Click Here to Read: Maria: The Lives and Loves of Maria Callas by Alma Bond presented at the IPTAR 50th Anniversary Arts Symposium on October 25, 2009 in New York City.
Sophia Cecilia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulos was born in December, 1923. She would be 85 if she were living today. The hospital gives her date of
birth as Dec. 2, but her mother insisted it was Dec. 4. Maria celebrated her birthday on Dec. 2. Her disastrous relationship with her mother began a few minutes after she was born. The nurse reached out to Litza and said, “Here is your beautiful twelve and a half pound baby girl!” “A girl?” she muttered “I already have a girl. I need my baby boy. Take her away, I don’t want her.” Then she turned her back on Maria and refused to see her for four whole days. Maria wasn’t Vasily; the baby boy who had died a few years
before; therefore in her mother’s mind she was worthless. Maria was a Replacement Child, and they rarely turn out well.