Maria by Callas

Footage of the great opera superstar is included in this French documentary which includes various interviews, letters she had written and recorded arias performed live. The main focus is an interview with David Frost in the 1960s.

This film has an unfair advantage compared to other documentaries. Its subject is so compelling that it can only come off as great regardless of the skills of the film-makers. (In fairness, the film-makers did a fine job.)

Callas truly represents the grandeur of the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. She had a regal elegance with an old-world, old-school charm that has been missing for many years - decades even. The highlight of watching such stunning arias (much greater than just hearing the audio recordings) provides an elation that could never be experienced by downloading an app to a mobile phone.

Though Callas - the person and the singer - lived in the same world as the one we are in now, the world then seems like a different entity from the one we currently inhabit. This alone makes the viewing of this film so worthwhile. Further evidence of a greater difference in this "other world" included separate brief interviews with three young, intelligent men lined up for hours at the Met opera house in the mid-1960s, expressing great admiration for the diva. Such articulate admiration for great artists is very unlikely in our current times.

The film does have its flaws. Some of the English dialogue in the footage was incomprehensible. Subtitles would have been more than helpful. Also, some of Callas's old letters were narrated in a tone that did not always sound genuine. But the pluses far outnumber the minuses.

Around the beginning of the film, Callas makes a quote of how music is one of the ways that the great heavens can be made earthbound. She certainly lived up to that principle. This film graciously proves so. - dbamateurcritic.

In one part of this documentary on the life and career of Maria Callas, she is returning to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House, in NYC, after a 7 year absence and a TV reporter is interviewing some of Callas' devoted fans who have been sleeping in line all night to be able to purchase tickets. One enthusiastic young man says that she is just magnetic on stage and has the greatest singing voice of the century. After viewing this film I would agree with him on both counts.

The doc, directed by Tom Volf, is a tribute to the complex and highly intelligent Callas, and much of the movie is told through her own words, vintage film clips, and some parts of her mesmerizing onstage performances. I'll readily admit I'm not a follower of opera but when Callas sang and acted onstage it was truly incredible with her range and charisma.

There's also, once she reached superstar status, the constant invasion of her privacy by the paparazzi (of course, decades before social media) , only heightened when she began a long relationship with the billionaire Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Even more so when he left her to marry Jackie Kennedy, only to return to Callas before his death.

Overall, although the doc is perhaps overly long at just under 2 hours, I just found Callas' persona and life story to be quite fascinating.

Once in the height of the press media exploiting the supposedly rivalry between singers, Callas and Renata Tebadli, Callas was quoted (on comparing herself to the other singer) that it was like "comparing champagne to cognac". Tom Volf's debut documentary follows Callas's professional/personal life through its ups and downs by wonderfully, spooling in between her most famous "arias" performances.

It focuses on using archived TV interviews and scenes of "paparazzi" swarms but keeps a sharp focus on her early 50's career accomplishments until her untimely death in the mid 70s. Her early NYC childhood story and late adulthood Parisian isolation were only shown thru her interviews and the usage of a off-screen narrator reading Callas's letters and memoirs.

It also displayed her "Tigress" temperament towards the harsh reality of the Opera world as a booming recording industry and its societal environments. Volf's documentary subtlety unveils her own decadence of solitude dealing with a vocal declination and an endless love for Aristotle Socrates Onassis. A must-see for Opera lovers, truly amazing!

I have watched a few documentaries about Callas over the years and this one still had many surprises in store for me. I thought the interviews and footage used were excellent. I had never seen her speak so much and, at times, lucidly about her life. You have the success and the solitude, the art and the love. There are also some exquisite arias. It is very moving, if you look carefully behind the facade.

I don't think some of the viewers understand, this is Maria by Callas. This film contains no modern commentary, it is strictly focused on Maria Callas own memoir, performances, and TV interviews. Very well inserted footage of David Frost show, Callas performances, and news-clippings from the period of about 1947-1977. The film goes deep into understanding the demons that haunted Madame Callas, pressures from spouse, pressures from the Met, and other places of performance to continue to perform and please the masses.