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The stage name of Maria Callas was neither the first nor the last under which the most acclaimed soprano of all time appeared on the stage. Her name was in constant evolution, as shown by the divergence between the Greek registry (in her family's homeland) and the American registry (in her country of birth), along with variants of her baptismal certificate, family habits, theatrical debut and recording career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italian 19th-century opera can be read through certain semiotic categories, which can explain many dramaturgical implications otherwise unaccountable. With the help of a few musical examples, the following concepts are tackled: performative and constative musical act, emblem (as type of expression), pheme (as totality of the pertinent traits of the type of the expression), ratio facilis and ratio difficilis, exteroceptive and interoceptive function of the emblem, denotative and connotative function, delegation of the emblem to the orchestra. KEY WORDS Opera, melodramma, dramaturgy, word-setting, stereotypes, conventionality.