Athens to open Maria Callas museum in 2023: city

ATHENS

A new museum honoring legendary soprano Maria Callas will open in Athens next year to honor the centenary of her birth, the city said on Oct. 26.

The museum, to open in the summer of 2023, will feature “valuable historical archives, rare live recordings, a unique collection of records and personal items” of Callas, said a statement.

Exhibits include Callas’s school scrapbook, inscribed books and sheet music, opera dresses and photographs.

Dozens of Greek institutions and private collectors, among them the late artists Alekos Fassianos, Dimitris Mytaras and Panagiotis Tetsis, have made contributions to the new museum, the city said.

Some of the items have been donated by Milan’s La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Arena di Verona, where Callas made her Italian debut in 1947, it said.

Born in New York to Greek emigre parents in 1923, Sophia Cecilia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulou lived in Athens from 1937 to 1945 after her parents separated.

After attending singing classes at the National Conservatory, she made her professional debut with the Royal Opera of Athens in 1941.

Following an illustrious career spanning more than three decades and a whirlwind romance with Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis, Callas died in Paris in 1977.

Her ashes were scattered in the Aegean Sea two years later.

Between 2002 and 2008, there was a previous Callas museum with a smaller collection.