"The melodramatic story of the century's greatest soprano, from her birth to Greek-immigrant parents in New York to her triumphs on international stages, has often been chronicled, and the world is by now more than familiar with her fiery temperament, her tragic affairs, and her lonely death in a Parisian apartment at the age of fifty-three.

In all these accounts, however, a key period in her life has gone undocumented: at the age of thirteen, she left New York with her mother and sister and traveled to Greece, where she spent her formative teenage and early professional years.".

"The heart of this biography is the young Maria Callas's life in Athens from 1937 to 1943 - a turbulent time that was crucial to her artistic and personal development. In his researches of Athenian archives and through interviews with more than two hundred of Callas's Greek colleagues and friends, Nicholas Petsalis-Diomidis uncovers much that is new and dispels much that is old, casting new light on the whole of her life."--BOOK JACKET.