Key Points

• Genius is not a lightbulb moment. The word gets thrown around a lot, but great art—even by the most gifted creator—is a cornucopia of long-fine-tuned components.

​

• The media will misdescribe you. So will you. No one’s a robot. Yellow press were never kind to Callas.
  
  But sometimes she also contradicted herself.

 

• The hidden instrument is unpredictable. Have you found a single reason for Callas’ vocal decline? Think again. Being inside us, the voice is by far the most difficult instrument to govern… and insidious.

 

• In a tacky spectacle with slothful colleagues, how far will you go to save your art? Because… your colleagues may resent you. Glossy magazines will tout you as a diva. Rumors will defy negation.
  
  And...

 

• The whole truth and nothing but… but… If memory plays tricks on people, how can you examine a performance or a statement or an action from ten years ago? And how can anybody else?