From Olive Groves to Hell’s Kitchen

This chapter, “From Olive Groves to Hell’s Kitchen,” examines Callas’s experiences during early childhood in New York City that left her with permanent psychological vulnerabilities. Having been deprived of adequate parental input during a critical developmental stage and growing up in a family beset by conflict exacerbated by a move from a provincial town in Greece to New York City, Maria found it hard to compensate later in life for her egocentrism and her lack of empathy. Callas’s adult life can be construed as an unrelenting pursuit of the psychological bounties she was deprived of in childhood. It is not accidental that Callas’s strength as an opera performer lay largely in her insatiable need for adulation from the audience (mirroring) and that her relationships with the significant men in her life were characterized by idealization.