.

[4] 240 West 34th Street; 465 Columbus Avenue; 64 West 135th Street; 520 West 139th Street; 609 West 137th Street; 569 West 192nd Street; 561 West 180th Street.

[5] P.S. 228M; P.S. 9; P.S. 43; P.S. 192M; P.S. 189; P.S. 164.

2

Destiny

No one ever admits

he was born in poverty.

There’s not a beggar

who, to hear him, doesn’t

come of high lineage.

Madama Butterfly, Puccini

Maria arrived in Athens feeling sullen and anxious, something which Jackie attributed to her being alone with their mother. It was clear to them both that Litsa was experiencing a manic episode. The signs were evident: her fast-paced speech and enthusiasm to introduce Maria as a rising star and demanding that she sing for her unsuspecting relatives. ‘Please tell her to stop,’ Maria pleaded, despite knowing they were powerless. Sensing Maria’s distress, her grandmother, Frosso, embraced her and put her at ease.

Throughout the years, Litsa had spoken of her wealthy relatives. However, the reality of their grandmother’s situation was apparent to Maria and Jackie. They had known poverty in New York with the rich and poor often separated by one street, and the Great Depression with men jumping out of windows and sleeping in doorways.1

A woman of slender means, Frosso lived with her two unmarried daughters, whose modest civil servant wages contributed to the household, as did her late husband’s army pension. Despite her limited income, Frosso paid for their nightly visits to tavernas, during which Maria consumed several helpings of tyrópita (cheese pie) and bread soaked in sugar and water. This fondness for starchy foods inflamed her acne and gave her a rash on her face, ‘probably due to some indigestion’.2

One night, Litsa told Maria to sing for her brother, Efthimios, who had friends at the Athens Conservatory. She went to the piano and, accompanied by Jackie, she sang ‘La Paloma’, her shyness and nerves making her voice uneven. Polite exchanges followed, interrupted by Litsa asking her relatives to pay for Maria’s studies. Although embarrassed, they declined and said the child’s voice was nothing special. To ease the tension building between Litsa and her siblings, Frosso suggested she return to her husband in New York. The others advised her to enrol Maria in high school and to forget about an opera career. An argument followed, and they moved out of Frosso’s home and into rooms at a boarding house on Ithakis Street.

A month later, they moved into a furnished house at Terma Patission, remaining there for the summer. However, George’s monthly payments of $100 stopped and they had to survive on handouts from Frosso. In dire straits, they found a cheap unfurnished apartment at Harilaou Trikoupi, which had no electricity, and they slept on the floor. Ashamed of their situation, Litsa warned the girls to tell no one.

Maria, in particular, felt the indignity of their circumstances. There was no one in whom she could confide; she barely spoke Greek and, isolated with her mother and sister, she was homesick for her father. ‘[Litsa] really imposed her will on the girls,’ Maria’s cousin, Titina Koukoulis, said. ‘With one look she withered them into submission.’3 Dismissive of such claims, Litsa wrote, ‘I might add that children enjoy feeling abused (I did myself).’4

Having become a passive bystander to Litsa’s plans, instead of going to school Maria was told she would sing. ‘My mother was commanding the family. So, I had to act accordingly,’ she said. ‘It was no trouble for me because I didn’t really enjoy myself playing with children.’5 Only in hindsight did she resent her mother’s decision. ‘I was only thirteen. What could I have done? Protest? To someone with my mother’s forceful temperament?’6

However, when Litsa tried to enrol Maria in the Athens Conservatory, ‘they laughed in her face … What were they to make – they said – out of a thirteen-year-old girl?’7 So, Maria went to the conservatory, knocked on the door of Loula Mafta and sang ‘La Paloma’. Her heavy voice drew criticism from an onlooker, who remarked, ‘She sings like a man … as if she had a sweet stuck in her throat’.8 Afterwards, Mafta said, ‘This isn’t the place for you. Go to an elementary teacher first, learn music, and then come back to be taught by a singing teacher.’9

Despite the rejection, Maria’s life had taken on a semblance of normality and she spent her days with her great-aunt and cousins, who taught her to ride a bicycle. This was a trivial rite of passage, but to Maria, such experiences were alien. Sometimes she was invited to tea parties, but Litsa insisted on chaperoning and ‘flew off the handle at the slightest provocation’.10

