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Someone Possessed. Maria Callas was still fat and half sick. She was inclined to break out in rashes and blotches; she was often feverish; her legs became painfully swollen. She took her resentments out on the people around her. Her first victim was another soprano, Renata Tebaldi, long-standing favorite of Scala audiences, possessor of a voice of creamy softness, musicianship of delicate sensibility, and a temperament to match. She was no match for Callas. From the beginning the two women glowered. Tebaldi stayed away from Callas' performances; Callas, on the warpath, sat in a prominent box at Tebaldi's, ostentatiously cheered, and watched her rival start to tremble. Callas sensibly -if a little too innocently-points out that there are plenty of operas for two top sopranos in La Scala's big repertory. The fact is, Callas thrives on opposition. "When I'm angry, I carr do no wrong," she says. "I sing and act like someone possessed." But Tebaldi wilts. "She's got no backbone. She's not like Callas." Year by year Tebaldi reduced her appearances, until last year she was absent entirely from La Scala, and Callas held the field with 37 performances.
Terrible Wrath. Callas had also turned bitterly against her mother. "I'll never forgive her," she says, "for taking my childhood away. During all the years I should have been playing and growing up, I was singing or making money. Everything I did for them was mostly good and everything they did to me was mostly bad." Mrs. Callas had moved back to Athens, was living there with Jackie, and very little money. In 1951 she wrote Maria to ask for $100, "for my daily bread." Answered Maria: "Don't come to us with your troubles. I had to work for my money, and you are young enough to work, too. If you can't make enough money to live on, you can jump out of the window or drown yourself."
Maria justifies her behavior firmly. "They say my family is very short of money. Before God, I say why should they blame me? I feel no guilt and I feel no gratitude. I like to show kindness, but you mustn't expect thanks, because you won't get any. That's the way life is. If some day I need help, I wouldn't expect anything from anybody. When I'm old. nobody is going to worry about me."
Professionally, Callas is just as ruthless. This year she broke with the maestro who helped her first and most, Conductor Serafin. Her complaint: he recorded Traviata with another soprano. Her decision automatically eliminates Serafin from his old job as conductor for her opera recordings and the old man is finding that other singers are now mysteriously unable to sing under him. Says he: "She is like a devil with evil instincts." Says La Callas: "I understand hate; I respect revenge. You have to defend yourself. You have to be strong, very, very strong. That's what makes you have fights."