When Maria Callas died in her Paris apartment in 1977, she didn't just leave behind a void in the world of opera. She left behind a massive pile of money, a collection of world-class jewels, and absolutely no instructions on what to do with any of it. Basically, she died intestate. No will. No plan. Just a lot of expensive stuff and a long list of people who felt they were owed a piece of the "La Divina" legacy.
If you’re looking for a clean story where a favorite charity gets everything, honestly, you’re going to be disappointed. The battle over who inherited Maria Callas fortune is a saga of estranged family members, a bitter ex-husband, and a "friend" who many believe was a total fraud. It’s exactly the kind of drama Callas would have performed on stage at La Scala, only this time, it was real life.
The Eight Million Dollar Question
At the time of her death, Callas’s estate was valued at roughly $8 million. In 1977, that was a staggering amount of money. Because she hadn't written a will, French law (she died in Paris) and her Greek heritage created a legal vacuum.
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By default, the money was supposed to go to her next of kin. That meant her mother, Evangelia, and her sister, Jackie. Here’s the kicker: Callas hated her mother. She hadn't spoken to her in years. Evangelia had famously blackmailed her daughter and sold stories to the press, yet suddenly, she was the primary heir to a multi-million dollar fortune.
Enter the Ex-Husband
Just as the family was preparing to collect, Giovanni Battista Meneghini showed up. He was the Italian industrialist Callas had married early in her career. They had been separated since 1959 when she left him for the shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, but they were never technically divorced under Italian law at the time.
Meneghini produced a will from 1954. It was ancient by legal standards, but it named him as her sole heir. He claimed that since they were still legally married in the eyes of Italy, the $8 million belonged to him.
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The situation was a total mess. You had:
- The Mother and Sister: Hated by Maria, but legally her "blood" heirs.
- The Ex-Husband: Armed with a 20-year-old document and a legal technicality about their marriage status.
- The "Best Friend": Vasso Devetzi, a pianist who had maneuvered her way into Callas's inner circle during her final, lonely years.
How the Fortune Was Finally Split
Nobody wanted a decades-long court battle. It would have eaten up the entire estate in legal fees. So, in 1978, a deal was struck. It wasn't pretty, but it was practical.
The estate was essentially split down the middle. Meneghini took 50%, and Callas’s mother and sister took the other 50%. This included the cash, the rights to her recordings, and her personal effects.
But wait, it gets weirder.
Vasso Devetzi convinced the mother and sister to give her power of attorney. She claimed she was going to set up a "Maria Callas Foundation" to help young singers. Instead, a lot of that money just... disappeared. When Devetzi died in 1987, it was discovered that she had likely funneled millions into her own pockets. Director Franco Zeffirelli, a close friend of Callas, didn't hold back—he straight up called Devetzi a "vulture" who exploited the singer’s death.
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The Jewelry Mystery
While the cash was being carved up, people forgot about the jewelry. Or rather, they didn't know where it was. Callas had two sets of famous gems.
- The Meneghini Jewels: These were pieces her husband bought her during their marriage, often to celebrate her opening nights.
- The Onassis Jewels: Lavish gifts from the man who eventually broke her heart to marry Jackie Kennedy.
For years, nobody knew where the most famous pieces were. Then, in 2004, some of it suddenly appeared at a Sotheby’s auction. It turns out that when Meneghini died in 1981, he left his portion of the Callas fortune to his housemaid, Emma Brutti.
Imagine being a housemaid and inheriting some of the most famous rubies and diamonds in history.
Why This Still Matters for Collectors
If you’re a fan or a collector, the way the estate was handled explains why Callas memorabilia is scattered all over the place. There isn't one central "Callas Museum" that owns everything because the inheritance was fragmented from day one.
- Sotheby's Auctions: Periodically, items from the Meneghini or Devetzi branches of the inheritance hit the market.
- The Foundation: While the initial foundation was sketchy, there are legitimate organizations now, like the Maria Callas Estate, that try to manage her image rights.
- The Archives: Many of her personal letters and scores ended up in institutional archives because the heirs simply wanted the cash and sold the paper.
The Actionable Reality of the Callas Legacy
If you’re researching the diva or interested in how celebrity estates work, the Callas story is a cautionary tale. It’s the ultimate "write a will" advertisement.
If you want to support her actual legacy today, don't look for the people who got the money. Look at the institutions that preserved her recordings. The fortune was divided among people she mostly disliked, but the music remains in the public domain or under the control of Warner Classics (who bought EMI).
What you can do next:
- Check Provenance: If you ever see "Callas memorabilia" for sale, look for the Meneghini or Sotheby's 2004/2007 labels. Those are the only ways to verify the item actually came from the estate.
- Support Legitimate Foundations: Look into the Greek Maria Callas Society. Unlike the early "foundations," modern groups are focused on the museum in Athens, which finally opened to give her items a permanent home.
- Read the Memoirs: If you want the "insider" (albeit biased) view of the inheritance, Meneghini’s book My Wife Maria Callas explains his side of why he felt entitled to every penny.
The fortune is gone, divided, and spent. But the fact that we're still talking about who got her jewelry nearly fifty years later proves that Maria Callas's real wealth wasn't in her bank account—it was in her voice.