Here we go again, another slobbering documentary on the glory
and tragedy of Maria Callas, arguably the most written about
opera singer in history. Steve Cole has gathered a handful of
Callas worshippers for this new take on her life, a story told
through one of her most famous roles, Puccini’s Tosca. The
all-star cast compares Callas’s own tragic life, with that of
the heroine in Puccini’s melodrama. All the topics are covered:
her failed marriage to Meninghini, her stormy affair with Aristotle
Onassis, her self-imposed absence from singing, her great return
for the Covent Garden Tosca, her bitter rivalry with Jackie
Kennedy and her premature death in 1977.
OK this is all fine and good. But it is a story that we already
know. One that has been told from every angle possible, and
frankly, there are simply no new superlatives to heap upon the
Callas legend. It is kind of nice to see the Tosca excerpts,
now legendary. But I for one just don’t get what it is that
drives opera queens to frenzy at the mere mention of Callas’s
name.
Let’s face it. She involved herself in self-destructive
relationships, she didn’t take care of a voice that was never
particularly beautiful in the first place, and she secluded
herself in a Paris apartment, successfully willing herself to
die. Callas’s is a good story for a soap opera, let alone a
grand opera.
Although this film is high enough on production
values, it does not add any new insights into the amazing career
and legend of this reclusive and difficult singer. By now the
Callas story is of mythic proportions, and this little movie
simply stokes the coals of it all.
Well made as it is, there is nothing to make
it stand out amongst the hundreds of other similar efforts.
For Callas fanatics only.
Kevin Sutton
Featuring Grace Bumbry,
Placido Domingo, Tito Gobbi, Antonio Pappano and Franco Zefirelli.
[71:00]
