Google is celebrating the legacy and life of Maria Callas with an international Google Doodle on their search engine homepages to mark what would have been the diva’s 90th birthday. Callas was one of the most influencial opera singers of the 20th century
Maria Callas (born Kalogeropoulos) was born on 2 December, 1922, to Greek immigrant parents in New York City, USA. As a small child she enjoyed listening to gramophone records and radio programmes, and took piano and singing lessons. She received her musical education in Greece, and Italy. The icon made her debut in Boccaccio for the Royal Opera of Athens, and took her first major role in Tosca. Her Italian opera debut took place at the Verona Arena in 1947 and her American one in 1954.
Callas’s dramatic off-stage life often overshadowed her success on it. She developed a rivalry with the more classically-styled soprano Renata Tebaldi, acquired the reputation as a prima donna, and had an affair with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, whom she married after divorcing her husband Giovanni Meneghini – only for Onassis to leave her for Jackie Kennedy.
She died of heart failure in Paris in September 1977.