Judged by her incandescent fame and her extraordinary voice and dramatic talent, Maria Callas should have led a sublimely happy life. Yet betrayal and tragedy were her constant companions. Without doubt the 20th-century's most celebrated operatic diva, she blazed new paths, set new standards and changed the face of opera forever. Callas is both icon and myth, her private life from birth to death indelibly coloured by passion, vulnerability, rejection, the madness of a voracious press and personal tragedy. The mystery of Callas's last days, the charlatan who preyed upon her, her private angst over Onassis, her thwarted affair with the homosexual Italian director Visconti and her traumatic New York childhood and youthful struggle to survive in war-torn Greece are told here in full. This account shows us the real Maria Callas, whose craving for affection and complex neurosis affected not only her life but her music.