She was also beamed to prime-time TV audiences, such as her 1956 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show,where she sang Vissi d’arte (I lived for art), an aria from Giacomo Puccini’s 1899 opera Tosca. The image of Callas as an archetypal diva, and the notion that the goddess-star should suffer for her art, is loaded; there is no equivalent that positions a male divo on quite the same pedestal, or exposes them to the same judgements. Yet Callas did arguably channel real-life trauma and conflict into her musical delivery, and seemed bound by the notion of “destiny”.
In the 21st Century, Callas has taken the form of a hologram on tour (though it’s unlikely that the real-life perfectionist star would have approved of the glitchy tech), and been portrayed by actresses including Fanny Ardant (in Zeffirelli’s 2002 biopic Callas Forever) and Angelina Jolie (set to star in Pablo Larraín’s upcoming film Maria). In 1936, dissatisfied with the unambitious roles offered within her contract to Warner Bros, and earning a salary inferior to her contemporaries, she sued the studio. Not only did her pay go up, but subsequent roles such as the stubborn and spoiled Julie Marsden in Jezebel (1938), which earned her a second Oscar, and the histrionic, ageing actress Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950) made cinema history, and cemented the trope of the drama-loving diva. If you’re not running to call a man a diva, then why are you calling a woman one for similar behaviours?
Lizzo’s promotion of body positivity is just one example of how dedicated divas have used their platform for good. The trope of the demanding, drama-loving diva is everywhere throughout the history of stage, screen, music and more. But a new exhibition celebrates the diva for what she really is – fabulous, writes Deborah Nicholls-Lee.
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Two mountaineering musicians are combining classical music with the stunning scenery of the Cascade Mountains. Faced with motor neurone disease (MND), Paul Jameson is reclaiming his voice through opera. We explore where our musical creativity comes from, and what happens to our brains when we improvise.
- There were just as many hard-to-work-with men in the industry – and continue to be – who do not receive the diva label.
- For a female star to lean into ‘hustle culture’ and creative perfection is to become selfish, arrogant, over-confident, and a diva.
- “She worked so hard, she made herself Maria Callas – she made herself the greatest diva,” Stella Kourmapana, archivist at the Athens Conservatoire, explains in Maria Callas, part of the BBC series Take Me to The Opera.
- Her performances caused a clamour at world-class institutions including Milan’s La Scala and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and she collaborated with the likes of Luchino Visconti, Franco Zeffirelli and Leonard Bernstein, as well as Pier Paolo Pasolini (who cast her in the non-singing title role of his 1969 movie Medea, some years after her final concerts).
- “The exhibition will show that there are many definitions and interpretations of a diva,” lead curator Kate Bailey tells BBC Culture.
Divas, says Fairclough, are “symbols of empowerment, self-acceptance and celebration of individuality, and challenging societal norms” and, as such, play an important role in LGBTQ+ culture. On her podcast last year, Meghan Markle appeared to take umbrage at Mariah Carey calling her a diva, while Carey, the daughter of an opera singer, has come to embrace the term. “And yes, part of that is real.” Hip-hop star Lizzo, queen of feathers, fake furs and sexy stage wear, is another artist who leans into it, while, as a plus-size woman, subverting the archetype. Callas united so-called high culture and pop culture, without compromising her repertoire. Her performances caused a clamour at world-class institutions including Milan’s La Scala and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and she collaborated with the likes of Luchino Visconti, Franco Zeffirelli and Leonard Bernstein, as well as Pier Paolo Pasolini (who cast her in the non-singing title role of his 1969 movie Medea, some years after her final concerts).
Examples of diva in a Sentence
The musician explains a heavy moment thinking about the lyrics of a song from his forthcoming album. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.
- Exploring the definition of diva-dom is the exhibition DIVA, just opened at the V&A, London.
- Bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel is one of the most distinguished opera singers of our age.
- Derided in her youth for being fat, Callas was later slated for being too thin; her weight loss was said to contribute to her vocal decline, although the intensity and range of her work was surely a factor.
- Divas, says Fairclough, are “symbols of empowerment, self-acceptance and celebration of individuality, and challenging societal norms” and, as such, play an important role in LGBTQ+ culture.
- Known as “America’s Sweetheart”, but uncompromising when it came to her career, she broke from the stranglehold of the studio system to co-found production company United Artists, blazing a trail for numerous savvy successors, who have set up their own production companies to tell stories with strong roles for women.
DIVA magazine is the world’s leading magazine for LGBTQIA Diva women and non binary people. Get a comprehensive understanding of the gut microbiome, the many species, and the vital roles they play. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has enjoyed one of the longest careers in operatic history. “Perhaps Maria Callas, beyond her genius as a musicienne assoluta, so timeless and perpetually modern in the sensory impact it has on the listener, continues to fascinate because she actually has no true descendants.”
Diva: criticism or compliment?
“Be careful when you say ‘ghetto’… music comes from there,” she told French journalist Philippe Caloni in her final interview (1977). “I’ve almost never seen a great musician who had an upper-class background. There’s something good about ghettos because if you come from there, it makes you want more. It makes you say, ‘One day I’ll be someone’.” In a world where women are routinely placed into categories, often with negative connotations, like ‘whore’, ‘virgin’, ‘slut’, ‘hormonal, ‘hysterical’, etc, ‘diva’ is just another example that only serves to lazily reduce a woman to nothing more than a mere concept of a person.
More from Merriam-Webster on diva
By using a term that reduces a person to a flimsy stereotype, you strip a person of their identity and complexity. Considering that much of what we know about celebrities has been constructed through the media, we can never be sure of what a person is really like unless we know them personally. In Beyoncé’s song ‘Diva’, she tells us that a “diva is a female version of a hustler”.
Popular in Wordplay
Derided in her youth for being fat, Callas was later slated for being too thin; her weight loss was said to contribute to her vocal decline, although the intensity and range of her work was surely a factor. A new documentary explores the highs and lows of Callas’s life, as well as what her legacy is today. “She worked so hard, she made herself Maria Callas – she made herself the greatest diva,” Stella Kourmapana, archivist at the Athens Conservatoire, explains in Maria Callas, part of the BBC series Take Me to The Opera.
Listen to the ‘earliest known country song’ ever recorded
Certainly, when men work hard – even if that means neglecting their families or lashing out at crew members for not understanding their creative visions, for example – they rarely get criticised in the same way. For a female star to lean into ‘hustle culture’ and creative perfection is to become selfish, arrogant, over-confident, and a diva. The posthumous veneration of Callas might deflect from the media industry’s original malice, but it also reflects her inimitable force. There is only one Callas, yet there are seemingly countless incarnations; as listeners, we project our personal desires, and distresses, onto her expressions – and we continue to bond with her music, in unpredictable ways. Tom Volf, the director of acclaimed documentary Maria by Callas (2017), has described first discovering Callas (in the “mad scene” from Gaetano Donizetti’s 1835 opera Lucia di Lammermoor) on YouTube in the early hours; “The only thing I could see or feel was something incredible, indescribable, passing through me when I was listening to her,” Volf told NPR. Callas maintained her poise in the face of astounding cruelty, and long before mainstream notions of artist wellbeing or body positivity; it’s hard to imagine people camping out for Beyoncé or Gaga shows solely to jeer or pelt the stars with vegetables.
