The letters of Maria Callas: the woman in her own hand

2026-07-20

For decades, the world spoke about Maria Callas. In her letters, she speaks for herself — and the woman who emerges bears little resemblance to the tigress of the headlines.

What the letters say

The correspondence spans her whole life: the young singer working without rest; the artist explaining, with startling lucidity, what she was trying to do on stage; the woman writing of loyalty, of betrayal, of faith, of exhaustion; the recluse of the Paris years, funny and clear-eyed to the end. Read together, the letters dismantle the caricature — the capricious diva — and replace it with something rarer: an artist of absolute seriousness, and a woman of deep, guarded tenderness.

From the archive to the book — and the stage

In 2019, drawing on more than 350 unpublished letters and on her unfinished memoirs, the book Maria Callas : Lettres et Mémoires was published by Albin Michel. It became a stage production conceived and directed by Tom Volf, in which Monica Bellucci gave voice to the letters — performed from Paris to New York, Athens, London and beyond, over four seasons. One archive, three lives: book, stage, memory.

In the collection

The Foundation preserves 150 original manuscript letters of Maria Callas, alongside her unfinished memoirs and personal documents — one of the most intimate parts of its collection. Their conservation, and their presentation in the future Maria Callas Museum in Paris, depend on private generosity: support the Foundation.

Some of these pages have never been published. Subscribers to the Foundation's newsletter will be the first to discover them, one archive at a time.

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