The Autobiography of Maria Callas: A Novel
 Alma H. Bond
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1998 Birch Book Publishers
  ISBN: 0913559482
Amazon's price is: $17.95

A fact & fiction portrait of one of the greatest operatic artists. Maria Callas as daughter, sister, wife, lover, thwarted mother & prima donna assoluta.

Do take out one of Maria Callas' CDs as you read this author's fictional autobiography of this darling of the rarified reaches of haute couture, drama & music.

& it's not that fictional, because Dr. Bond was a New York Freudian analyst for nearly 40 years, before she retired to the sunny climes of Florida. Dr. Bond knows full well how to get inside people's minds, how they would think & speak, & what their frames of references would be.

The Autobiograph of Maria Callas: A Novel is a work of dedication & drama, made up of all the things that make such demands on those who would climb to the top of their chosen field & dazzle the world. Loss of family, of a private life, of emotional authenticity, & of a private future once “The Voice” has gone.

Maria Callas was a study in the vulgar & the cultured. Moments after warbling off a riff from a Wagnerian libretto, she'd be glued to the TV in her dressing room, guffawing at the latest “I Love Lucy” episode. Recently I heard one diva comment that all opera was, was “a controlled yelling at the top of your voice.”

It is to be noted that this artist was uncomfortable with the adoration drooled upon her by ravening audiences & sycophants. When, after only a decade, that voice began to fade, she was ill-prepared for the ordinariness of the obscurity she so craved.

Strange & compelling, The Autobiograph of Maria Callas: A Novel, leaves the reader filled with the sounds of a life lived both in operatic grandeur as well as soap-opera dysfunction. Yet when all is read & done, my respect for this forgotten diva has been refreshed.

Having a golden voice is no guarantee of a golden life, & when a person cannot step off the stage into a rich emotional private life, then all is simply maddening glitter.

With the author's own illustrations, this is an extra-ordinary effort that only a professional head shrinker could have thought to have done. It is also a paean from a devotee. There were times when I felt that if I looked out of my window, I would see Maria Callas striding across my landscape in all her insecurity & glory!

Did I like The Autobiograph of Maria Callas: A Novel? Not really. I am a rube when it comes to opera & its stars, however, I do admire Dr. Bond's effort in re-creating the life & times of this diva. It is this author's writing that gripped me, because when all is said & done, Maria Callas, like the rest of us, was a human with all our foibles & furies.
(04/14/02)

Rebecca