Having tolerated Litsa for months and considering her ‘the shame of the family’, her aunt reproached her, and the visits came to an end.11 Although Maria suffered from the fallout, she had other responsibilities, and Litsa told her, ‘I didn’t bring you into this world for nothing … I gave birth to you, so you should maintain me’.12 Reminding Maria of her duty, Litsa added, ‘Think back a bit, what I went through for you, the beautiful youth I sacrificed.’13

Determined that Maria’s voice would be heard, Litsa took her to a taverna at Perama that was popular with amateur opera singers and talent scouts. Singing ‘A Heart That’s Free’, she was congratulated by Yannis Kambanis, who was a student of Maria Trivella, a teacher at the National Conservatory. Several weeks later, Maria sang ‘La Paloma’ for a spellbound Trivella, who afterwards announced, ‘But this is talent!’ Litsa, however, was frank. ‘As regards to the fees,’ she said, ‘please be very lenient and make them as moderate as you can.’14

Thinking Maria was ‘beautiful and likeable’ and perhaps sympathising with her forceful mother, Trivella agreed to teach her for free.15 Every day, she went to Hoffman Street for an hour’s singing lesson, and she stayed for lunch, as Trivella sensed that Litsa struggled to put food on the table.

The recognition of Maria’s talent failed to compensate for the unhappiness she felt. She turned to food to suppress her feelings, particularly the guilt she felt for breaking up her family. Litsa had used her as an excuse to leave George, and in doing so, she believed she ended her parents’ marriage. Pining for her father, she imagined he was unhappy without her, but there was no contact between them. The census shows he was living in San Francisco and working at the Golden Eagle pharmacy. However, by 1942, he was in Washington Heights and working as a travelling salesman. She had no way to contact him: she knew of no mailing address, and furthermore, there was no telephone connection between Athens and New York.

Within months, Maria had gained a significant amount of weight and found no sympathy from her sister or mother, who accused her of being greedy. Hiding her feelings, she made excuses for overeating. ‘In order to sing well one needs to be hefty and blooming, I stuffed myself, morning and night, with pasta, chocolate, bread and butter, and zabaglione. I was rotund and rosy, with a quantity of pimples which drove me mad.’16

The fact was, she had no self-control and felt inferior to Jackie, who was encouraged by Litsa to wear make-up and stylish clothes. Preoccupied with her looks, Jackie never failed to compare herself to Maria: her slim waist, her smooth complexion, her chestnut hair. As Maria was not yet fluent in Greek, Jackie translated the insults from onlookers who, she said, compared them to Laurel and Hardy.

With her resentment mounting, Maria became aggressive. ‘As she got heavier and heavier,’ Jackie recalled, ‘I could no longer hold her at bay and I started to surrender in case she wrestled me to the ground.’17 Furthermore, she was frequently reminded of her size – ‘You’ve put on weight,’ Jackie said, ‘don’t you think you should diet a little?’18 – and was made to feel unattractive and unworthy of love.

During that period, the question of enrolling at the National Conservatory arose but Maria was two years too young. Trivella and Litsa both agreed to alter her age to 16 on the application form, despite Efthimios’s warning, ‘Don’t push her too fast – she’s still only a little girl.’19 As they arranged Maria’s future, she stood to one side, invisible.

‘I suddenly wondered just what did she want,’ Jackie recalled. ‘What on earth was going on inside her?’20 To her mother, Maria said, ‘If I manage to get a scholarship, I will keep on studying music. But if I do not get it, I will stop and do something else.’21

The decision, however, rested with Manolis Kalomiris, the conservatory’s founder and director, and Yorgos Karakantas, head of its opera school. In particular, Karakantas was impressed and encouraged Kalomiris to offer her a scholarship. Her confidence boosted, Maria said, ‘The fact, therefore, of winning scholarships represented for me a firm guarantee that my parents were not deluded in believing in my voice.’22 It was a conflicting statement, for her father had thought singing lessons were a waste of money, and the National Conservatory was partly founded on the ethos that it would support artists from poor backgrounds, regardless of their talent.

