Οι εντεινόμενες, διεθνώς, επιφυλάξεις των θαυμαστών της μεγάλης λυρικής τραγουδίστριας του 20ου αιώνα, για την νέα ταινία περί Κάλλας, όμως στο ίδιο παλαιό μοτίβο της «δυστυχισμένης, διχασμένης, μοναχικής, καταθλιπτικής,» Μαρίας Κάλλας, που ανατρέπει στο βιβλίο του ο Έλληνας δημοσιογράφος.
Maria Callas fans fear 'tragic' Angelina Jolie film will spoil legacy
The director behind Spencer has promised a realistic account of the soprano's sad final years, but friends and listeners suspect another titillating cash grab
Anthee Carassava, Athens
Friday November 10 2023, 12.00pm GMT, The Times
Angelina Jolie started filming scenes last month that depicted Maria Callas's troubled courtship with the tycoon Aristotle Onassis
CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES; HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS
She was a world-famous soprano and world-class diva whose tempestuous love life alone was worthy of an opera.
But news that Hollywood is planning a film of the life of Maria Callas, with Angelina Jolie in the title role, has raised fears in Athens that the Greek singer's legacy could be permanently tarnished.
Filming of Maria started in Greece last month in the Peloponnese coastal town of Katakolo, shooting scenes depicting the famous love affair between Callas and the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis aboard his yacht, the Christina O.
The director, Pablo Larrain, has promised a true-to-life film exploring "the tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the life of the world's greatest opera singer ... during her final days in 1970s Paris". He said it was his "long-awaited dream" to make a film about Callas. He has already made Jackie (2016), about the former US first lady who married Onassis, and Spencer (2021), a controversial but Oscar-nominated biopic in which the ghost of Anne Boleyn speaks to Diana, Princess of Wales.
Angelina Jolie films as Maria Callas near the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Other locations include Budapest and Milan
NASSOU.FR
There are concerns in Greece about how Callas — who would have celebrated her 100th birthday next month — will be depicted. Friends and fans of the singer claim to have been given the cold shoulder by Larrain, 47, his team and Jolie, 48.
"We tried to meet with them, chasing them to filming sites in Greece, but we were snubbed entirely," said Liana Scourles, who spent two years as the singer's personal secretary and now heads the Maria Callas Greek Society.
"We are extremely concerned about the image that is going to be put out about Callas," she told The Times. "We can only hope that her legacy is respected. Far too many have tried to cash in and make a mint of her fame and glory, not least, her tempestuous love affair with another Greek legend: Aristotle Onassis."
• The night Maria Callas made a pass at me
Details of Larrain's film have been scarce. Only two pictures have been released of Jolie as La Divina, as Callas was called by fans. the film is expected to focus on the last years of her life, isolated in the French capital. She died in 1977 of a heart attack aged 53 but remains one of the bestselling classical music performers.
Born Mary Anna Kalogeropoulou to Greek immigrants in New York, Callas was raised in Manhattan's Upper West Side before leaving it as an overweight, unhappy child of 14 to move to Athens. There she debuted as a singer and quickly transformed into a tawny, wide-eyed prima donna, hated by colleagues and adored by her public.
Maria Callas in Los Angeles in 1958 CBS PHOTO ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Greece is trying to reclaim her identity, debunking the controversies and myths that surrounded most of her life.
Last month a Maria Callas museum opened in Athens, a decade-long undertaking with an array of the singer's belongings, including wigs, gloves, intimate letters and photographs of her playing with her favourite dog.
"And yet," said Michalis Dimitriou, author of a new book about Callas, "what lingers on in the collective memory is that Maria was a feeble, meek, heartbroken woman who wallowed to a premature death because she was jilted by Onassis. All of this, is bullshit. Of course, she was passionate, erratic and outrageous in her gestures at time. But she was tough, even ruthless. Her real world was an extension of her role as Callas ... and she ascribed to a life and law only to her own towering talent."
Filming of Maria was allowed to begin during the Hollywood actors' strike under an interim agreement with Sag-Aftra, the union that struck a deal to end the four-month walkout this week.
TO ENHMEΡΩΤΙΚΟ ΔEΛΤIO TOY AΘΗΝΑΙΚΟΥ ΠΡΑΚΤΟΡΕΙΟΥ ΕΙΔΗΣΕΩΝ ΓΙΑ ΤΑ ΔΙΕΘΝΗ MME
THE NEW BOOK FOR MARIA CALLAS WRITTENN BY MICHALIS DIMITRIOU
'I am not Maria - I am Callas: Her real life and an eon of myths', a new book by journalist Michalis Dimitriou
CULTURE /Τετάρτη 4 Οκτωβρίου 2023, 19:05:26 / Source: ANA-MPA
A new book on Maria Callas (1923-1977), one of the greatest opera singers, has been published in Greek in the year of the diva's birth centennial, providing a portrait based on interviews and source material of the 'real Maria'.
The book, "I am not Maria - I am Callas: Her real life and an eon of myths" was written by journalist Michalis Dimitriou, who aims to deconstruct the false media reports and tales surrounding Maria Callas, as reported in the popular press, about "dying early because of her desperate love for Onassis" and sacrificing herself for her stage persona, "paying for this in ineffable, deadly loneliness". He also debunks the myths that she maintained a state of war with her mother and sister, and that she spent the last part of her life "in mourning Onassis and her lost glory."
The book, published by Bell, focuses on Callas' last Greek summer, which she spent in Chalkidiki with pianist Vasso Devetzi and other friends as a guest of Kostas Pylarinos, who heads the Maria Callas Scholarship Foundation.
Material for the book is based on a rare archive amassed of primary sources in Greece and foreign mass media (films, television programs, books), personal archives, and interviews with close friends such as Christos Lambrakis, Kostas Pylarinos, Michalis Kyriakidis, Ada Madikian, Stelios Papadimitriou, Tyrfon Koutalidis, Andreas Potamianos, Michael Cacoyannis, Nikolaous Louros, and others. The book also refers to other countries beyond Italy and Greece, such as all of western Europe, Latin America, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan.
Dimitriou also researches the fact that Maria Callas was not received well in Greece, and was, ironically, heavily criticized by the newspapers 'Ta Nea' and 'To Vima', founded by Dimitris Lambrakis, while his son Christos Lambrakis, who also led the efforts to build the Athens Concert Hall, was a close friend of hers.
Maria Callas lived an exciting life full of ups and downs, rejections, and bitter moments, but also periods of brilliant recognition, glory and deep professional satisfaction, long-term friendships, and emotional heights. She always faced every adversity and trying times with great fortitude, and remained 'the amazing Callas', never becoming miserly toward herself or her friends, who were outstanding professionals in their sectors and loyal throughout.
The book, published by Bell, focuses on Callas' last Greek summer, which she spent in Chalkidiki with pianist Vasso Devetzi and other friends as a guest of Kostas Pylarinos, who heads the Maria Callas Scholarship Foundation.
The book is dedicated to the late publisher Christos Lambrakis and is prefaced by Pylarinos, Callas' oldest friend since the 60s.