The American actress Angelina Jolie dares to put his voice at the service of the immortal Maria Callas in the movie “Maria” by the Chilean director Pablo Larrainwhich premiered this Thursday in competition at the 81st Venice Film Festival.
“For me, the reference point was Maria Callas’ fans, those who love opera, so I didn’t want to let them down,” Jolie, 49, told reporters.
With this role as a “diva assoluta,” Jolie returns to the big screen after several years of relative discretion.
Larraín, for his part, fulfills an old dream of an opera enthusiast and completes a triptych of women of character.
The actresses thank him: Natalie Portman He embodied under Larraín’s orders Jackie Kennedy (“Jackie”) and was nominated for an Oscar in 2017, and the same happened to Kristen Stewart by “Spencer“, the portrait of Lady Di released in 2021.
“There are almost no films about stars” of the opera, said Larraín, who won the award for best script in Venice last year with “The Count“.
Angelina Jolie and Pablo Larrain. PHOTO: AFP
Who was Maria Callas? The great voice of opera
Maria “the Diva” Callasborn in New York in 1923 and died at the age of 53 in her home in Paris, was the great female voice of opera in the 20th century.
Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropulu She was also a star who knew how to take advantage of cinema and television to propel a meteoric career, which she drastically interrupted in 1973, after a tormented affair with the Greek multimillionaire Aristotle Socrates Onassis.
In making this film, the Chilean director focuses on the last week of the Diva’s life, when Callas hesitated to sing again, abused medication and lived tormented by the past and her unfortunate love affair.
Jolie explained that she trained her vocal cords for almost seven months to honor, as far as she could, the Callas myth.
But Larraín’s skill lies in letting the actress’s modest voice emerge in the film’s dramatic moments, when Callas insists, on the verge of humiliation, on continuing to train, even knowing that her voice has abandoned her.
When it comes to recreating the singer’s legendary stage persona, that voice merges and the original re-emerges, so that the Callas myth is reborn in all its force on the screen.
Larraín meticulously recreates those memorable evenings in the history of opera in London, Milan and Paris. “Pablo is someone who doesn’t do things halfway”Jolie confessed with a smile.
