From Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan

I don't think anybody can learn about Opera without hearing this name: Maria Callas. She continues to be without a doubt one of the most prominent figures in the history of this beautiful art. Born in New York in 1923 to Greek parents, George Kalogeropoulos and Evangelina Dimitriadou, She showed musical talents at a very young age and was even forced by her mother to sing all the time. Callas didn't quite enjoy it in the beginning. After her parents divorced, she moved out of New York and into Greece along with her mother and her sister. Her sister was, to put it one way, the "Marcia Brady" of the Callas family. Beautiful and slender, she was the one who was sure to find a husband and a life of her own. Maria Callas on the other hand was somewhat overweight, very clumsy and a really sensitive and insecure girl. All her mother could see in her was a voice, I can only imagine how hard this must have been for Callas.

After arriving in Athens, Greece, Callas began to develop an interest in music so she put her talents to good use. She studied music in a conservatory in Athens and her teacher was mesmerized by her extraordinary voice. Callas was said to have been an excellent student. She was a perfectionist, she nailed every note and studied every Aria syllable by syllable or even almost letter by letter. She had an amazing sight-singing technique which allowed her to easily learn many different roles in Operas.

Her career started to flourish in Italy when after singing in the most important theatres in Athens, was invited to sing in Verona. It was here where she met the man who was to be her husband for ten years: Giovanni Battista Meneghini.

Callas was off to an excellent career path, blowing everyone away with her outstanding soprano voice; The only thing that possibly bothered her at this time, with an already successful start, was her body. She was still quite overweight. Some directors and producers even complained about this, they saw a very big girl and had a hard time picturing her in certain costumes and singing alongside certain tenors.

Maria knew she had to do something. It is said that one of her inspirations to becoming later so slender, was the Belgium actress Audrey Hepburn. So, in the course of only one year, the soprano lost about 80 pounds. She became this beautiful, elegant and classy woman that many couldn't recognize her after the weight loss. Many claim this played a role in her later vocal decline, although nothing is certain. Callas also lived a very stressful life and sung a wide range of opera roles throughout most of her career. At the beginning of her career she sang Wagner and Bellini on the same week, for those of you who don't understand a lot about Opera, I mean, it's like running a marathon with a bad knee; it's extremely demanding for the voice to sing two extremely different styles of music. I urge you to download some of Wagner's Operas and then some of Bellini's, you'll hear what I'm talking about. So this I think played a bigger role in her vocal decline than her weight loss, she was constantly straining her voice.

As for her voice, many claim that it didn't have a beautiful sound. I partly agree. I think although she didn't have a beautiful timbre like let's say amazing Mirella Freni (download!), she did know exactly how to operate her voice which is not something you can say of most sopranos nowadays.

She had an exquisite precision and her musicality was just perfection, kind of like Mozart's ability to compose, Maria had the ability of sending her voice in places no other singer had taken it before. One other thing about Maria, she had an incredible natural dramatic talent. If you download some of the Arias she sang, you'll soon pick all the emotions she's constantly eroding in her singing, again another thing that you cannot say about singers today.

Having studied theatre for several years now, I can't stand it when I see how unaware opera singers are of the importance of acting or interpreting in a performance. Opera is theatre! I mean, you have a script, you have a story, characters, a scenario, costumes, lights, a beginning a middle and an end, I mean do I need to explain more?

I do acknowledge the sole importance of the music, it is definitely a priority in opera, but that should not put acting last, both should really go hand-in-hand.

If you look at some of Maria Callas' performance on You Tube, you'll see what I'm talking about. She has this uncanny ability to get into the character's skin. She feels what the character is saying and conveys it exceptionally well. This is one of the reasons she captivated her audiences, because she made them believe that she was actually going through those emotions, she told the characters' story in a very realistic way.

Unfortunately, very little attention is paid to acting in opera today. Very few singers make their stories plausible which can be one of the reasons many people think opera is boring. The audience needs to see the actor/singer affected by what's going on on stage, they need to see them react to everything that the story unravels.

So if you're still wondering why Maria Callas was so big in her time, and still is, I suggest you take a look into her bio online and see for yourself that this diva, a.k.a. La Divina, revolutionized the way of performing opera. She opened a path to many other opera singers. She invited us to really get into it and not take any single note or word for granted. Most important of all, she made opera worldly popular, she revived it.

Oh, The Weather Outside is Frightful

Never underestimate someone when they tell you Milan has a cold winter. And come to think of it, it's not even winter yet! Go figure...


On the "Milanese" note, I'll have to take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about the Lombard capital.



