Maria Callas and Paris: A love story

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s Paris Guide

In a lateral street halfway Georges Mandel AvenueAn wooded boulevard that branches from the trocadero, is a sign that pays tribute to one of the most legendary residents in the city. Allée Maria Callas She is in front of her closed house at number 36, where the singer spent the final period of her life. It is the same apartment masterfully recreated for the recent film by director Pablo Larraín Mariastarring Angelina Jolie as an opera phenomenon.

Known as “La Divina”, Callas is widely considered the greatest soprano in history. As I and a small number of tourists pass with their building to take photos, I remember what their life and voice still represent people around the world, and how Paris is where they become close to it. With the launch of MariaTogether with a documentary starring Monica Bellucci that follows the world tour of the work Maria Callas: Letters and Memories And recent events to mark the centenary of her birth, the singer is back in the center of attention, feeding even more curiosity about her life and the Paris locations she frequented.

Following the steps of Callas

Although Callas was born in New York from Greek parents, he later grew up in Athens and found international fame in Milan as the Queen of the Scala, Paris was the place he called home. “It serves as a character in the history of his life because in Paris he began again,” says Lyndsy Spence, author of Eche a diva: María Callas’s hidden life. “Paris also introduced him to a [previously] Unattainable level of glamor. “Callas permanently moved from Milan to Paris in 1963, and lived in his department in Avenue Georges Mandel, who was bought by his lover, Aristotle Onassis. He kept him after his separation, and became a place of pilgrimage for visiting artists.

The building itself is closed to the public, but fans can reserve a stay in the SUITE MARIA CALLAS In the Ritz Paris, where he sought refuge among his recitals in the Palais Garnier. It is a plush refuge with balconies overlooking opera, furnished in ivory and pink tones, with a inclined roof and a feeling of space and isolation that was important for silence. The walls are covered with portraits of “the divine” that seem balanced. “There is something magical about that suite,” a janitor explained to me. “It’s as if your spirit were there.”

The Palais Garnier is perhaps the most prominent sock milestone. “She gave a concert there and also sang in two long -term operas [Norma and Tosca]”Spence says. In 1958, Callas first sang there at a gala concert on behalf of the d’Ho Cinema and royalties, and, more significantly, Onassis. “

Gastronomy and drama

For 17 years before his premature death in 1977, Callas reigned on the high society of Paris. “Everyone asks about Maria Callas”, a waiter from Maximum The restaurant told me on a recent visit. “People still try to sit at their regular table to feel closer to it.”

Opened in 1893, Maxim’s was his favorite restaurant, and that is where Callas celebrated the Court on the Beau Monde of time, largely led by their closest friends the Rothschild, Liliane Bettencourt and Maggie van Zuylen. Maxim is also associated with the image of “La Callas”, the Great Diva: its public personality full of complications, revenge and romance (often due to Onassis). To the left of the restaurant entrance, under a series of mirrors and furniture of Artrealista, is the table of the King, where he would entertain his friends and order his favorite dish, the flesh tartar. It was the Callas, not Maria, who hosted the 75th anniversary party of the restaurant to steal the Center for Care of the Marriage between Onassis and Jackie Kennedy. It was also the scene of a famous scandal in 1970 when Onassis, who was still married to Kennedy, and Callas met there for dinner. Kennedy insisted on eating at the King’s table the next night.

In another place, on certain nights, Callas and his party company in Chez Régine, the pioneer nightclub opened by the self -domiculous “Queen of the Night” of Paris, Régine Zylberberg, after having finished with Maxim’s. Régine was he Place to see and be seen for stars such as Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon, Socialites and Royalty, and there are cases of silence that paparazzi are harassed here (including, as expected, with a recently married Onassis).

A club still operates there, although it has more than a bit of crumbled glory. According to a staff member, there are the same mirrors on the roofs; the same appointments of artists on the walls; the same gold and silver lights; and the main courseA translucent dance floor with an image of a panther, which remains from the apogee of the club. Like all the Greeks (including myself), Callas appreciated Kitsch. And she was never above the visits to the cabaret in both Crazy horse And Lido, the iconic theater of the Champs-Elysées who was famous for his burlescos artists. The red and gold furniture in the Le Lido seats are a setback at its golden age of the 1960s, when Callas was photographed here with the French rock star Johnny Hallyday.

A more refined stop is Les bar embassies In the Hôtel de Crillon, a Maxim stone shot. The ambassadors are still an elegant institution with a decoration that remembers I Années Folles of the 1920s. It was here where he silently broke at dawn in the morning, with Onassis in tow. Callas was also known for dinner at the elegant Maggie in Pigalle for dinner and Au Pied de Cochon for them for lunch. Although tourist, this is a classic Parisian Brazserie, with a famous onion soup that warmed me in my cold hurry through Callas’s Paris.

High sewing and legacy

When it was fashionable, Callas loved to buy in her friend Yves Saint Laurent, says Spence, who was in 21 Rue de Tournon (the space is now occupied by a hairdresser). Saint Laurent also designed clothing for sets on the Callas stage. Another of the favorite commercial institutions of Callas, Dior’s Boutique in 30 Montaigne Avenueremains. She was also very loyal to the jeweler Boucheron in 26 Place Vendôme – A fabulous doll house of a building with a baroque decoration not very different from the Callas department. “It was a regular view for the locals to see Callas walking through their beloved canices near the fields-Elysées,” says Spence.

Final tribute

To pay respect, many people stop for the Cenotapio de Callas in Père Laachaise Cemetery (often while looking for other sites of famous tombs, which include those of Oscar Wilde, Frédéric Chopin and Edith Piaf). Although their ashes were scattered throughout the Aegean in 1979, according to their wishes, it remains a symbolic pilgrimage place for fans. An unpretentious plaque can be found surrounded by love notes of visitors around the world.

It is Paris where fans can connect with their triumphant but tragic life. And in each location, I found a persistent sense of the myth of Callas. But Paris is also where he felt truly human. Spence summarizes it better. “In Paris,” he says, “It could be Maria instead of the Callas.”

Follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram in @Ftglobetter