Western classical music is having a pretty decent outing in the world of cinema. The run began with ‘Tár’ (2022), a psychological drama about fictional world-renowned conductor Lydia Tár whose life unravels after being accused of misconduct; and continued with ‘Maestro’ (2023), a biographical romantic drama about the relationship between American conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre. ‘The King of Covent Garden’, set during the period the famed German-British Baroque opera and oratorio composer George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) worked on his choral masterpiece ‘Messiah’ has living legend and two-time Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins playing the title role, and is slated for release later this year.
I recently watched ‘Maria’ (2024), an international co-production between Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States starring Angelina Jolie as the iconic opera singer Maria Callas (1923 – 1977), which follows the seven days before her 1977 death in Paris, as she reflects on her life and career.
‘Maria’ is the third film in Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of important 20th-century women, following ‘Jackie’ (2016), and ‘Spencer’ (2021). His approach to all three films has been more about the protagonist’s state of mind rather than a linear telling of her life story.
Jolie received a “rapturous” eight-minute standing ovation after the film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, bringing her to tears.
She spent seven months training to sing opera in order to prepare for the role. Jolie’s vocal coach Eric Vetro had her study a series of courses taught by Callas herself, to replicate as much as possible the diva’s formidable singing techniques.
In a televised interview with director Larraín for Vogue México y Latinoamérica, Jolie vouched for how life-changing the experience was. “I’ll say this to anybody and I’ll stand by it: Skip therapy for a year, and just go to opera class instead.” Why? “I really hadn’t understood how much we hold in our bodies, and how much through a lifetime we carry and how much it affects our sound.” She didn’t realise that her “real” voice was a softer, soprano timbre than the voice she felt she needed to use all her life thus far, in order to be heard.
“I love opera now; I listen to it all the time, more than anything. It’s very grounding. I wasn’t raised with opera, and was at first hesitant [to take on the role], but it [opera] is so deep in the human experience.”
Some purists have quibbled about Jolie’s use of her facial muscles “in the most operatic way possible” while singing, particularly in the opening aria (Verdi’s opera ‘Otello’ act 4: ‘Ave Maria’ (Desdemona)).
But to me that’s unnecessarily splitting hairs. What I appreciate is the choice of the music. For instance, the film begins (as it ends) with Callas’s death in her apartment. Desdemona’s singing of the Ave Maria (in Verdi’s ‘Otello’), in which she refers to those struck by “cruel destiny”, a “prayer at the hour of our death” takes on an autobiographical hue as Callas’s body is wheeled away.
Callas had more than her fair share of cruel destiny in her tragically short life, almost commensurate with the heights she attained in operatic singing to earn her the title ‘La Divina’, the Divine. It began with her childhood, growing up in a broken home, feeling unloved (“the ugly duckling, fat, clumsy and unpopular” in Callas’s own words) by a mother who wanted a son, but who then exploited the girl’s singing talent for money very early.
Once she achieved fame as a much sought-after soprano, Callas was relentlessly hounded by paparazzi and those envious of her powers, and the prying into her personal life, particularly the love triangle with Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy.
But Callas’s professional peers admired and respected her. Fellow soprano Montserrat Caballé (1933 – 2018) said, “[Callas] opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only great music but great idea of interpretation. She has given us the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly possible before her. That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream. It is not right. I am much smaller than Callas.”
Italian baritone Tito Gobbi (1913 -1984), who often co-starred with Callas, notably as Scarpia to her Tosca, called her “an artist unique in her generation and outstanding in the whole range of vocal history.”
Operatic conductor Victor Sabata (1892-1967) stated, “If the public could understand, as we do, how deeply and utterly musical Callas is, they would be stunned”, while his colleague Tullio Serafin (1878-1968) said, “This woman can sing anything written for the female voice,” calling her musicality “extraordinary, almost frightening.”
‘Maria’ gives us only teasing vignettes of Callas’s heyday through flashbacks. But what comes through is the love which went into every aspect of the film, from the smallest details in Callas’s Parisian apartment to the recreation of her home videos and archival footage of her greatest operatic roles.
The lyrics of so many signature arias take on an especial poignancy when superimposed on the twilight of Callas’s life. Take ‘Ebben! Ne andrò lontana’ (Well! I’ll go far away) from Catalani’s opera ‘La Wally’, “Where there is hope, there is [also] regret and pain. I’ll go alone and far away, like the echo of the pious bell, and among the golden clouds.” Or Elvira’s mad scene in Bellini’s ‘I Puritani’: “Ah, give me hope, or leave, let me die.”
Perhaps the most telling is ‘Vissi d’Arte’ from Puccini’s ‘Tosca’: “I lived on art; Always with sincere faith. In the hour of pain, why, why Lord, do you reward me like this?”
At one point in the film, Jolie/Callas says, “You have no idea of the pain, to pull music through your belly, out your poor mouth. No idea!” And later: “Music is so enormous; it envelops you in a state of torture. Music is born of misery, of suffering. Happiness never produced a beautiful melody. It seems, music is born of distress; and poverty.” Did the real Callas actually think and believe that?
Some musicians have challenged the notion encouraged, in this film, as in others, that suffering is a necessary prerequisite to great music-making. It takes hard work and sacrifice to attain a high level of artistry, but there is also great reward and yes, happiness in producing a beautiful melody.
The 1951 film ‘The Great Caruso’ where Mario Lanza played the great eponymous tenor, inspired a later generation of singers that included José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.
Comparisons of Jolie’s singing with that of Callas are both unfair and miss the point. Callas set the bar almost unreachably high, as is evident from the testimonies of her peers (and those were just a select few; there are so many more from her generation and more recent ones) I’ve quoted.
Although Jolie isn’t a trained operatic singer, ‘Maria’ does achieve the aim stated by Larraín, of calling attention to the great art of opera.
This article first appeared in The Navhind Times, Goa, India.
Source:https://serenademagazine.com/maria-callas-on-screen-angelina-jolies-bold-portrayal-of-la-divina-in-maria/