During that period, Litsa became estranged from her family, having argued with her mother and brother about money. It fell to Jackie to provide for them, and each day Litsa escorted her to the real estate offices of Mr Polikala, hoping she would meet a rich man and become his mistress. After days of sitting in the lobby, Jackie was introduced to Harry and Milton Embirikos, scions of a wealthy shipping family. A dinner invitation followed, and afterwards Litsa encouraged Jackie to go for an unchaperoned drive with Harry, hoping it would give him the wrong impression. A week later, Harry invited her to Zonars, a café in Athens, but she found Milton waiting for her, a ploy that had been devised by the brothers.

Having succeeded in her plan, Litsa gave Jackie an ultimatum: become Milton’s mistress or starve to death, for they had no money and risked being evicted from their apartment. Instead, Jackie suggested they appeal to the American Consul for repatriation to America, as George would be financially responsible for them. ‘Do you only think of yourself?’ Litsa said. ‘Maria has to have her lessons and you’re the only one who can help.’23 So Jackie offered herself to Milton, and in exchange, he paid the rent on their new apartment at 5 Marni Street and bought a piano for Maria.

Although benefiting from the arrangement, Maria remained conflicted. She was furious with Litsa for – as she viewed it – selling Jackie’s virginity to keep a roof over their heads. Having lost respect for her sister, whose status was no longer parthenos (a virgin), she yelled, ‘I’m going to get to the top, but I don’t know what you are going to do. Right now you’re selling yourself to Embirikos!’24

Although she disapproved of Milton, she accepted his invitation to La traviata at the Olympia Theatre and was hypnotised by the production. It changed nothing, however, and she could not accept the part Milton played in ruining her sister. She also loathed Litsa’s casual relationships with men, particularly her affair with her younger sister’s fiancé.

Regardless, Maria retained an air of innocence and, when studying a libretto, she asked, ‘What does it mean by “honour”?’25 The director laughed and told her to ask her mother. Somehow, she had remained naïve, and years later, she pretended the topic of sex was off-limits at home; she had been raised the old-fashioned way. It was lies, as Litsa had a sordid obsession with the sex lives of her young daughters – including Maria, who, despite her youth, looked older than her years and lecherous men took advantage of this.

Given the atmosphere at home and her mother’s lack of protection, she retreated into herself, neglecting her appearance and doing her best to remain untouched. ‘She never poured out her soul to me in times of mutual confidence,’ Litsa recalled. ‘But I believe she was frank and honest whenever I asked her the questions a mother usually asks daughters who are visibly nubile.’26

Although Maria was ashamed of her mother and sister’s living arrangements, she was also resentful that the opposite sex did not find her attractive. She was afraid of men, yet she wanted to wield her feminine power: an inner conflict which exerted itself as jealousy. The young men who studied at the conservatory made unkind remarks about her figure, calling her an ‘eyesore … at the beach, in her bathing suit, she was a terrible sight’.27 Telling her she was ugly, they gave her a complex about her strong features, ‘larger than life as though designed specifically for the stage’.28

Her competitive nature repelled many, particularly her arrogance: she studied acting with Yorgos Karakantas but disliked his methods and preferred to teach herself. ‘I am used to fighting, though I don’t like fighting,’ she said, years later. ‘My only weapon is my voice. If I don’t have my weapon, it’s ridiculous I fight. It’s just plain suicide.’29

During that period, Litsa reaped the spoils of Jackie’s affair with Milton, and they moved to a spacious, top-floor apartment at 61 Patission Street. For the first time, Maria had her own bedroom, having grown up sharing a bed with her sister. However, Litsa took in a lodger, Marina Papageoropoulou, whose young nephew often stayed with her, and so Maria lost her room. With no privacy, she came to resent Litsa, especially when she intruded on her lessons and tried to sing along. ‘So I am always on the defensive. I get aggressive,’ Maria later said. ‘Since my childhood, I’ve been aggressive. Do you blame me?’30 Their arguments were the subject of neighbourhood gossip: Litsa’s shrill voice echoing through the street below, and Maria’s mangled accent, which a friend called ‘Manhattan street twang, Italian musicality, girlishness, a touch of diva resonance, a kind of Greek harshness’.31

In the spring of 1938, Maria sang in the conservatory’s annual concert at Parnassos Hall and snubbed her peers who declared her conceited and overly ambitious. ‘When we are young, we are owed everything,’ she said. ‘That’s the thoughtlessness: life has a duty to give us all the chances in the world. I wasn’t afraid of anything. I couldn’t have cared less.’32 However, Yannis Kambanis later reformed his opinion and wrote, ‘I take great pride in your triumphs, as believe me, this was exactly what I foretold many years ago and now it has come to fruition.’33

Confident in her abilities, Maria asked Trivella to enter her for the proficiency test. Out of the fourteen students, she was placed fifth and given a distinction, narrowly missing the prize money of 500 drachmas awarded to the first four. ‘That was no voice,’ a member of the audience remarked, ‘it was a whole orchestra!’ Afterwards, Litsa went to Trivella and told her to give Maria a diploma, but she refused as her voice needed more work.

