When Maria Callas met Aristotle Onassis

She was queen of the opera, but behind the scenes diva Maria Callas struggled to find happiness. In billionaire Aristotle Onassis she thought she had finally found her soulmate, but a new book reveals the truth about their nine-year tryst.

- LYNDSY SPENCE

In November for 12 beats, inspiring critics to call her “the most exciting singer on the stage today”. Opera magazine wrote, “Callas held her audience in abject slavery.” Until then, she had immersed herself in the vocal techniques of opera. Now she wanted to physically embody its heroines. She said, “You can’t portray a beautiful young woman if you’re enormous.”

A forthcoming production of Medea at La Scala was her incentive: she wanted a sharp chin “for expression in certain very hard phrases, cruel phrases or tense phrases”.

In early 1954, Maria visited a Swiss clinic run by Dr Paul Niehans, a pioneer in living cell therapy, who injected her with dried hormone extract to stimulate her endocrine system, reducing her weight to 165lb (75kg). Unsatisfied with her progress, she sought a different treatment from Niehans in which iodine was injected into her thyroid gland. It was also rumoured that she went to another Swiss doctor for additional injections and was therefore overdosing on iodine, resulting in an overactive thyroid. Despite the risk to her health, the results were to her liking: she now weighed 140lb (63kg) and her measurements had decreased from 45–35–47 to 37–28–37.

Although Maria was satisfied with her new figure, she began to make other changes to her appearance. Evidence suggests she resorted to plastic surgery to tighten the skin around her arms.