Maria Callas and JFK: a night to remember
A rare photograph of the troubled singer, whose lover went on to marry the President's widow, goes under the hammer
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Your support makes all the difference.It is a moment captured in time. "La Divina" Maria Callas with the then US President John F Kennedy at his birthday party in May 1962.
Callas, at that time the lover of Aristotle Onassis, sang two arias from Bizet's Carmen at the Madison Square party. She was later presented with a Tiffany silver bowl and this signed photograph as a thankyou from JFK.
Within 18 months the President would be dead, cut down by an assassin in Dallas, Texas. Within a decade Onassis would leave Callas to marry Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline.
Perhaps the omens were there that night: Callas's performance was completely overshadowed by Marilyn Monroe's breathless "Happy Birthday Mr President".
Now the mementoes of that night, and Callas's life and career, are to come under the auctioneer's hammer.
A collection of material revealing every aspect of Callas' existence – from unseen directors' notes that guided her performances, to beautiful gowns and passionate love letters – has been released from the estate of her former husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini, and is expected to raise at least £500,000 when auctioned in Milan in December.
Experts predict that the most intimate lot will also prove to be the most coveted, with the 63 letters the diva penned to Meneghini, from their 1947 engagement throughout their 10 year marriage, expected to raise at least £50,000.
Written in Italian, Callas's swirling script reveals both the vulnerability of the shy, overweight 23-year-old and her deep affection for Meneghini: "Dear Love, the day of our encounter is coming! Do you want me? I am yours!"
The singer left opera buff Meneghini, who controlled Callas's career while they were together, for the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1959.
This decision generated much publicity in the press and, some argued, coincided with a decline in her vocal talents. The couple's engraved wedding rings are up for sale in December, expected to fetch in the region of £1,500.
Also attracting attention are the previously unpublished stage notes to La Traviata, whose yellowing paper reveals the extent to which the soprano's acclaimed performances were minutely scripted by others.
In the famous scene in which the heroine is writing to her lover, director Luchino Visconti instructs Callas to "write a couple of words and then cancel them resolutely, start weeping, re-write, cancel once again".
These notes are expected to go for at least £1,000, with experts insisting that the price could go much higher if collectors enter into a bidding war.
"There are a number of lots with conservative estimates, so I am sure that fans will be able to bid for some of them," said Esmeralda Benvenuti, the deputy director of Sotheby's in Milan.
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