For years I've heard harsh comments about Milan. "It's dirty", "There's nothing to see", "It's boring", "Milanese are rude" and so on. When I first came to Milan, to be honest, I didn't think much of the city, it certainly didn't make a big impact on me. As destiny worked its ways, I ended up getting into a relationship with none other than a Milanese. This brought me a lot closer to the city, since at the time I was studying in Madrid, Spain and we had to take turns in visiting each other. I started really appreciating the historical, artistic and cultural richness of the city. Now, Milan is no Rome, it doesn't have the impressive coliseum or the roman ruins or the great Vatican City, but it has definitely been as important in history.



Being in the center of northern Italy, and neighbouring so many other regions and countries, Milan has been the victim of many quests, in which it has lost many of its monuments and precious possessions, leaving us with what we know today. If you go on a tour that stops in Milano, you'll see that most tours take you to the usual: Il Duomo, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, La Scala (if you're lucky) and Il Castello Sforzesco. This would encompass a third of what you can really see in this beautiful city.


Il Duomo (above in picture) is the fourth largest Cathedral in the European Union, it's a perfect example of the era's Gothic architecture, and believe me when I say this, I've been in there hundreds of times and every single time it mesmerizes me. Its beauty and perfection are just breath-taking.

If you do your own research before visiting this amazing city, you'll find that it holds some of history's most interesting sites since it was ruled and conquered by so many ethnic groups including Romans, Visigoths, Longobards (which gave the province its name), Celtics and was even under Spanish, French, Austrian and German power. The only unfortunate thing is that because everyone wanted a piece of Milan, there were countless wars hence the lack of fully-standing monuments today.



If Milan is in your future traveling plans, go to the following website which has a lot of info on tours, worth-seeing sites and a lot more. It's a Milanese page so it's trust-worthy:
http://www.visitamilano.it/


On that cold note, I was sitting here wondering why I suddenly started gaining weight and I asked myself one question:

Could the weather have something to do with it?

Ever since it got cold, I noticed my appetite has increased considerably so I did a little research online... It turns out cold weather is indeed a factor in increased appetite. From what I read, it so happens that during winter our bodies need to store more fat in order to keep its temperature and energy stable or at a rate that allows us to continue performing our day-to-day activities.

It does actually make perfect sense in obvious ways. So there it is, cold weather can definitely trigger our appetite; of course, being from the U.S. West Coast, more specifically from South Cal, I never had to worry about a thing like this given that we have pretty decent weather and it's almost always sunny. Can't say the same thing about Milan...

So this definitely makes losing weight a difficult challenge and it gets even more difficult as we're now moving into the year's most festive season with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's coming up. The problem is they're not one-day holidays, oh no, they're the extended kind; there's always parties, gatherings, work get-togethers, soirees and so on. In other words: endless invitations to all kinds of overeating fests. Now, I love food and I love cooking, so if you're anything like me, who can resist the exquisite tradition of baking cookies and pumpkin pies? Not me that's a given!

Tell me, how does one manage to stay out of the temptation zone? And in addition to that, how does one manage to stay out of the temptation zone in a country like Italy?

If you've been to Italy or like Italian food (who doesn't?!), you probably know that there's no need for a holiday to make us crave everything we see. I mean, I'm talking about the country that introduced us to Gelato (for you beginners that's Italian ice cream...), Biscotti (who's real name is Cantuccini), Pizza, Pasta and Panettone to name a few. Ah, my mouth is watering; now, can you imagine a holiday season in Italy...with cold weather? S-C-A-R-Y.

I'll throw another question at you, how do Italians manage to stay moderately fit?

E.G. I've been recently watching my boyfriend's sister's eating habits and let me tell you it's no conventional Mediterranean diet that's for sure. To give you an idea: the other night she had a plate of Gnocchi, which is a pasta-type dish made of potatoes, Mortadella, which is the Italian name of our Baloney (since it's mainly from the region of Bologna, Italy), and as dessert Torta del Paese which is a chocolate-nut based cake that is popular in the region. Oh yes, and to wash everything down, she had an Italian soda. Can you imagine the fat, the carbohydrates, the sugar and the calories this meal contained? I can't give you an exact number but it's undoubtedly too high. Oh, and I forgot to mention she almost never works out and she drives, she's not one of those I-have-to-walk-everywhere Europeans. If I did this, I couldn't get away with it like she does, I mean she's F-I-T fit.

This makes me want to write my own version of "French Women Don't Get Fat" except of course my book's title would be: "Italian Women Don't Get Fat Either". Kind of like its sequel, or its companion.

But as I said on my last post that we shouldn't look at someone Else's greener grass, I know I must focus on how my own body reacts to certain foods or eating habits and learn which ones I need to stay away from.

