one hundred years after her birth, the many tributes to Maria Callas

Maria Callas has revolutionized operatic art. One hundred years after his birth, several tributes have been paid to this fascinating personality, between a gala evening and the broadcast of a recital, while relatives aspire to the creation of a museum in Paris.

One hundred years ago, on December 2, 1923, Maria Callas was born in New York. On the occasion of the centenary of her birth, tributes are paid to this Greek artist, commonly called “La Callas”. The diva, who remains in everyone’s memories, still remains one of the most famous lyrical artists in the 20th century.

Two sopranos for a tribute evening at the Paris Opera

Casta Diva (NormaBellini), Madness, madness (La Traviata, Verdi): American-Canadian Sondra Radvanovsky and South African Pretty Yende, among others, will sing arias from La Callas during a gala evening on Saturday at the Opera in Paris. Questioned, Sondra Radvanovsky, retains from her the “thanks to his phrasing and his musicality”THE “marriage between his playing and his singing”a voice to the “dark color” with “flexibility and agility”. “She dared to be one of a kind”she greets.

Of this “legend”, Pretty Yende rents “the courage to have been authentic with his instrument”. “In everything she did, and in particular in the bel canto repertoire, she brought a new color, a new way of expressing herself never heard before“, says the soprano, who sang in May for the coronation of King Charles III.

A museum in Paris?

Created in 2017 at the initiative of those close to La Callas, an endowment fund intends “preserve his memory” And “bring together all the archives, documents, objects which belonged to him and were dispersed, in particular in auctions”, tells AFP its president, Tom Volf. In total, he holds “150 letters”, “5,000 photos”, “seven dresses, costumes and stage jewelry, including the costume from his last Tosca in Paris” and especially, “over 300 hours of music” (unpublished recordings, rehearsals, recitals, working tapes).

But all this cannot be shown due to lack of dedicated space. Hence the objective of establishing one, in Paris – where Maria Callas lived for the last 15 years of her life – which would be a museum and would house these archives. It would also be “a place of research for biographers, musicians, singers and an educational place on lyrics”, according to Tom Volf. Steps were taken in 2021, which have not been successful at this stage.

The film of a legendary concert and a biopic in preparation

The “prima donna” performed three times on the stage of the Palais Garnier, notably in 1958, during a gala captured by the ORTF and broadcast on Eurovision. All of Paris at the time – Jean Cocteau, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Brigitte Bardot… – attended. This three-hour recital was transformed into a color concert film, Callas, Paris 1958 (in around a hundred theaters Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 in France), directed by Tom Volf, who is also director and author of the film Maria by Callas (2017).

With his teams, he was able, using 16 mm reels and magnetic sound tapes, found in 2021, to carry out color restoration work (images in 4K resolution), accompanied by optimum quality sound. We see the lyrical artist, in an elegant red dress, her eyes painted with blue, interpreting, with her dramaturgy and gestures, the Miserere of Find by Verdi or the complete Act II of Tosca. Moreover, Maria, a biopic of Pablo Larraín with Angelina Jolie was partly filmed this fall in Paris. Its release date is not yet known.

A museum in Athens, an exhibition, a hologram concert

A museum has just opened in Athens, which presents more than 1,300 pieces (books, scores, dresses) relating in particular to his Greek years. At La Scala in Milan, an exhibition until April 24 portrays the singer through contemporary creators. A show created in 2018, Callas In Concertbrought it back to life in the form of a hologram which was deployed on stage, accompanied by an orchestra, in several venues around the world, including La Scala, the Met and the Salle Pleyel in Paris.