Before Angelina Jolie began preparing for her role as legendary opera singer Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s latest biopic, the actress had never sung in public before.
“Everyone here knows I was terribly nervous,” Jolie said at the press conference for Maria at the Venice Film Festival. “I trained for almost seven months because when you work with Pablo you can’t do anything half-heartedly. He has a wonderful way of demanding that you really work and really learn and train.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, during her preparation, Jolie worked closely with opera singers and voice coaches to nail both the singer’s posture and Callas’ accent, and practiced classical operas and arias. The end result is a blend of Callas’ actual performances and Jolie’s vocals, which she sang on set.
She recalled being “so nervous” when she first sang in the film: “My sons were there helping to lock the door so no one else could come in, and I was shaking.”
Of her role as Callas herself, Jolie admitted that she “identified with the part of her that is extremely gentle and for whom there was no room in the world to be as gentle and emotionally open as she really was. I think I share her vulnerability more than anything else,” she added.
Larrain wanted to fill a gap in the market with the film, because there are “almost no films about opera and opera singers”. He did not want to make a “dark film”, but rather one “about a woman who has spent her life singing for others, taking care of others and worrying about relationships. Now she is ready to take care of herself and find her own destiny.”
Maria is a creative, imaginary and psychological portrait of Maria Callas, set in Paris in September 1977, during Callas’s last week of life. Maria follows the soprano as she negotiates her public image and her private self, grappling with the increasingly blurred boundaries between the revered “La Divina” and the vulnerable human being.
Pablo Larraín directed the film from a screenplay by Steven Knight. Maria is Larraín’s third biopic after Jackie and Spencer, which focus on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Diana, respectively.
Maria, which is said to include operatic elements, also stars Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino and Valeria Golino. An official release date has not yet been set, but the film will also be screened at the New York Film Festival this fall.
The story of Maria Callas has been told on stage before in Terrence McNally’s play Master Class. The original 1996 production won three Tony Awards and a Drama Desk Award, and the 2011 revival also won a Tony. The play follows a master class given by Callas towards the end of her career, in which she offers her musical advice, judgment and thoughts on her contemporaries. Maria Callas was portrayed by Tyne Daly, Zoe Caldwell and Patti LuPone. Watch a newly released clip from the film below.
Photo credit: Pablo Larraín
