Was Maria Callas really a whining, self-pitying, endlessly needy victim? Angelina Jolie stars as revered opera singer in a new biopic that projects little of her cultural stature, writes BRIAN VINER
Daily MailRating: The late shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis would have approved of director Pablo Larrain’s trilogy of films about three of the most iconic women of the 21st century: he slept with two of them. Larrain’s swansong, following Jackie and Spencer, is Maria, starring Angelina Jolie as the revered opera singer Maria Callas. Angelina Jolie's new film presents singer Maria Callas in the last few days of her 53 years, seeing her dead lover Onassis in her torrid dreams and tormented attempts to rediscover her famous voice Callas transcended the world of opera, yet Maria gives us disappointingly little sense of that. Linda Ronstadt once called her the greatest ‘chick singer’ ever: listening to Maria Callas records taught her everything she needed to know, she said, about singing rock’n’roll. Jolie spends most of Maria’s two hours as a whining, self-pitying, endlessly needy victim The real Maria Callas appears after the final curtain of the gala performance of Tosca at the Royal Covent Garden Opera House, London, in 1965 The film begins with Callas’s death.