| Description : Maria Callas, daughter of Greek immigrants, was registered
with the surname Kalos at birth in New York on the 2nd of December 1923. Her father changed the original surname
Kalogeropoulos to Callas in 1929. After her parents separated, Maria Callas followed her mother to Athens in 1937, where
she studied singing at the local conservatory. One of the most important sopranos of the 20th century, she mastered a
repertoire of 43 complete roles as well as arias from a further 34 operas. Her vocal range was almost three octaves and she
mastered all the vocal tonal techniques of bel canto singing (as in operas by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini). Her most
famous interpretations include Luigi Cherubini's Medea, Violetta in Verdi's 'La traviata' and Bellini's Norma. Maria Callas
was often called 'La Divina' (the Divine). In 1949 she married the Italian entrepreneur Giovanni Battista Meneghini and
took Italian citizenship. However, her love affair with the Greek‐Argentine shipowner and billionaire Aristotle
Onassis led to the breakdown of their marriage in 1959. Maria Callas died in Paris in 1977 at the age of 53. Her ashes were
scattered in the Ionian Sea off the Greek island of Skorpios, a private island owned by the Onassis family. The coin shows
a portrait of the singer in side view, framed on the left and above in a circular arc by the occasion of issue
"100 ΧΡΟΝΙΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΓΕΝΝΗΣΗ
ΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΑΣ ΚΑΛΛΑΣ" (100th years since the
birth of Maria Callas) and at the bottom of "ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ
ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ" (Hellenic Republic). On the right is a palmette as the
mint mark of the Greek mint
Νομισματοκοπειο / Nomismatokopeio
(Bank of Greece ‐ Mint) in Halandri and below it the year of issue "2023". The signet "ΣΤΑΜ"
of the mint designer Georgios Stamatopoulos is at the bottom left. |