Far from being encouraged by Trivella’s plans, Litsa felt she was moving too slowly in helping Maria to establish a career. So, taking matters into her own hands, she contacted the Greek-American Society of Athens and promoted her American-born daughter. On 4 July, Maria made her public debut at the Rex Theatre to celebrate American Independence Day, performing as Marianna Kalogeropoulou.

The following April, Maria was given the part of Santuzza in the conservatory’s production of Cavalleria rusticana at the Olympia Theatre, alternating with Hilde Woodley, who sang in the first performance. On the day of the performance, Maria awoke with a toothache: swollen and in pain, she feared she could not sing. ‘I’ve always had to pay for all my triumphs immediately without fail,’ she said.34 However, she was spurred on by her classmates’ jealousy, and some claimed she slapped an individual who criticised her distorted face – an exaggeration, for she risked being expelled from the conservatory. ‘Everything went well,’ she said of her first leading part.35

A month later, she sang in the conservatory’s annual concert, performing a duet from Aida with Kambanis, whom she disliked. Fifteen years her senior, she resented how Trivella favoured him and how he had won the respect of their fellow students and teachers. She then performed in a concert with eighteen other students and participated in a final concert for the conservatory at the Olympia Theatre, although none of the students were given solos. She became tired of the repetitiveness and longed for a challenge, but Trivella warned it would damage her voice. Although she was encouraged by winning the first prize and 500 drachmas in her first two proficiency tests, Litsa reminded her, ‘It was no thundering triumph.’36

Inspired to leave Trivella, Maria said, ‘I am impatient when I am asked to conform to standards of work and behaviour, which I know are inferior.’37 Many described Trivella as a teacher of limited means, whose students screamed and made unpleasant sounds to reach the high notes.

To an outsider, Maria appeared ungrateful to Trivella, who had also taught her conversational Greek and French. ‘I began studying with a teacher, probably of Italian origin, Maria Trivella,’ she later wrote. ‘Barely a year later, however, I succeeded in achieving my aim and moved on.’38

Deeply hurt, Trivella said, ‘I worked with her not only with the care and experience of a teacher but the love and devotion of a mother.’39

To understand Maria’s behaviour, one must consider the strength of her survival instincts. ‘She always kept after me,’ Maria said of her mother, ‘until I was nothing more than a goddamned singing machine.’40 On the day of her first proficiency test with Trivella in 1938, she had devised a secret plan with Litsa, which took a year to reach fruition. She learned that Elvira de Hidalgo, a famous coloratura soprano, although retired from the stage, taught at the Athens Conservatory. The day after the proficiency test, Litsa introduced herself to de Hidalgo, telling her Maria could benefit from her teaching.

However, before Maria sang a note, de Hidalgo scrutinised her appearance: her bad skin and wire-framed glasses, the black pinafore with a white collar, worn-out sandals, and a white cap on top of her braided hair. Singing ‘O patria mia’ from Aida, de Hidalgo thought to herself, ‘Now that is someone’41 and agreed to give her free lessons.

Years later, de Hidalgo said, ‘She had a certain look in her eyes and an interpretative style because she didn’t know much Italian and she was singing in Italian. That struck me. She watched me the whole time, with that mouth, that large mouth, and her eyes which spoke to me.’42

As Maria had one year to complete before gaining her diploma at the National Conservatory, Litsa advised her to proceed with Trivella and later enrol in the Athens Conservatory. So, after finishing her daily lessons with Trivella, Maria often attended de Hidalgo’s classes, arousing suspicion from the students, who were curious about the ‘big fat girl’.43 Most of the lessons, however, were at de Hidalgo’s home, which she shared with her former pupil and lover, Lakis Vassilakis. This was hardly an ideal environment for a young girl, but given the arrangement between Jackie and Milton, and Litsa and her gentlemen callers, she was not in a position to judge.

