The famous soprano Maria Callas who is one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, did not commit suicide, but died of a degenerative disease that affected her vocal chords. This theory is according to the diagnosis of two Italian doctors specialized in speech therapy.
The experts, Franco Fuss and Nico Paolillo presented the results of their research at the University of Bologna at a round table. According to the speacalists, the soprano was diagnosed with dermatomyositis. It is a disease that affects the muscles and tissues in general, including the larynx.
They emphasized that this disease is treated with cortisone and immunosuppressants. This can ultimately lead to heart failure and as the official medical report states, Callas died of cardiac arrest.
The information revealed Tuesday by the Italian daily “La Stampa”, denies that Callas committed suicide after the gradual loss of her voice. This follows a romantic disappointment in her relationship with the Greek billionaire Aristoteles Onassis, who abandoned her in 1968 to marry Jackie Kennedy.
The pathologists studied ultra modern complete recordings of the singer in the ’50’s and in the ’60’s when she began having problems. They also studied her recordings in the ’70’s that were marked by a sudden loss of weight and alteration of her voice.
“Fuss, one of the most famous speech therapista of the country, and Paolillo analyzed the latest videos of Callas that show that the muscles no longer met because the thoracic cavity did not inflate when she breathed,” says the newspaper in Turin.
“The decline of the icon of the opera is not due to efforts on his voice or to external causes” such as emotional stress, say experts who have studied one of the most critical moments of the soprano. She could not sing the opera Norma in Rome on January 2, 1958. At the end of the first act, Callas escaped through a back door and left the audience very dissapointed. “This was not a whim, she was really sick, she had a tracheitis, muscles loose. It was the beginning of the end”, they say.
Maria Callas was found dead in her apartment in Paris on September 16, 1977. Her official cause of death was a heart attack. She was 53-years-old.
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