Putting life and music back into Maria Callas’ home

The downtown Athens house where Maria Callas spent her youth, from 1937 to 1945, will be restored and turned into an opera academy dedicated to the legendary Greek soprano. The roughly 1,500-square meter Patission Street edifice was built in 1925 and is regarded as a Jugendstil jewel. “For a long time abandoned to time and the elements, [the building] evoked mixed feelings. Even though it was associated with the glamour of Maria Callas, its image did not correspond to what it should be,” Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis said on Friday during the announcement of the project, which will be bankrolled entirely with European Union funds. [City of Athens/Via AMNA]