30 Candid Photographs of Maria Callas With Her Beloved Poodles

Maria Callas, the legendary New York-born soprano born of Greek parents in 1923, was one of the most electrifying singers in operatic history. Her voice was instantly recognizable, powerful, and capable at its best of remarkable flexibility and range, and her dramatic command of every role she sang was uncanny, whether it was Norma, Lady Macbeth, Tosca, Brünnhilde, or one among many bel canto heroines.

Callas’ first dog, Toy, a miniature black poodle, was a gift from her good friend, the stage director Luchino Visconti. She treated Toy like a beloved child and kept him meticulously groomed; he slept at the foot of her bed. It seemed that all of Paris showed up at Orly Airport when Callas arrived in a beige mink coat and velvet hat, Toy in her arms chewing happily on the orchids with which his mistress had been greeted. Toy went everywhere with Callas, his bathroom etiquette lacking not only at the Met but at composer Samuel Barber’s home when he and Callas discussed her taking the leading role in his new opera, “Vanessa.” She even showed up with Toy at a pre-trial hearing on a claim made by her former agent.

Photos over the years record the presence of Toy and his canine successors–Callas showering with them, combing them, handing them treats, holding court with them in her dressing room. While the dogs certainly added to her public allure and accented her fashionable attire, they were far more to her. They were the children she longed for but never had, as well as her most faithful companions.

Callas had a seemingly happy, decade-long marriage to the much older, wealthy Italian industrialist Giovanni Battista Meneghini, who provided her great financial and personal support. But in 1959, she announced to her shocked husband that she wanted a divorce. By then Toy was quite old, and another poodle, Tea, had joined them. After absorbing the painful news, Meneghini remarked: “If everything will be split and if we have to divide this poodle [Tea], Maria will get the front end and I will end up with the tail!” Not quite: Callas won ownership of Tea, front end, and tail.

It was at this time that Callas became involved with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, a charismatic, arrogant, woman-chasing multi-millionaire, who divorced his wife and became the all-consuming object of Callas’ love. Newspapers followed the ups and downs of the affair wherever they went. The relationship ended miserably in 1968 when Onassis suddenly married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the American president John F. Kennedy. This was the cruelest blow of Callas’ life.

Her voice was at its peak early in her career but began to decline in the 1960s. Her vocal decline gave rise to accusations, true or false, about the cause was her major weight loss–about 80 pounds. As her career petered out, gossip about her voice and her life spread.

Callas became more and more dependent on her poodles, making this sad comment: “Only my dogs will not betray me.” When, in 1971-72, she held a series of masterclasses in New York City (the subject of a 1995 play by Terrence McNally), she missed her dogs so much that she had her maid, Bruna, fly them in from her apartment in Paris.

The day Callas suddenly died in Paris, September 16, 1977, at age 53, she was attended as usual by Bruna and the butler, Ferruccio. Her two aging dogs, Pixie and Djedda, gifted to her by Onassis, were in her bedroom. Facing her bed hung a large oil painting of Toy, created after his death. Suddenly, Callas experienced a piercing pain on her left side and fell on her way to the bathroom. The servants found her slumped on the floor, lifted her onto the bed, and gave her coffee. Calls for an ambulance were not answered and Callas’ heart failed. Bruna reported that the dogs, which were in the bedroom with her, were removed to another room where they whimpered pitifully.

A longtime friend, Nadia Stancioff, described her visit to the apartment days after Callas’ death. “Bruna looked older and lifeless. In her arms, she cradled a trembling Pixie, whose cataract-covered eyes blankly searched my face for recognition. When I patted her, a high-pitched bark shook her little body, and she wouldn’t let me hug Bruna until she’d licked my hand and ascertained who I was.”

(via Opera Wire)