Weight loss. I’ll start with this, because it’s such an obvious suspect—Scott, indeed, fingers it as the perpetrator, and he’s by no means alone. According to his figures (source uncited), between February of 1953 (that would be the time of the first studio Lucia recording) and April of 1954 (when the first studio Norma was underway), Callas went from 202 pounds to 143, a loss of 59 pounds in fourteen months. In one of the articles in the December Opera, Cori Ellison goes him one better, asserting a loss of 80 pounds from a 220-lb. maximum, again without a citation. I wasn’t present at the weigh-in, but it’s a big reduction any way we look at it, especially when we consider that standard self-help wisdom holds that a strictly observed, balanced diet regimen can be expected to yield a loss of some 10%-15% of body weight in a year’s time. According to a preponderance of the evidence I’ve seen, with neither Ozempic nor bariatric surgery then an option, Callas’ slenderization was done through sheer willpower with respect to her food intake (a strict diet of steak tartare or chicken and salad, plus grazing, is reported), and without medical supervision, purging, or drugs.  Furthermore, she kept the weight off, which is not the usual pattern, and to all appearances even lost a little more in the years that followed (“skinny” is how she later referred to herself as of the late 1950s).

It certainly seems logical that such a radical slimming-down will be reflected in vocal function. I am skeptical, though, where some of our easy assumptions are concerned—for instance, that there is inevitably a correlation between size of body and size of voice, or that losing weight impacts diaphragmatic strength and therefore “support,” etc. Callas was not “born fat.” She grew zaftig in her late teens in the Athens of Italo/German occupation and subsequent civil war, and became progressively heavier during her early Italian career days. Then she went on her diet—working her way, we could say, from the Italy of Open City and The Bicycle Thief to the Italy of La Dolce Vita. My “preponderance of evidence” argues that she did this on her own motivation, out of a desire first to match her bodily aesthetic to her vocal one for artistic reasons, and second to transform herself as a public personage. It is unfortunate that in an article that in most respects is sensible and useful (she’s on a myth-busting mission), Ellison feels compelled to bring this into line with contemporary feminist sensibilities by attributing it to “fat-shaming,” using a highly selective handful of photos to pretend that the pre-1953 Callas looked just fine, and scattered remarks by Tullio Serafin, Rudolf Bing, and anonymous others to suggest a pattern of oppressive pressure. But she didn’t look fine, and as was the case with a couple of recent principal soprano outings at the Met, her weight c. 1950 also seems to have made her slow and clumsy onstage. It is evidently true that Serafin admonished her on becoming obese, and that Rudolf Bing described the Callas he first met in 1951, while contemplating whether or not to hire her, as “monstrously fat, and awkward.” But the former was entirely on point as a mentor and friendly colleague (Scott relates Tito Gobbi’s account of a relevant incident during the Lucia sessions), and the latter didn’t make his remarks to her in real time, but to us in a book published eleven years later. I have no doubt that Callas endured unkind passing remarks from others, including her sister Jackie—and from my observation, taunts from an older and prettier sibling are likely to sting more than advice from old men. If all that was “shaming,” it was to valid purpose, both artistically and personally. In any event, I think it’s clear that Callas wanted to lose weight—it was early in 1954 that she began refashioning herself with the couturier Biki, who had earlier declined to work with her unless she lost some significant weight—and that once the decision was made, she followed through with great persistence.