Dear TIME-Reader:

AMONG the incidental expenses of our Rome bureau this month were such exotic items as "orchids for Maria," "champagne and caviar for Maria" and "food for Maria's poodle." The object of this tender solicitude was Soprano Maria Meneghini Callas. Her benefactor: Correspondent George de Carvalho of the Rome bureau, who did the bulk of the reporting on this week's cover story, starting with the arrangements for the cover portrait by Artist Henry Koerner.

Actually Miss Callas gave far more than she received, though it took some striving. Her first dinner meeting with De Carvalho in Milan went smoothly enough. "Ask me anything," she said. Long after midnight the questions were still coming, the soprano was still going, and her husband was muttering to George: "Never heard her talk like this to anyone before." But after another searching session at lunch the following day, Miss Callas cried enough.

That evening, after the dispatch of a dozen roses and a note ("American Beauties for an American beauty"), the talks were cordially resumed, and for two weeks flowers and interviews followed in nightly succession at the Callas home, restaurants, cafes and at recording sessions. Interspersed were interviews by De Carvalho and other TIME reporters in Italy and elsewhere with the singer's maids, masseuse, fitter, designer, critics, conductors, fellow singers, friends, foes and the chief of La Scala's claque. De Carvalho and his colleagues scoured Italy for leads. He flew 1,300 miles to Ankara to talk with Miss Callas' old singing teacher, thence to Athens for sessions with her mother and her Greek conservatory instructors.

But when all the returns were in, Pulitzer Prizewinner De Carvalho (he won it in 1952, when he was on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle) found he still had some gaps in his story. Wrung out, Miss Callas balked at yet another interview, but finally consented if De Carvalho would courier her poodle puppy Toy from Rome to Milan, which he did (see cut).

"You know more about me," said the world's top prima donna at the close of this last interview, "than my own family does."

Cordially yours,

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