Maria Callas (1923-1977)
Filed under the name Maria · August 31, 2026
Maria Callas isn't music I grew up on — I'm a Sinatra and classic rock guy through and through — but Donna's got a couple of her records and I've come around some, because you don't get called one of the greatest opera singers of the 20th century without putting in a kind of dedication I recognize even from the outside. She brought a dramatic depth to her performances that apparently made people who'd stopped caring about opera start caring again, worldwide, which is no small thing in any art form that's been around as long as opera has. I respect craft, wherever I find it — spent enough years around guys who could weld a seam so clean you'd swear it grew that way, and I hear something similar described about her voice, this precision that wasn't just technical, it had feeling built into it. Never thought I'd be writing sincerely about an opera singer. But good work is good work, whatever field it's in.