Unlike Trivella, who encouraged Maria to sing through her nose, as was the technique in French opera, de Hidalgo was trained in bel canto. ‘The bel canto is not beautiful singing, it’s a sort of a straight-jacket that you’re supposed to put on,’ Maria explained. ‘You have to exactly learn to form your sentences, learn music, which is essential, good taste, which is essential. Founded in the eighteenth century, it required perfect breath control and vocal embellishments – trills, intervals, scales, runs, legati – a whole, vast language on its own.’44

Before her exam at the Athens Conservatory, in September 1939, Maria dined with Trivella, who remained oblivious to the deception. If she failed, she told herself she would return to Trivella and the National Conservatory. ‘She makes her own rules,’ Litsa later said, ‘and builds her own excuses for everything she does.’45

However, before her audition with its director, Philoktitis Oikonomidis, they questioned her motives and disapproved of her replacing Trivella, who, although not a great teacher, was respected by others. Sitting before Oikonomidis and a panel of teachers, Maria nervously bit her nails and waited for her name to be called. She sang ‘Ocean! Thou mighty monster’, her voice hypnotising de Hidalgo, and then returned to biting her nails while the examiners discussed her performance. Despite their personal feelings, she was granted a scholarship. The gamble had paid off.

Maria failed to recognise the duplicity of her actions. Many of de Hidalgo’s students and colleagues thought it underhanded, and eventually, the news reached Trivella. ‘My only weapon – a very powerful and fair one – is always to be prepared,’ Maria said. ‘They say I always win. These are my means: work and preparation. If you consider those means harsh, then I really don’t know what to say.’46

Refusing to be treated as a consolation prize, Trivella suffered deeply from Maria’s betrayal. ‘I shall always be grateful to Trivella for what she did for Maria,’ Litsa wrote, a decade later. As for Maria, she seldom acknowledged her first teacher and credited de Hidalgo with discovering her talent. ‘As a young girl,’ she said, ‘that means at thirteen years old, I was thrown into her arms.’47 She gave Trivella a parting gift, however – although the significance of the gesture was unrealised at the time. It was an autographed photo, inscribed in English: ‘To my darling teacher to whom I owe everything.’

3

Survival

Mortal fate is hard. You’d best get used to it.

Medea, Euripides

As Maria was taking her first steps toward studying at the Athens Conservatory, Europe was descending into a world war. It remains doubtful whether she paid attention to the news, for her time was spent listening to opera records and reading libretti, loaned to her by Elvira de Hidalgo. There had been one warning, in the summer of 1939, when Maria, Litsa and Jackie, like other Athenians, watched the Hellenic Army’s anti-aircraft exercise with searchlights and flares and heard the sounds of gunfire. Thrilling and terrifying in equal measure, although Benito Mussolini, Il Duce of Italy’s National Fascist Party, promised he would not invade Greece, despite his invasion of Albania in April. Moreover, Britain and France pledged to maintain Greece’s neutrality in the war.

Later, when the Italians were imminent, Maria used it as motivation to hurry her studies. As Jackie recalled, ‘This panic to get on before we were engulfed by some nameless horror made her increasingly impatient.’1

In the autumn of 1939, Maria began her studies at the conservatory as one of de Hidalgo’s thirty students, registered as Marianna Kalogeropoulou. She had to repeat her theory lessons from the National Conservatory, as they were not recognised by the Athens Conservatory. Furthermore, she had to correct the habits she had learned from Trivella, who made her sing low notes in head voice, thus forcing her voice down, instead of in chest voice. The most significant problem was a wobble, noticeable in her passaggio – the breaks between registers – which de Hidalgo thought were undeveloped in comparison to the rest of her voice. ‘While the rest were saying that you were a dramatic soprano at sixteen,’ de Hidalgo said, ‘I made you sing La Cenerentola and practise the scales as a soprano.’2

However, many believe that de Hidalgo, who began her career at 16, caused Maria to strain her vocal cords by singing a wide repertoire of different vocal types (fachs) and ranges, such as mezzo-soprano, dramatic soprano and coloratura soprano. Some thought her voice was unattractive, but she was not afraid to sing in an ugly tone, if the part called for it:

