The Definitive Diva
“Don’t talk to me about rules, dear; where-ever I stay, I make the goddamn rules…”
Opera Singer Maria Callas was the definitive diva, known as the “bible of opera” and scandalously (in her day) the lover of billionaire Aristotle Onassis (she wouldn’t marry him, because of her Art). She overcame a hideously unhappy childhood, poverty and personal issues to be the undisputed top of her field and one of the most famous women in the world.
She was Sagittarius – Sun in Sagittarius Rising with Lilith exact opposite. She had Moon in Virgo conjunct Fortuna on the Midheaven. People who achieve enduring fame nearly always have SOMETHING exact on their Midheaven. Sun-Moon is very common with those who score the adoration of the masses, as she did.
Plus she had Mars-Saturn exact conjunct in Libra. That’s the aspect that affords extreme powers of discipline. The strong qi you need to power mastery of an art or to prosecute a war or or something. It’s a military aspect.
How I’d love it if glamorous opera singers were still major celebrities instead of trashy. talentless reality “stars” and socialites. I really hope Neptune in Pisces pushes some people worth fawning over into the limelight.
Of course, I have Jupiter exact on my Midheaven, so maybe I could be one of then ;P Or, you know, not.
Ugh, I cannot stop with the typos lately.
ooo yes I’ve been reading about neptune in pisces and I’m quite excited about the whole thing.
Luv this and yes T, i absolutely agree! Having a wealthy enough family or husband to hire a publicist and pay them a retainer is not a skill worthy of my or anyones admiration. I no longer enjoy the goss mags at the hairdresser even because of the endless trail of non-entities and there non-issues.
Ugh gross and dull. Also why does having a famous parent instantly make you a model even if you’re mega ug? So annoying haha.
I’ve heard stories of her notorious diva complex from opera singer friends of mine. There are many big and larger than life personalities in the opera world, so having Jupiter as a chart ruler doesn’t seem surprising. I agree though, at least she was a diva that could back her reputation up with some real talent.
I have Pluto on my MC, not exact, but only one degree away! Does that mean I’ll gain enduring fame through some kind of destructive action? If I did become famous for any reason I would likely resent it, because I have absolutely no desire for fame and honestly can’t understand the whole reality tv set and their drive for fame and celebrity status. Ugh…I shudder and break up into hives just thinking about that kind of invasion of privacy.
*break out, that is lol
Maybe Pluto on the MC means that you could reinvent yourself like Madonna does and people would love you anyway? That your public is entranced by your (hopefully) tawdry love affairs and break-ups and can’t get enough of seeing you leave nightclubs plastered and with your mascara running down your face?!
Pluto conj MC = mogul?? Pluto’s desire to be hidden doesn’t seem congruous with MC out there placement but from memory it’s a major mogul placement. Mega wealth/riches from your calling. Doesn’t mean you’ll be in the social pages though
Just random thinking, you prolly need an experts opinion.
oh she is gorgeous!!!!
close but still no capricorn ! i am the rules.
lovely mystic, i adore such willpower as callas must have possessed! however, sadly it seems it wasn’t her who did not want to get married but him. she had a stillborn child with him, as a biographer found out (there were hospital archives), and soon after onassis went off to marry jackie kennedy… but he paid for her apartment in paris and made sure in his will she could live there until her death (he died ’75, she died two years later).
Yep, Onassis totally fuqd with her head. His ego was way too big for her art – he needed someone there all the time, someone with no other passion than him – and she gave him that for a while…denying her art for the sake of love, til he went off with Jaqui in a huff when she went back to singing for a while.
Military discipline? They say she swallowed a tape worm (along with other extreme forms of self-denial) to become the slim slyph we see in picture above. She was fat, before. They also say that it was her extreme weight loss and efforts to say that way that whittled away her diaphragm muscles (support for the voice) and the best of her voice.
Oh, oh, but listen to this woman sing, if you have never done so before. Fuq La Stupenda. THIS woman had a quality to her voice, and her delivery, that just makes me cry buckets, in a way no other female opera voice I have ever heard has done. I have sung opera, and taught singing.
It’s the pain, you see. Her personal pain and understanding of how it is to be fat, lonely and fuqed over added another dimension to every note.
I, too, am sure that her chart – at least the asc – is wrong. I read somewhere she had Scorp asc, in another chart, and personally, I am sticking to that interpretation. It absolutely fits everything about her. The extreme will. The self-transformation. The depths of despair. The willingness to sacrifice her own fame for love and the shattering betrayal she experienced. The ability to feel and convey the deepest depths of feeling that was in her voice….
oh, yeah, and I forgot the self-destruction, another scorp asc classic: destroying her own voice in an effort to become what she thought she needed to be to attract the love and loyalty she thought she was unworthy of: skinny.
Oh, that wasn’t meant to appear anonymously…
She is amazing, how nice to read how and why! I can’t believe she is Saggi! She always vibed so powerful and intense in Scorpio way to me.
True, I must admit, I wished she were a Scorp! A great role model for all artists. But then again, she was so little calculating, so naive even in certain respects that she could not possibly be a Scorp… For example she went on tour when she’d lost much of her voice already with di Stefano, whose voice was decaying; where was her pride? Why did she let Onassis get married to Jackie? No cunning scheme there… anywhere.
So interesting Fi! To me it vibes very ‘carpe diem’ and actually rather Sagg to be so careless about her voice. Sagg as Sun sign and rising and Jupiter? Well Saggi’s like to have it all with such enthusiasm and wanton recklessness… They think they will always pull through. Fancy eating a tape worm to get thin?
The pain in her voice is amazing, almost to the point I have found her amazing talent a bit hard to take! She is Pluto in Cancer in the 7th if the birth time (which seems widely accepted) is correct. So sad about her baby to Onassis.
And Scorpy, I agree there isn’t much of a cunningness there at all!
Agree that Onassis totally screwed her over. He was one of those types of men who think women are objects to be collected, like yachts or cars but she just adored him (there’s no accounting for taste). She spent so many years working at perfecting her art, she kind of had arrested development in other areas and loved him with a teenager’s intensity I think. I think it threatened his ego that this woman was a great artist, way more important than him, so he trashed her.
I heard she put a photo of Audrey Hepburn on her fridge and was determined to achieve a similar figure. She was eating a lot of steak tartare (raw steak with an egg cracked over it I think – blee) to lose this weight and that’s how she got a tapeworm. It was an accident. But she went with it.
I don’t think it ruined her voice. That is more likely jealousy that such a brilliant singer turned out to be quite the looker (I’ve always had a thing for black eyeliner because of her) and dressed beautifully.
Her voice was wrecked quite early on. With opera singers, deciding at what point to sing certain roles is almost a science. The more vocally demanding the role, the older a singer should be when they first sing it. There’s one particular role, Abigail in Nabucco by Verdi, which is considered a voice destroyer and shouldn’t be attempted by a soprano until she is at least in her early 30s, late 30s would be better. Callas sang it when she was 21. That’s a certain sagittarian recklessness right there. But taking on vocally difficult roles too early was what damaged her voice, not the weight loss.
I remember seeing Germaine Greer talking about Callas’ iron will and she speculated that Callas actually suicided by willing her heart to give out. Cripes!!
Oops – forgot to fill in my name.