Maria by Callas: getting intimate with a glorious diva

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

There has been much fervent debate over whether Maria Callas was one of the greatest voices of our time or one of the most hyped. She was definitely one of the first celebrities to achieve a worldwide popular fame. And I would argue that her ability to directly communicate the passion in the music she sang makes her one of the greatest singers as well as a great star. She says in Maria by Callas that she has "the gift of having something I can expose to the people, give to the people and be understood."

Callas fans and opera queens will be enthralled by Maria by Callas. Those who have avoided opera as an incomprehensible art form, may just be converted by Maria by Callas. Director Tom Volf is an unabashed fan and the documentary treats its subject reverently. It is less biography and more hagiography. This is blatant in the length of the clips he uses of Callas singing. She is never cut off, nor is a song fragment used to make a point. These are full performances and they are sublime.

Volf has restricted himself to using what film and photographs exist of Callas and to narration using her her own words, culled from diaries, letters and interviews. The structure is chronological and the entire film is framed by excerpts from a long-lost interview with David Frost. Callas is defensive, regal and startlingly vulnerable. She talks about the difference between "Maria" and "Callas" and casually regrets that whoever she is has been subsumed by this creation of her career. It feels that we are being set up for an artist swallowed by a character, doing unintentionally what Bowie and Madonna used as an artistic tool.

There is a lot of footage of Callas descending from airplanes and navigating relentless paparazzi. Even the Super 8 footage of her at home, wandering lonely or playing with her dogs in luxurious gardens, is presented so that we see the physical boundaries of the frames and are kept at a distance. It is remarkably intimate for such a public figure of the time and is also a perfect metaphor for how caged she must have felt. The sound mix likewise is in conflict as her words, read impeccably by Joyce DiDonato who is herself an opera singer of renown, gently struggle to be heard above the omnipresent background music. She tells us her career, her singing which she loved, consumed her life, Volf lets us hear and see it happen.

Because of the lack of narration, the story of Callas' life is only sketched and there are huge gaps. It makes one want to read a thorough biography, but she was enough of a celebrity that most will have at least a faint grasp of her history. This technique can seem teasing but it can also pay off with devastating emotion as it does in the cleverly edited and arranged section where Callas meets, loves, loses and regains Aristotle Onassis. A letter to Grace Kelly thanking her for flowers gives a heartbreaking clue. Subtlety becomes an aria.

The backstage footage is remarkable as are the moments when Callas takes centre stage and sings. It is admittedly disconcerting in this era of edits and beats, to watch a singer build a song, construct a performance and put considerable physical effort into creating the sound live. Her voice is glorious but there are tiny flaws that she worries, works around and corrects. It is fascinating as well as a treat for the ears. Some of the segments seem long by 2018, even by mid-'80s, standards but it pays off in a television appearance where Callas leans back and lets the gorgeous sounds and hair-raising emotions pour out of her. It is riveting from beginning to end.

Volf is perhaps too careful as the dark parts of Callas' life are only implied. It is as if he wants to believe the optimism in her letters and words. But then so do we. So Callas' mother just disappears, Callas is always thin, her diva reputation is earned, but sadly her gay fans, who sustained her declining years, don't get a solid thank you. Callas is constantly surrounded by men who trigger one's gaydar and her comeback concert rivals her rival Garland. Among the television news interviews with the men camped out for tickets to Callas, is a charming and alarming interview with a fan who gives a rationale for his fanaticism that is a primer on gay icon worship. He is outdone only by the man carrying a life-size cardboard cut-out of Callas.

The fan describes Callas' "sheer raw genius" which is ironic in an art form that demands incredible control and technique. And that is the dichotomy of both Callas' art and her life, she was able to express so much so directly through her music, let us viscerally feel the emotions of a character, but even using her own words, her inner life remains a fascinating enigma. But if she doesn't quite know where Maria and Callas begin and end, how can we, or Volf, presume to know?