CALLAS’ LETTERS GO UNSOLD
LATEST: Opera singer MARIA CALLAS’ passionate love letters have failed to sell after going under the hammer as part of a major auction of her personal belongings.
The world famous soprano’s private articles, including glamorous dresses, musical scores, 3,000 photographs and 5,000 pages of handwritten correspondence - some of which detail her desperate longing for a child - were released by the estate of her late husband, Italian industrialist Giovanni Meneghini.
They all went up for sale at Sotheby’s auction house in Milan, Italy, on Wednesday (12Dec07), but the letters - penned before and after her marriage to Meneghini - failed to attract a high enough bid and eventually went unsold.
They had originally been billed as the most valuable items in the sale, with a price tag of $100,000 (£50,000) - but bidding stalled at $55,860 (£27,930).
A spokesperson for Sotheby’s claimed the no sale could have been the result of reduced interest after the letters were published in an earlier book by Meneghini called, My Wife Maria Callas. The remaining lots are said to have sold well.
Callas died in 1977, aged 53.
Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com)
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