Renowned female opera singer Maria Callas will be given a new lease of life when she is portrayed by one of the world’s leading actresses in a biopic being released this week.
Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has been tipped for an Oscar for bringing acclaimed opera singer Maria Callas to life on screen even before the movie is released on Friday, January 10.
Her transformation into the famed diva, who had a tumultuous private life, is being hailed as a career defining performance.
It seems fitting that the film’s director Pablo Larraín chose the screen star to portray the singer, as both women have experienced the extraordinary highs and lows of fame, romantic heartbreak and serious health challenges.
And not only does the Hollywood diva look like the strikingly beautiful Callas, she even trained for months as a singer in order to sound like the soprano.
Film-goers will hear a mixture of both of their voices when the biopic written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, which focuses on Callas’s final years living in Paris, can be seen in cinemas across the UK.
She died alone in her apartment in the French capital in 1977 after suffering a heart attack at the age of just 53.
Callas had sung for audiences across the world but, like Jolie, was as famous for her turbulent love life as her work.
At the heart of the film is the relationship between the American-Greek singer and Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
While they never married, they were together for nearly a decade after meeting in Venice in the summer of 1957.
At this time Callas was married to Giovanni Meneghini but the attraction was as instant as when Jolie met the then-married Brad Pitt on the set of Hollywood blockbuster Mr and Mrs Smith.
“We were the most famous Greeks alive in the world,” Onassis said at the time.
Oliver Mears, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, said: “Maria Callas is one of the few universally recognisable icons of our opera world, her appeal is truly global.
“Covent Garden was Callas’s special home and so many of her most memorable performances were here.
“Every artist channels their own experiences into their art and Callas’s life was more extraordinary than most, and you can hear it in the way she sings – that force, that vulnerability.”
The passionate, tempestuous relationship between Onassis and Callas was tabloid fodder for years, ending in heartbreak for the singer when Onassis married Jackie Kennedy in 1968.
Mr Larraín said: “I think Aristotle Onassis was the love of her life, and I think they had different moments through their relationship.
“They were very often close in the 1970s after he split with Jackie, but it was somehow a toxic relationship, I think, as well.”
Callas was born in New York to Greek immigrant parents in 1923. At the age of 13, she moved to Athens with her mother and sister, and enrolled in the Athens Conservatory, where she underwent rigorous vocal training in the Italian “bel canto” tradition.
She began her professional career at 17, often financially supporting her family and had a difficult relationship with her mother, whom she felt pushed her to work from a young age.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, her career blossomed and her breakthrough came in 1949 with a performance of La Gioconda at the Verona Arena.
Her international reputation was solidified with performances at La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Renowned for her vocal agility and ability to convey a wide range of emotions, she was also a trailblazer who broke down barriers for women in opera, demanding equal pay and challenging the status quo.
But by the mid-1950s she began to experience vocal difficulties that led to cancellations.
Theories about the cause of her decline ranged from over-exertion to drastic weight loss.
Like many female performers she felt under immense pressure to be slim. Medical evidence suggests she may have suffered from dermatomyositis, an autoimmune disease that can affect muscle function, including vocal cords.
Jolie, 49, was joined on set by two of the children she shares with former husband Pitt, 61, Maddox and Pax, who took on roles as production assistants for the film.
She has also dealt with health issues, undergoing a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery after learning she had a significantly elevated risk of developing breast cancer due to mutation of the BRCA1 gene.
The actress also had surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes.
Jolie said: “The character has a lot of pain and they’ve of course seen me go through a lot of things, but they hadn’t experienced me expressing a lot of the pain that usually a parent hides from a child.
“So they were there to witness some of that, but then we would hug or they would bring me cups of tea.”
Now, almost 50 years on from her death Mr Mears says he hopes the film will bring opera to a new audience.
“I’m sure this film will bring opera to people who haven’t encountered it before. From the incredible music and spectacular sets to the gripping drama on stage. It’s for everyone.
“Opera explores the full range of human emotion and the stories told have themes that we can all relate to including love, friendship, joy, grief and betrayal.”
Peter Katona, the Royal Opera House’s director of casting, adds: “I saw her live on stage only in one of her final concert appearances in Frankfurt 1973 or 1974.
“It was desperately sad – she had no voice anymore, she was almost inaudible – but nevertheless mesmerising to the audience.
“Hearsay has it that she was ‘difficult’ and certainly diva-like, but others say it was always in the service of the music and the art.”
For Mr Larraín, Maria is the finale of his trilogy of films about iconic 20th century women, following Jackie, which starred Natalie Portman as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 2016 and Spencer, which starred Kristin Stewart as Princess Diana in 2021.
He says: “Maria and Jackie and Princess Diana were very strong women that conducted life the way that they wanted.
“They were people who were beloved when they were alive and remain icons today.”
*Maria is released in cinemas across the UK on Friday and is also available to stream on Netflix.
