Medea

Cherubini's Médée had all but vanished from the stage when Maria Callas took it up in Florence in 1953. Within months she had made the abandoned sorceress one of the defining roles of the century — and proof that she could resurrect an opera by sheer force of interpretation.

At La Scala in December 1953, her Medea was conducted by a young Leonard Bernstein, in his debut at the house. She later carried the role to Dallas in 1958, and in 1961 to the ancient theatre of Epidaurus, singing Medea in Greece, the land of her parents, in the amphitheatre where Greek tragedy was born. It was as Medea that she bade farewell to La Scala, in 1962.

The role concentrated everything that set Callas apart: a voice of dark grandeur, a stage presence of archaic power, and the courage to be terrifying rather than pleasing.

In the Foundation's collection

The collection preserves an exceptional and largely unpublished photographic record of Callas's Medea years, along with programmes and documents. Explore the collection · Licensing

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