ERDEM Autumn Winter 2024

The production was like alchemy. Callas did not play the role; she inhabited a persona with such force to the point that the boundary between artist and performance vanished. Disbelief, suspended utterly. The collection explores the thin realm between myth and reality, on stage and off stage, dressed and undressed, person and persona, sorcery and seduction.

Here is a woman with a voice at the height of her powers commanding a world stage, far beyond the theatre. There are otherworldly feelings at play, too. The pagan resonance of myth and legend trickles down time from Ancient Greece to Modern Europe. Callas channels passion, pain and vengeance in a beat.

Like Medea, Callas was uprooted. Born in America as a Greek national, her talent would consign her to a nomadic and chaotic life. The absence of home was poignant and profound. Her voice is described as raw, underpinned by an aching or yearning that lent itself to tragedy. She belonged on the stage - but a stage is not a home. Callas retired in 1965 and withdrew from the public eye, dying alone in Paris in 1977. Her ashes were returned to Greece where they were scattered in the Aegean Sea.