I don’t want my singing to be perfect. The composer asks for particular colours: dark, sometimes. It’s all in the music. And when it’s not written, it’s like when you read a letter; you have to read between the lines. Perfection isn’t about reciting, it’s about understanding the atmosphere and the thousands of colours that make an interpretation out of a music sheet.3

The question remains unanswered: was de Hidalgo a good teacher? According to her students, she was an opera expert and a good singer, if not great, and demonstrated how to sing a part and how to act. Comparing herself to a sponge, Maria absorbed de Hidalgo’s instructions. She would imitate her technique, the position of her voice and how to act on the stage. ‘Now you see I was right when I told you not to listen to anyone because with my method one day you would be able to sing any opera,’ de Hidalgo wrote to her in 1949.4 From the perspective of Maria, who idolised de Hidalgo, she was brilliant, ‘Not only could she teach a girl to sing but she saw what she could sing best.’5

Aside from their student–teacher relationship, it was evident that Maria was searching for a mother figure, and in de Hidalgo, she found someone who could nurture her talent and give her confidence. Or, to quote Aristotle, ‘Those who educate children well are more to be honoured than they who produce them.’

Perhaps thinking of de Hidalgo’s influence, Maria later said, ‘We mothers, and I say “we” because I am a woman, though I’ve never had children. We are responsible for this youth of the future. We have the obligation to support them, to give them courage and strength, this is our goal, our duty as a woman.’6 Years later, de Hidalgo told her, ‘I consider you as my daughter.’7

Given her troubled relationship with Litsa, it is interesting that Maria was drawn to a woman who had similar traits to her mother. Both de Hidalgo and Litsa were charming and bad tempered; they were fixated with money and impressed by grandeur; and they embellished their stories with fantastical details. Arriving in Greece in 1930 to sing at the Olympia Theatre, de Hidalgo fell in love with its co-owner, Panayis Karandinos, and moved in with him while still married to her French husband, Armand Bette. She lied, however, and claimed to have arrived in Athens before the war and, as such, had become stranded.

Although Maria respected Litsa’s position and authority – ‘I have great respect for my mother, especially because she’s called mother’8 – she did not love her. So, music was placed on a pedestal, and her feelings for de Hidalgo and opera were much the same. Could Litsa have sensed their similarities and felt jealous of the woman who had become the central figure of Maria’s life? It seemed likely, for around that time, Litsa complained if Maria sang too loudly in the apartment, telling her, ‘We’ve had enough, our heads are spinning, we can’t hear ourselves think.’9 In her memoirs, Litsa had the final – albeit deceptive – word, ‘[Maria] did not love de Hidalgo as she had loved Trivella.’10

Surprisingly, (or perhaps not) de Hidalgo was a fascist sympathiser and admired Mussolini, whose bust she displayed on her piano, next to an image of Puccini. There is no evidence to suggest that Maria took an interest in politics – ‘We have enough to do just being artists without also being politicians’11 – and, when she arrived in Greece in 1937, it was under the nationalist regime of Ioannis Metaxas. Perhaps Maria viewed de Hidalgo’s fascist ideology as being similar to her approach to opera: the authority of her teacher complemented her discipline toward music. In many ways, she was subservient to things that she deemed bigger than herself. ‘What I wanted to be was a servant of art. All I ever wanted is to serve art.’12

The devotion Maria had for music was an antidote to the hostility she endured from her fellow students. ‘Who is that rag-doll?’13 one of them asked de Hidalgo. During the months when she had secretly attended de Hidalgo’s lessons, she befriended Zoe Vlachopoulou, a lyric soprano eleven years her senior, whose parents were opera singers. They each had studied at the National Conservatory before going to the Athens Conservatory; Vlachopoulou graduated from the former in 1933 and the latter in 1939, having been awarded a gold medal. As they were both from impoverished backgrounds, they could not afford the streetcar and had to walk home. ‘Music,’ Maria said, ‘is born from distress or from poverty or from physical pain.’14

At the time of Maria’s official enrolment, Vlachopoulou had graduated from the conservatory and Maria, the only poor female student in her class, was conscious of her lowly origins. Her peers laughed at her appearance and she tried to disguise her background from the other girls, who wore stylish clothes and studied opera for pleasure, their lessons paid for by rich fathers.

