While Jean Paul Riopelle’s 100th birthday is being celebrated in grand style at home, elsewhere in the world we are preparing to celebrate the legendary Maria Callas’ birthday with great fanfare on December 2nd.
Published at 12:54 am. Updated at 7:15 a.m.
And considering the number of planned events and publications, we know that the Callas myth has lost none of its substance. On the contrary, many discoveries await us about the one about whom we thought we knew everything and heard everything.
PHOTO THEOPHILE BLOUDANIS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVE
To mark the diva’s 100th birthday, more than 13,000 artifacts are on display at the Maria Callas Museum in Athens.
If there are so many unpublished archives that testify to the artistic life of Maria Callas, it is thanks to the people who were close to the singer, including her faithful servants Ferrucio and Bruna, who lived with her for 25 years.
After the singer’s death on September 16, 1977, the two servants hid several valuable items in her apartment at 36 Avenue Georges-Mandel in Paris.
These include rehearsal and master class cassettes, pirated copies (Callas bought everything), numerous documents and clothing. Callas’ heirs (her ex-husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini, her mother Evangelina and her sister Jackie) took over the rest.
The artifacts that escaped the auctioneers’ hammers are now being collected in an endowment fund managed by Tom Volf, a great admirer of the singer. In an interview at Le Figaro a few days ago, the director and photographer expressed his desire to see a Paris museum that could house these objects, including the recording of La Habanera, performed on John F’s birthday. .Kennedy, May 19, 1962, the same evening Marilyn sang her famous Happy Birthday, Mr. President.
While the French public waits for the realization of this project, on December 2nd and 3rd they can see in several cinemas the film Callas-Paris, 1958, made from images taken during a concert by the artist in December at the Palais Garnier were taken on 19th 1958.
The event was so big that it was broadcast live across Europe. 30 million viewers were able to listen to the diva excerpts from “Norma and Tosca”. Thanks to the wonders of technology, the 130,000 images used were able to be colorized and the sound cleaned up. Hopefully this film will quickly be offered on a platform or on television on this side of the Atlantic.
However, Quebec audiences also have other ways to celebrate this anniversary, notably by attending the show “A Voice to Love: Maria Callas,” presented by Sophie Faucher on tour. By chance I met the actress last Saturday at the book fair.
She was excited because she had just interviewed Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, author of La rivale, a novel about… Maria Callas.
Sophie Faucher and Anne Bryan are the co-authors of this show, which shows us a broken calla lily in the evening of its life in the mid-1970s. Plagued by critics who label her a ready-made singer, she waits at home for her tour partner, tenor Giuseppe di Stefano, played by Marc Hervieux, for a rehearsal with pianist Robert Sutherland (Dominic Boulianne) ahead of a final tour in Japan.
PHOTO PIERRE CÔTÉ, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Maria Callas at Place des Arts, May 13, 1974
PHOTO PIERRE CÔTÉ, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Maria Callas at Place des Arts, May 13, 1974
PHOTO PIERRE CÔTÉ, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Maria Callas and Giuseppe du Stefano, at Place des Arts, 1974
PHOTO PIERRE CÔTÉ, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Maria Callas at Place des Arts, May 13, 1974
PHOTO PIERRE CÔTÉ, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Maria Callas at Place des Arts, May 13, 1974
PHOTO PIERRE MCCANN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Maria Callas arriving in Montreal in May 1974
PHOTO PIERRE MCCANN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
The journalist Claude Gingras (on the right with glasses, notebook in hand), then a columnist for La Presse, took part in a press conference by Maria Callas in May 1974.
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This moment in his life takes us back to Callas’ last visit to Montreal, which took place on May 13, 1974 at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier with di Stefano and Sutherland. Our former colleague Claude Gingras titled his review: “Callas and di Stefano: each has its own downfall.” There is no need to add more.
If you like podcasts, you know that RTBF produced a series of five episodes called “Maria Callas, the Power of Destiny”. The result is classic but also effective and well done.
Comic fans will undoubtedly appreciate the work of Jean Dufaux and Sara Briotti, who in turn tell the impossible love story between Maria Callas and the director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who directed her friend in the 1969 film Médée.
And then there is the filming of a biopic about Maria Callas with Angelina Jolie in the lead role. Filming takes place in Paris, Budapest, Milan and Greece. The first photos of the actress as Callas impressed many people. Not me.
PICTURES FROM THE MOVIE MARIA
Angelina Jolie will play Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s film Maria.
Céline Dion, who has long dreamed of playing the singer in the cinema, would have been much more similar. In addition, the Quebec singer took part in a photo shoot for a magazine a few years ago and the result was stunning.
The “Bible of Opera,” as Leonard Bernstein called it, continues to fascinate audiences. What explains why the myth never stops feeding itself? One title comes from Maria Callas, who said: “I don’t know what happens to me on stage. Something else seems to be taking over. »
The answer lies in that “something”.
A voice to love: Maria Callas
With Sophie Faucher, Marc Hervieux, Dominic Boulianne.
On tour,
Mary of Callas (new edition)
Assouline
256 pages