So while the weather outside is indeed frightful, it lets me go running every morning without fainting or dehydrating under an otherwise hot California sun.

I guess all big changes take time to adjust to and this is what we have to do: take it one day at a time. Have a great day everyone!

How Green Was Everyone Else's Valley

A classic by John Ford, of course, his was titled: How Green Was My Valley and it has nothing to do with my own. For some reason the grass can always be greener, still don't know why but other people's lives seem so easy and perfect from the outside, or do they?

I talked to one of my closest friends on the phone the other day, she's back in beautiful sunny California, and she was telling me all about her problems with her boyfriend. How he took her for granted, how he didn't call her everyday first thing in the morning, how she told me she missed him and that she wanted to marry him and that she was terrified of losing him. In short, she sounded as insecure as I've never heard her before.

As I said in "The Icebreaker", being overweight has been somewhat easy for me, of course there's always a rude comment here and there although I forget all about them as soon as I hit Starbucks, but generally speaking, people were cool with me being fat, they were used to it. I never really thought much about it but I realize that I've been surrounded by a lot of overweight people in my life. Most of my cousins were overweight, a lot of the friends I hung out with in California were overweight too, at least my closest ones; so I guess I always had that we're-on-the-same-boat kind of relief.

Well, it didn't last long. I don't know what happened, but it was suddenly an epidemic. EVERYONE was losing weight. I would hear things like: "Remember so and so how she used to be one of the heaviest girls in school? Guess what? She's like super skinny now, she wears a size 6!" That was only the start, these were people I knew incidentally, but almost never really saw. It got really bad when MY friends got it too, the let's-look-like-Paris-Hilton disease. I'm not kidding, 10 out of the 15 heavy girls I knew, all wear a size 4 or 6 now. Sooooooo unfair.

Yes, I feel evil. You know how people say how you're supposed to be very happy for your friends' newly-found happiness and all, and in part I was, don't get me wrong I was ecstatic for them, but I felt somehow betrayed, I was alone on my frickin' boat. Even though I knew how selfish and wrong it was, or it is, I feel alone. I feel like I'm now the freak that doesn't belong in their new world, and I've always hated the skinny behaviour: "No thanks, I'm full" "Are you seriously gonna eat that?" "You're hungry already?" "Oh, I had a super heavy breakfast (a bowl of fruit) and I can't really put anything in my mouth right now" " Oh my gosh, have you seen how fat I look? (she wears a size 4)" Gee, If you're fat then I guess that makes me Shamu. I've always hated how they can go all day without a bite to eat. How they never savor anything, how we're eating and all they talk about is how healthy are the choices they made and how they're going to spend the rest of the day burning them. It almost feels like we're from a different species. I feel like crap every time I hear these things, am I wrong?

I don't want to be the kind of person that envies her friends, but I guess in the end that's just the truth: I'm jealous. It's evil but it's honest. I'm jealous that they were able to do it while I never got the damn disease! And now it's so hard when we go out because we don't have that in common anymore, now they barely eat which makes me feel guilty every time I take a bite from my meal, then they go shopping and I can no longer shop at the same departments and sometimes not even the same shop! It's humiliating, I just don't feel part of my friends' life anymore and it's somehow ridiculous because we're friends! We're supposed to just forget about our now physical differences and just talk about something else, religion, politics, art, movies, WHATEVER! But as much as I want it to be the same it isn't. They can't seem to talk about anything else other than dieting, shopping for a size 4 and how proud they are of themselves. I'm happy to celebrate this because deep down inside I'm really happy for them and I really admire them for what they've accomplished, but come on, do we have to talk about this all the time? I don't know where I stand anymore, am I being too selfish? Could I be right? Should I feel evil? It's really hard to say.

Going back to my close friend, the one I talked to on the phone, she drove me nuts. She made me angry because she was acting like a wimp when she's everything but. She's one of my friends who used to be really heavy. Now she's a size 6 or 4 and she's going for a size 2. She of course looks beautiful now, she's always been, but she's even more radiant now, and I guess it's because she feels a lot better about her body; but to be honest, she sounded as insecure as she was when she was overweight and this is why I got angry. She used to complain about not having the body she wanted, she never went out, NEVER, she locked herself in her house and missed out on meeting great people and having some real fun. Now she's got this boyfriend who has her eating out of his hand! He calls the shots! He's the one in control! I wanted to kill her for giving him that power. She has EVERYTHING to be happy and to reassure herself, she's from a wealthy family, also has never had to worry about money ever in her life, she goes on trips, cruises, shopping sprees, anything, and she's beautiful, smart, has a stable job, I can't see any reason why she should feel that insecure. I lashed out, I told her that she needed to get a grip, that she was an amazing person and she could have any guy she wanted, even the shallow ones now that she's thin, the thing is, she seems to have everything and every reason to be happy, but then again does she?