Jackie and Litsa were unsympathetic. They blamed Maria and warned that her size and unkempt appearance would invite mockery.15 However, some of her male contemporaries found her attractive, with one remarking:

Yes, she may have been rather fat, rather slatternly and thick in the leg, but she certainly excited interest in men. She didn’t do it deliberately: it was just her manner, the way she moved. She had a good waist, and when it was held in, it emphasised her bust.16

Reflecting on their criticism, she said, ‘To tell the truth, even as it was I didn’t know my looks.’17

At times, de Hidalgo ‘spoke quite sharply’ to Maria and ordered her to lose weight, as she had difficulty kneeling and falling during her acting lessons.18 Bursting into tears, Maria asked, ‘What do I have to do to make you say I am getting on all right?’19

Once, she had asked Maria to wear her chicest outfit and was exasperated when her protégée appeared in a red skirt and blouse and a hat that resembled a baby’s bonnet. Tearing the hat from her head, de Hidalgo threatened to stop her singing lessons if she did not improve her appearance. It inspired Maria to work twice as hard – she could learn a score in two weeks – and she never took for granted that she was de Hidalgo’s most talented student. She remained at the conservatory until six o’clock, watching the others sing, and returned home with de Hidalgo to dine with her and practise some more. In return for the free lessons, it was rumoured that Maria cleaned her house and walked her dog, something that de Hidalgo denied.

At the end of the academic year, Maria performed in several concerts for the conservatory. After the first, the treasurer praised her performance and told de Hidalgo that she would soon be singing at the Metropolitan in New York. ‘Don’t exaggerate,’ de Hidalgo replied, knowing there was work to do. For the annual student concert,[6] she sang the leading part in Puccini’s one-act opera, Suor Angelica. The nun’s habit, de Hidalgo remarked, would ‘cloak the fat’ she had not managed to lose.20

‘You were terrific,’ her classmate, Ypatia Louvi, said.

‘Well, I worked hard, I really slogged at it,’ Maria replied.21

Alarmed by her response, Louvi suggested she would become a great artist if she lost weight.

Four days later, Maria signed a year-long contract with the Greek National Opera, founded in 1939 as a division of the National Theatre. According to de Hidalgo, she took Maria to a hairdresser, manicurist and dressmaker, before presenting her to its manager, Kostas Bastias. ‘You have to give this girl a job, pay her a salary, engage her as a chorister but she must not sing,’ de Hidalgo said. ‘She must have an income and only study, no singing. We must protect this treasure or she will waste her time singing for soldiers for a crust of bread.’[7]22

The contract was negotiated by de Hidalgo, who asked for 1,500 drachmas a month (100 drachmas were deducted for tax), and an additional 50 drachmas for each performance above ten per week. It was also agreed that Maria would not sing immediately, as part of de Hidalgo’s negotiations with Bastias was to hire her on paper. In reality, she helped in his office and continued to study at the conservatory. ‘It was evident that Mr Bastias has brains, ears, and nose,’ Maria said. ‘In other words, he can smell something of value.’23

Despite Maria receiving an income, Jackie denied that she contributed to the household, stating that she spent her money on lipstick and confectionery. Or on what de Hidalgo called her three passions in life: music, pastries and ice cream.

On 28 October 1940, the Italian Army invaded Greece from Albania; however, the Greek Army succeeded in forcing the Italians back and halting an invasion until the spring. It signalled the beginning of the Greco-Italian War, which began at 4.30 a.m., with the prime minister, Ioannis Metaxas, King George and Crown Prince Paul signing a general mobilisation order. Before signing the document, Metaxas crossed himself and said, ‘God save Greece.’

Two hours later, Maria was awoken by the sound of air-raid sirens. Curious about the demonstrations, she followed the crowds to Omonia Square, where newspapers, hastily printed hours before, were fuelling patriotism and army recruitment lists were pinned to the walls. Hostilities toward the Italians in Athens began immediately, with attacks on their schools, cultural offices and the headquarters of the Italian airline, Ala Littoria. For two days, the country descended into chaos: travel was restricted, schools were closed and military hospitals were formed. Two weeks later, the first British servicemen arrived in Athens and calm was restored.

Before, when there were rumours of war, Maria spoke of returning to New York, but her attachment to de Hidalgo stopped her from leaving. Now, she was forbidden to travel outside of Athens without a special permit, as she was not a Greek citizen. A month later, she understudied Nafsika Galanou in the part of Beatrice in Boccaccio