Once upon a time…

There was a girl. With deep, dark eyes….(Like goddess Juno, which Omero celebrated for her big, sweet eyes.)

She also had beautiful, generous lips. (Like Venus, the goddess highly celebrated for her sensuality). And a warm, wide, perfect smile. In which her tooth looked like stars shining in a midnight summer night. (The smile of Diana, goddess of purity. And also, the silvery side of the moon, as Diana was. – This was such a promise of her destiny: in fact one of her best tunes will soon become, exactly, “chaste goddess” of Bellini’s Norma/).

As you’ll have already understood, she was not an ordinary girl.

First of all: she was a greek young (fact that put her very close to the ancient myth, tragedy and poetry of the past time). Secondly: She sang as never (till that moment) a human being did. ….. In mythology words, you may really say that she was the female reincarnation of Orfeo: she had the power of resuscitate dad beings, bringing them back to life. With the only purpose of listening her voice.

Briefly: Juno’s strenght, Venus’s charm, Diana’s grace, and Athena’s intelligence brought her to a very long, bright and lucky career.

(And maybe one day she will end up to discover to have such powerful protectors…)

Unfurtunatly , on the other side, she was completely unaware of the fact that her life would soon show up something not so good….

as the fact that she also shared her own destiny with the same of others greek past heroines… who weren’t so lucky. One of them she even happen to play on scene.. as Ifigenia (sacrified for men’s ambitions…) . Or even better, as Medea…(whose big love denied her for another woman more close to his social needings …). This is what you could call “Jungian coincidence”…

Your destiny meet yourself. Your life is spent in the name of art, art means also tragedy for most of the time, and …finally tragedy knocks to your door.

The same unescapable destiny, as happens for witches’s prediction in Macbeth.

That was an Opera she really played masterfully.

As she did in Carmen.

Because she was a fighter, and didn’t forgive Onassis for betrayed her.

There…well. Nobody could really know in the end.

“I lived for art, I lived for love”, was what Tosca says in her unforgettable tune “in the hour of grief”. ….What do you give me in return, my God? You give me such hard, painful payoff.

Maybe she also sang, in her heart, for a very last time “Love me Alfredo (/Aristotele)”…

The truth is: I have only one, full certitude.

..Once given the last breath, angels sang for her, almost with her voice, “ Welcome be you….. our “Casta Diva” ( “chaste Goddess”) . The beautiful, unique One. Maria.