A full 30 years after her death, diva Maria Callas, the most celebrated opera singer of the post-World War II period, remains both a favourite for opera-lovers and a legend outside the world of classical music.

A figure of high drama both on and off-stage, Callas died alone in her Paris apartment aged only 53 on 16 September 1977.

"The gods were bored, they beckoned back their voice," couture supremo Yves Saint Laurent said at the time.

Recordings of Callas, a versatile soprano with an unforgettable voice, have since featured almost permanently on music publisher EMI's catalogue, which estimates world sales up until now at around 30 million albums.

"What is extraordinary is that even three decades after her death Callas continues to speak to people, even to those who weren't even born when she died," Alain Lanceron, vice-president of EMI Classics, told AFP.

A versatile singer with a repertoire ranging from the flamboyant bel canto to more dramatic roles, the fascination for Callas lies first and foremost in her exceptional voice, a natural gift she perfected with hard work.

'She could do it all'

Born on 2 December 1923 in New York to Greek immigrant parents, Maria Kalogeropoulos — a name subsequently shortened by her father to Kalos then Callas — left for Athens in 1937 after her mother called a halt to her turbulent marriage.

There, on her over-bearing mother's insistence, she studied at the Athens Academy of Music with well-known Spanish soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, working on classical opera up to 10 hours a day. "She would listen to all my students, sopranos, mezzos, tenors... She could do it all," Hidalgo later recalled.

After moving to Italy at war's end on her teacher's advice, the career of the then heavy-set and severely short-sighted singer took off under the baton of Italian conductor Tullio Serafin (1947) and after her marriage in 1949 with Giovanni Battista Meneghini, an older wealthy industrialist who became her agent.

Transformation to 'La Callas'

Both men worked to turn the once plump and unhappy teenager into the glamorous singer gifted with dramatic talent who was to become sought after by opera houses the world over as 'La Callas'.

Through the 1950s the diva once described by Leonard Bernstein as "the bible of opera" impressed audiences with a rare flare for breathing life into the operatic characters she portrayed.

She played at Italy's La Scala, New York's Met, London's Royal Opera House and the Paris Opera under the direction of Herbert von Karajan, Bernstein and Georges Pretre, with special productions for Callas by Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli.

And vocally the "prima donna assoluta" excelled both as a tragic lyric artist (Cherubini's 'Medea') and in early 19th century Italian bel canto — typified by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti.

Often best remembered for Bellini's 'Norma' and her rendition of 'Casta diva', she helped prompt the renaissance of ornate bel canto.

"She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed," said soprano Montserrat Caballe in a documentary on Callas in the 1970s.

Her magical voice was controversial

Her magical voice was controversial. Able to range just short of three octaves — from F-sharp below middle C to E-natural above high C — Callas could encompass a dramatic soprano as Wagner's Isolde, a coloratura soprano as Donizetti's Lucia, a mezzo-soprano as Bizet's Carmen and mutate as Verdi's 'La Traviata'.

Many argued she had been a natural mezzo and others said her voice was a dramatic and colossal soprano before a dramatic weight loss in mid-career that lightened her pitch and may have affected the premature decline of her voice.

Long portrayed as the quintessential temperamental diva, the press highlighted her problems with her mother, her supposed rivalry with opera star Renata Tebaldi, and then her affair with Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis from 1950 until 1968, when he left her for Jackie Kennedy at a time when her voice was on the decline.

"First I lost weight, then I lost my voice, and then I lost Onassis", she said.

After retiring from the stage in 1965, Maria Callas died in the flat at 36 avenue Georges-Mandel in Paris where she had lived as a recluse since 1974, listening and relistening to recordings of her performances.

Very few images remain of Callas on stage, a fact that EMI's Lanceron said was both "a scandal" and a godsend. "The scarcity of footage means fans can fantasise over Callas and use their imagination to visualise her presence on stage."

AFP