Was I judging too quickly? Because maybe her valley is not as green as it seems, this is what I'm starting to learn, that we shouldn't look at someone else's valley, without knowing what really goes on inside and assume that just because they SEEM to have everything it means it's true.

There are so many valleys that seem a lot greener than mine, all these girls that finally won the battle against obesity, but what I'm forgetting is that it doesn't mean all your problems magically disappear with the lost pounds, life can still be a bitch even when it seems like you have it all, so I decided to be a better friend and just be there for her, not just assume that she's and idiot for not feeling like she's high on skinny-life all the time.

It all comes down to one conclusion: I have to do the work! I want to lose weight? Then I have to get to work, it took a lot of hard work for them too. So I guess I have to stop nosing around and focus on making my own valley green, right?

The Icebreaker

I moved to Milan, Italy recently to pursue a career in classical singing, a.k.a. Opera for most people. It turns out, it's not at all easy, I sometimes think it's even impossible. I came here with almost no money, to stay at my long-time Milanese boyfriend's house and to audition for a good music school. All these schools ask for so many things, things I didn't know I couldn't give them but as it turns out, I failed both auditions I took and I am now stuck here, without anything to do, considering I can't pay for any private lessons, and about to go out of my mind. I chose to do something I've always been really good at: overeating.

Yes. I've always loved food. You could say I'm an emotional eater; you know how you hear from most people that have meltdowns how they lose their appetite, yeah well, that has NEVER happened to me, and when I say never, I mean NEVER. So yes, I'm an emotional eater, which would be OK if I only overate whenever a meltdown turned up, but the major problem is, I'm always emotional, ALWAYS. I overeat when I'm happy, when I'm not happy, when I'm pissed, when I'm tired, when I'm sick, you name it, I just can never seem to stop eating.

As most dieters, I've tried just about everything: pills, weight watchers, the moon diet, the soup diet, the South Beach Diet, therapists (to deal with the emotional stuff...) going solo, just everything I can think of. There was nothing wrong with these diets, if you follow them they definitely work, that's their purpose, but I discovered that while I was on them I never came around to accepting the most important thing about me: I just LOVE eating. I do. I even have dreams about eating lots of cupcakes and stuff (embarrassing!) I always tried making everyone else believe that I didn't eat that much, that I was careful, that I exercised, that I might have something that's keeping me from losing weight, you know, a "mysterious" disease.....(I love this one) Anyway, I just kept filling everyone with excuses that only ended up hurting myself. So there, I'll just say it: I'm a faithful over eater.

So what's the problem? In America being overweight is not unusual, have you checked out our obesity statistics? It's crazy, we're the number one with the problem. And in a way, it's cool when you're fat, there's fat acceptance groups, people don't stare at you when you're walking down the street, almost nobody picks on you because obesity has become a part of our daily lives, it's more normal than ever so what's my problem? I refuse to accept myself like this.

No matter how much people go on and on about how appearance doesn't matter (sadly it does) and how they say you should be liked just as you are, and how you need to learn to love yourself no matter what and that being fat is not at all that bad. I don't believe any of this. I do believe everyone should love themselves no matter the size, but the rest are just lame excuses to try and avoid the truth: being overweight is flat out dangerous, that's just reality, it just comes down to that really. We are slowly but steadily chopping off years of living and living well for that matter.

Beauty is on the inside....
Yes, I'm also a faithful believer in this, I do think in the end it comes down to this but let's face it:
I care about how I look. Especially now that the whole "opera singers are fat" movement is completely over (look at Ana Netrebko!). It also feels awesome to look in the mirror and be proud of who you see. Everyone of you out there that has lost weight before, or has been successful on a diet, knows that amazing feeling. Why can't we just say it: looking good feels amazingly great.

So why do we let ourselves become food's faithful followers when we know how much harm we're doing to ourselves? that's the purpose of this blog.

I've been at war with overweight for as long as I can remember, I am 27, too young for some, not so much for others, and I gotta tell ya that at this point, after countless attempts on losing weight, it feels as though I'll never get there; but I don't want to give up, I refuse to do it, I want to fight this war and win it, I want to be healthier and be proud of who stares back at me in the mirror, I want to invite anyone who's out there to join me in this quest, I really need your support, I have no one here in cold Milan (being the capital of fashion everyone here is pin-thin!!!) and I'm just looking for anyone who will share their story with me so we can hopefully encourage each other in fighting this.

The first acceptance step: I'm fat, at only 27 I weigh 205 lbs. I'm 5'5. Do the math.
My question is: Are you in?