Maria Callas Exhibition

The Maria Callas Alumni Association of the Music School of Kalamata on 2 December 2017 inaugurated the country’s first and most extensive organised exhibition dedicated to Maria Callas. The exhibition was set up in a specially designed room within the premises of the city’s Music School, which also serves as the headquarters of our Association.

The initial exhibits included seven letters from Maria Callas’s personal archive. Between 2017 to 2024, our archive was enriched and continues to expand thanks to the ongoing efforts of the Association, as well as the invaluable support and contributions of numerous institutions and individuals.

In 2023, to mark the Centenary of Maria Callas’s birth, we organised a special commemorative exhibition at the Gallery of Contemporary Greek Art of the Public Library of Kalamata, located within the city’s Cultural Centre. Alongside this exhibition, we also presented the most extensive programme of parallel events in the country, featuring film screenings, concerts, recitals, and more. The exhibition opened on 16 September 2023, with Mr. Robert Sutherland, Maria Callas’s personal friend and pianist, as honorary guest. The tremendous success of the Centenary exhibition, coupled with public interest, played a pivotal role in securing a permanent venue for the Maria Callas archive of our Association.

Thus, on 2 December 2024, our Association’s long-held dream of creating a permanent exhibition dedicated to Maria Callas became a reality. The exhibition was relocated from the Music School, expanded, and renewed, and it is now permanently housed on the third floor of the Kalamata Municipal Cultural Centre, “Pantazopouleios Public School” in the heart of the city.

The exhibition, which is free to visit, is also a “rotating” display, meaning that exhibits are periodically changed. Visitors can view, among other items, several letters from Maria Callas’s personal archive, five photographs that Callas had kept in her private collection at her apartment on Avenue Georges Mandel in Paris, a photograph portrait of Maria Callas by Angus McBean autographed by her, a photograph from a performance of Medea in Epidaurus autographed by the tenor Jon Vickers, and one from her pianist and personal friend Robert Sutherland, signed in Kalamata at the opening of the 2023 exhibition.

Additionally, the space features a collection of periodicals such as TIME magazine, Le Point, and EIKONES, along with programmes from performances and recitals, including one of her last stage appearance in an opera. The exhibition also includes a pair of Maria Callas’s gloves, the commemorative gold medal (on loan from the Gallery of Contemporary Greek Art of the Kalamata Municipal Cultural Centre) by sculptor Nikos Perantinos, selected photographs illustrating her career and personal life, as well as original newspapers containing reviews, interviews, and feature articles.

Our archive, in its entirety, consists of hundreds of photographs, approximately 400 newspapers, 30 programmes, 4 autographs, letters, 15 magazines, books, records, portraits, posters, and more, with the number of items continuously increasing. This is made possible thanks to the invaluable support of our Association’s donors, whom we sincerely thank for their contribution.