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Maria Callas: Letters and Memoirs, review: Monica Bellucci sheds little light on an astonishing life

Monica Bellucci played Maria Callas in a one-woman show
Monica Bellucci played Maria Callas in a one-woman show

One of the most compelling singers of our age, Maria Callas, has become the definition of what a prima donna is expected to be: impetuous, histrionic, ready to sacrifice herself for the genius of her voice, achieving music-making of extraordinary depth, but, ultimately, tragically isolated and unfulfilled.

It would be a bold undertaking to impersonate such a vivid personality, and it is no disrespect to Monica Bellucci to say that, in this one-woman show on Sunday night, she did not try. Instead, she was coolly focused as she recalled a few fragments of Callas’s life, recited some letters that the singer wrote to her closest friends, and sat on a sofa as the real voice of Callas leapt briefly from an old gramophone on stage.

There are so many controversial aspects to Callas’s all-too-brief career, and while her 1958 performance of Norma in Rome, which she famously abandoned after act one, was narrated here, her tussles with management were ignored. There was also no real clue as to the things that made Callas great. For that we had to listen and be amazed again by the resonance of her chest voice in La Gioconda, or the flexibility and daring of her Casta diva: she was a singer with an elemental power in her voice, that (like Pavarotti) cut through to the widest audience.

The oddly-constructed show was based on a book by its director, Tom Volf (who also released a documentary about Callas in 2017), and – perhaps from the basis of too much knowledge – took too much for granted in its audience. It was difficult to know who some of the correspondents were: the Greek doctor Leonidas Lantzounis, who was her godfather and vital confidant, could have been briefly identified. And while we recognise the name of the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, the remarkable story of her one acting appearance in his 1969 film Medea could also have been at least alluded to.

Some of the themes that the show might have explored are those which made Callas a totally characteristic singer of the 20th century: first, she built a reputation, like Caruso before her, on recordings which took her voice around the world; second, she was a creature of the 19th-century repertory who never undertook (though she was begged to) the creation of a new operatic role; and, finally, she was a skilled manipulator (and victim) of the star publicity machine that began to dominate classical music during her years.

Inevitably, in this highly personal selection of documents, the issue of Callas’s loves and losses dominated the narrative to an uncomfortable extent; especially the bitter impact of her relationship with Aristotle Onassis, for whom she left her husband but who then deserted her for Jacqueline Kennedy.

The most affecting aspect of Bellucci’s performance was the pathos with which she depicted Callas’s final dependence on distant friends: at root, she had no one to guide her, or to rely on, as her voice disappeared and she was left listening to her past triumphs. But Bellucci’s refined presentation was projected in monochrome: we were left not knowing how the stoical woman on the sofa connected with the passionate voice on the gramophone.