Customer Reviews

Tony Palmer's film about Callas (30th Anniversary Edition)

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This film by Tony Palmer was originally made thirty years ago but I had never seen it before. I have never been a huge fan of Callas (although I do think her recorded Tosca is the dramatically finest I know), and I came away from it stunned at the tragedy of her life and with immense respect for how she handled her admittedly somewhat compromised gifts. This DVD consists of a chronological retelling of her life story -- one that surely has all the makings itself of an opera; why hasn't anyone written one yet? -- and includes wonderful (mostly) black-and-white video clips of excerpts from performances by and interviews (as well as newsreel items) with Callas. The musical clips includes such things as 'Un voce poco far' (Barber of Seville), 'Oh, s'io potessi' (Pirata), 'Nacqui all'affanno' (Cenerentola), 'Tacea la notte placida' (Trovatore), 'Tu che la vanità' (Don Carlos), 'Ah, non credea mirarti' (Sonnambula), 'O mio babbino caro' (Gianni Schicchi), and a stunning 'Vissi d'arte' (Tosca). There are numerous interviews with such operatic luminaries who knew and worked with her -- Giuseppe di Stefano, Franco Zeffirelli, Graziella Sciutti, Luchino Visconti, John Ardoin, Lord Harewood, John Copley, Elvira de Hidalgo (her teacher), Tito Gobbi, Carlo Maria Giulini as well as Arianna Stassinopoulos (her biographer). Much attention is paid to her marriage to Giovanni Battista Meneghini, and her long and heartbreaking affair with and abandonment by Aristotle Onassis.

Tony Palmer constructs a biography with an operatic narrative arch, beginning with her birth in Manhattan and culminating in her death at age 53 in Paris, alone and nearly penniless [note, although she is called nearly penniless in the DVD, see the two comments below; apparently she wasn't]. This is a superb example of video biography and I came away with new respect for this tough but fragile artist who sacrificed all for her art. I recommend it strongly not only for fans of Callas but for opera lovers in general.

Sound: Stereo; Format 16:9; Subtitles in French, Italian, Spanish, German; Total running time: 92 minutes

Scott Morrison

I am very glad to have found this film, which provides the kind of definitive documentary of Maria Callas I had been hoping to find. Because it was filmed 30 years ago, it contains plenty of first-hand accounts of Callas and her life by people who knew her, worked with her, or were her friends.

The director repeatedly depicts her life as a struggle between "Maria, the woman" and "Callas, the artist". I was tempted to dismiss this as a rather facile storytelling device until late in the film, when her secretary says that Callas herself used this contrast all the time. She would talk about her stage persona as "La Callas", as if it were another person.

This "Maria vs. Callas" interpretation goes a long way toward explaining the tragedy of her life -- starting as a talented singer with an unusual voice, but a very overweight woman who never experienced true love or passion. Her most successful period as an artist was before she left her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, in 1959 after starting her affair with Aristotle Onassis. With Onassis, the woman blossomed but the artist suffered. Then after Onassis abandoned her suddenly in favor of Jacqueline Kennedy, the woman was devastated and the artist never performed again at her earlier peak levels.

The film is filled with insightful interview footage. I particularly appreciated the comments by her secretary and by Franco Zeffirelli. The film contains quite a bit of footage of Callas, but in general it is from later in her career and from concerts rather than operas.

The one exception is limited footage from "Tosca" in 1964, which was filmed for the BBC. That is a shame, because what set Callas apart was not her voice, but her acting and dramatic presence. Callas herself acknowledged that she sometimes wished to have the voice of Renata Tebaldi instead. Unfortunately, there is not much film out there of Callas in performance.

But in the end, this isn't a performance compilation, but a documentary. All in all, it's a great one. Highly recommended!

No one can really hope to describe the creative force of a true artist, but this film is mainly reverent even if biographical. People who knew her discussed her life, but for me, a Callas fan, the comments were not as valuable as the musical excerpts and close up photography. If one followed the life and career of La Callas, the tragedies and premature death are already known, but few of us have ever seen so much visual focus on her eyes or smile. For me, just seeing her listening to music was nourishing to my soul.

A lot of fuss has always been made about Callas the Artist and Maria the Woman and most biographers seem to enjoy picturing her as "The One" to sing Vissi D'Arte, but the truth seems to be that though she had an incredible musicality and dramatic sense of the music, the tragedy was that she did not give all to Art. I have, like Zeffirelli, always imagined Callas as the Divine Innocent whose lack of worldly experience got her into big trouble in the World. So, if one wants to be critical of the biography, one would have to say that the producers of this film/DVD provided very little insight into what lured her into what seems to have been a complex and perhaps tempestuous relationship with Onassis. Is it the Innocence that is unaware of the luridness of power? This film is a tribute to the Artist, not a real biography. Most importantly, we hear and see Callas at her best, the shadows and even famous incidents such as her wounding of Tito Gobbi are omitted. This is actually how I choose to remember her because life is tricky but La Divina is immortal as is her legacy.

There are now quite a few films about Maria Callas on the market. This is probably on of the better ones, but nevertheless it still suffers, like the rest of them, by the fact that very little visual material has been released about Callas. Officially, there is the second act of Tosca, both from Paris and London, plus a few recitals. The recitals are interesting to a point but hardly exemplify Callas's strong point, which was her marvellous acting on the stage. Act 2 of Tosca, especially from Covent Garden is electrifying. She may have lost a lot on her high notes (listen to her legendary 1954 recording for EMI, with di Stefano, Gobbi and with de Sabata conducting) but the performance puts any other video portrayals of Tosca that exist today, well below her. There are the usual biographical notes about her birth in New York, her war years in Athens, her marriage to Meneghini, her relationship with Onassis and her final sad years in Paris. But one feels there is something lacking. For example, I know there are short video clips of her Lisbon Traviata and of her Norma at la Scala, which are missing.
One wanders at times how much material actually exists and is not published for some reason or other. I remember watching as a young boy in 1965 a BBC television broadcast in London, of her last Tosca complete, i.e. all three acts, during the gala performance attended by Queen Elisabeth. What happened to that? One also wanders why her great friends and great film directors Visconti and Zeffirelli never produced any films of her operas, but that is a different story.
There is a DVD about the life of Herbert von Karajan by Robert Dornhelm. It is similar to Tony Palmer's film, in having interviews with people he worked with and with performance material, but it is presented in a much more sensitive and in a "musical" way. One fine touch, which to me exemplifies the contrast between the two directors, Palmer and Dornhelm, is the last musical piece presented in each film. Dornhelm ends his film with Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, a musical piece that expands your senses and leaves you in a mythical world. Palmer's film ends with "o mio babbino caro", a beautiful area by Puccini, but nothing of the impact of the Liebestod and not something Callas was renown for. Something like Cast Diva from Norma would have been, in my humble opinion, far more fitting for an ending of a film about Callas, to leave you with thoughts to ponder. Also, we get again and again the music from the tenor's last aria in act 3 of Tosca "e lucevan le stele". A tremendous romantic piece of music, one of Puccini's best, but nonetheless an aria for a tenor not a soprano!
Having said all that, yes I do recommend this film and if you are interested about Callas it is definitely worth buying.