Maria Callas: 1923-1977
"Have no doubt about who you are," Maria Callas once counseled a student soprano. La Divina, as she was called, was talking about the art of portraying an operatic heroine onstage. But she might have been offering her philosophy of life. She came out of an unhappy childhoodappallingly fat and resentful and lonelyand clawed her way to success and greatness with a singlehearted ferocity that awed even her enemies. Conductor Tullio Serafin, her indispensable mentor in the crucial early days, was tossed aside temporarilyfor daring to record La Traviata with...