Coating opera's roles in opulence, Maria Callas (1923-1977) is a lyrical enigma.

 

Seductress, villainess, and victor, queen and crouching slave, she is a gallery of guises instrumentalists would kill to engineer… made by a single voice.

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But while her craftsmanship has stood the test of time, Callas’ image has contested defamation at the hands of dirt-diggers and opportunists: saboteurs of beauty.

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Twelve years in the making, this voluminous labour of love explores the singer with the reverence she dealt her heroines. The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography reaps never-before-seen correspondence and archival documents worldwide to illustrate the complex of their multi-faceted creator - closing in on her self-contradictions, self-descriptions, attitudes and habits with empathic scrutiny. It swivels readers through the singer's on- and offstage scenes and flux of fears and dreams... the double life of all performers.

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In its unveiling of the everyday it rolls a vivid film reel starring friends and foes and nobodies: vignettes that make up life.

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It's verity. It's meritable storytelling.

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Not unlike the Callas art.