Portrait of Maria Callas
Maestro Silvano Caselli, who painted innumerable portraits of great personalities of our century from Mann to Croce to Strauss, from Stravinsky to Toscanini, from Gide to Berenson and Pope John, Anna Magnani and Colette, etc. has kept his promise made during his last visit to Venice following the fire at the Fenice of January 29, 1996, when his most beloved work was lost in the flames: a portrait of Maria Callas, painted by him in 1957; the only portrait for which La Diva ever posed. It was commissioned by her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini. Caselli has now created a new portrait showing a detached Callas with the Teatro La Fenice in flames as a background.

Fire is the element which shared the destiny of Maria Callas as well as that of The Teatro La Fenice; in fact, the great Primadonna committed suicide in the flames of Pasolini's Medea. And in this way, as if by her own will, flames consumed her body, the ashes of which were scattered on the waters of her beloved Aegean: "Put me there in the sea in which I was born". The incomparable artistic talent and greatness of Maria Callas establishes her earthly memory with the intensity of her gaze.

In this manner, Silvano Caselli wanted to wish the Teatro La Fenice en equal destiny of immortality following its destruction, an inescapable eternal life following its reconstruction, to which the painter wanted to contribute.

Edition	Size	Price
1850 numbered copies	cm 50x70	75 € (66 USD) (postal charges included)