Bravo Presents an Evening of Maria Callas Thursday, November 19.

NEW YORK--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Nov. 11, 1998--

The Double-Bill Begins with "Bravo Profiles: Maria Callas" at 8:00

PM/ET Followed by "Maria Callas in Concert" at 9:00 PM/ET

Maria Callas (nee Calogeropoulos) rose above financial and domestic difficulties to become one of the most influential opera singers of this century. Her life was almost as dramatic as her stage roles and she is as much remembered as the prototypical diva as for her musical genius. The fascinating and tragic life of Maria Callas gets the Bravo Profiles treatment on Thursday, November 19, beginning at 8:00PM/ET and 9:00 PM/PT, followed by Maria Callas in Concert at 9:00 PM/ET and 10:00 PM/PT.

Bravo Profiles: Maria Callas provides insight into the enigmatic performer. In a televised interview Callas states, "I never had a childhood." She was born of Greek emigrants in Astoria, New York in 1923. Her parents soon separated and the teenage Maria divided her time between New York and Athens, where she lived during the war. During a stay in New York, she auditioned for a spot in an Italian opera company and immediately garnered critical praise for her ability to perform vastly different roles. Sadly, at the rise of Maria's success, she and her mother parted forever after a few strained and volatile reunions. During the 1950s, Maria performed all over the world yet, it was in Italy at the renowned Teatro alla Scala Opera House, where Maria reigned as what her accompanist, Robert Sutherland, describes as "the high priestess of Italian opera," singing in 22 different operas between 1950 and 1963. In July 1952, Callas and her then husband and business manager, Gian Battista Menighini, negotiated an exclusive contract with Peter Andry at EMI for a series of recordings that remain unrivalled to this day.

With Maria's international celebrity came the constant hounding of the paparazzi. As her friend, the filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, describes Callas, "in the end, she always got what she wanted" and the press manipulated her image to enhance her reputation as a prima donna. Her painful divorce from Menighini and her love affair with Aristotle Onassis were very public events. In Bravo Profiles: Maria Callas, her friends confirm that Maria was very much in love with Onassis, despite his lack of respect for her career and his unwillingness to marry. After their break-up, he quickly turned around and married Jacqueline Kennedy, causing Maria's legendary pride and stellar career to crumble.

Although her stage career suffered, Callas gave well-attended master classes at New York's Juilliard School -- events that served as the inspiration for Terrence McNally's play, Master Class. She starred in Pier Paolo Pasolini's film version of Medea and Luciano Visconti's La Vestale, in which Zeffirelli says the director "superimposed personality on (Callas) with majestic results." According to her long-term collaborator, Italian tenor Giuseppe di Stefano, after Onassis' death in 1975, Callas "tried to sing, but lost the joy of living." Together, Callas and di Stefano shared one last concert tour in 1973, which ended triumphantly in Japan. Callas never performed again. In 1977, after a glamorous career as the world's most famous opera diva, Maria Callas died in her Paris apartment a lonely and heartbroken recluse.

Despite her international popularity, live recordings of Maria Callas' performances are incredibly rare. Directly following Bravo Profiles: Maria Callas, Bravo is pleased to present Maria Callas in Concert, featuring a memorable performance in the Musikhalle, Hamburg in 1959. This classic performance unites the soprano with world-renowned conductors Nicola Rescigno and Georges Pretre respectively, and the Symphonieorchester des NDR. The repertory includes: Verdi's Macbeth, Don Carlo and La Forza del Destino, Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Bizet's Carmen, and selections from Spontini, Bellini, Massenet and Gounod. Presented on ARENA, Bravo's performing arts showcase, Maria Callas in Concert airs on Bravo Thursday, November 19 at 9:00 PM/ET (encoring at 10:00 PM/PT).

Bravo, The Film and Arts Network, offers critically acclaimed American and international films as well as performing arts, including dance, theater, classical music and jazz. Bravo is available to over 35 million homes nationwide.