Shining a spotlight on the late Maria Callas, the new
documentary “Maria by Callas” tells the renowned opera star’s story almost
entirely through her own words, curating archival newsreel footage, interviews,
unpublished personal letters to friends, diaries, and memoirs into an intimate
account of the diva’s life and career. With his first feature film, director
Tom Volf brings a clear love for his subject (having already written three
books on Callas), bringing to life the Greek-American soprano considered by
many to be one of the great opera singers of the 20th century.
What’s most surprising is how little agency Volf’s film
claims Callas had over her own path. What he offers is a sympathetic portrait
of a woman pressured at a young age by her mother — and then later her husband —
to become opera superstar instead of a wife and mother, roles she states that
she’d have chosen for herself if she’d had the choice. “Destiny is destiny, and
there is no way out,” she resignedly says during one television interview.
Volf also covers the controversies of her life and her
“tempestuous” reputation, and there’s also considerable time spent on her
relationship with shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, with whom she had a
lengthy love affair until he met Jacqueline Kennedy. The 60’s-era fashions are
alone a reason to watch, but for an opera novice like me, a bit more context to
Callas’ career might have been helpful in filling in some details about the
world of opera and her place within it.
But most crucially, Volf devotes long stretches of his film
to showing several of her performances in their entirety. That footage has been
restored and in some cases colorized to match existing photos from the time,
providing just a hint of what it must have felt like to see the legend sing
live. Even for those who don’t already count themselves amongst the diva’s
fans, there’s no denying that the most powerful and convincing way to pay
tribute to the opera legend is to allow her music speak for itself.
This article appears in Dec 12-18, 2018.
