She made her debut in wartime Athens – in Tosca, aged 18. Her willpower was founded on insecurity. She came from a humble background and was judged fat and unattractive by her own family.
Some considered her extensively trained voice beautiful. Others thought it was anything but, finding it to have a rather dry, even ugly quality. There was also no consistent agreement as to which notes on her impressive three-octave range were her finest. Some critics thought her best at the highs of a musical scale, others at lows.
Even Callas disliked her own voice, describing it as something she had eventually come to accept. Yet she forged a successful career in opera based on what else her voice was able to achieve – to conjure something that was truly expressive and poignant.
Rendered practically blind by severe short-sightedness, she found herself isolated from the audience when on stage and was described as a dreamer. She had more than just the gift of beautiful music. Callas turned opera back into what it had been: a dramatic rendition of a story via both singing and meticulous acting.
Such was the transformative nature of her performances that some joked that opera should be divided into two main periods: BC and AC (before Callas and after Callas).
She developed an undeserved reputation for diva-ish outbursts. And her exacting standards meant that she would sometimes cancel events, or walk out of them if she felt unable to deliver.
Regardless of critical opinion of her, a deterioration in Callas’s voice was noted as early as 1956 when she was just 33. This would become more clearly pronounced, making the difficult arias she was previously able to perform impossible. It eventually diminished her voice to a shadow of its former self.
In recent years, a study quantified the audible differences between her recordings of Tosca and Nabucco, a decade apart. They found that she had become increasingly sharp, irregular and unstable.
What prompted the demise of this iconic voice has been a subject of hot debate in the operatic world. Many have credited this decline to her heartbreak at losing Aristotle Onassis to Jackie Kennedy. Others have claimed that it was simply the result of going in too strong, too soon, in her performance. Many of Callas’s earlier roles had been very technically demanding – and may have proved injurious.
Her notable technique focused on intonation to add dramatic effect to her singing, and may also have been responsible for hardening her vocal cords. These are the folds of membrane that vibrate across the outflowing jet of air from your lungs, making a voice or musical sound.
Callas’s diet may also have had an effect. Modelling herself on the grace of Audrey Hepburn, she lost a staggering amount of weight (over 35kg) in her twenties. There was even speculation that she may have ingested tapeworms to do so.
This dramatic weight loss, like that achieved through rapid diets of the modern day, might also have caused her to shed muscle mass. The voice is as much an output of muscle action as, say, flexing a bicep. The movement and vibration of the vocal cords are determined by the action of different groups of muscles in the larynx (or voicebox). These muscles stretch the cords or tense them, like the strings on a harp or violin. They can also make them open or close.
In losing laryngeal muscle, her extreme dieting may have been responsible for her weakened voice.
Another clue may lie with a report that was published more than 25 years after Callas’s death by a doctor who consulted with her in her autumn days, living in Paris. She held out her hands to show how they had changed from “that of Floria Tosca [to] those of a labourer”.
Dermatomyositis
What she was demonstrating was the roughened, swollen, violet-marked hands associated with the condition dermatomyositis. This is a connective tissue disease that causes inflammation in both skin and muscle.
Alongside the same purple rash on her neck, her stooped posture and weakened voice (otherwise called dysphonia) were hallmarks of this illness. After treating the inflammation with the steroid drug prednisolone, Callas noted some improvement. Sadly, it was to be short-lived.
Callas died in Paris, in 1977, of a heart attack. She was 53 years old.
Jolie reportedly undertook seven months of operatic tuition to sing at the film’s climax. Now nominated for her ninth Golden Globe and perhaps looking toward her third Oscar, she gives us a glimpse of her extraordinary capabilities.
Regardless of what she manages to vocalise in Maria, since Callas was famed for embracing her imperfections and creating something truly magical from them, Jolie’s inspired performance is on track to do the same.
Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.