Callas Forever

Callas Forever is a 2002 biographical film about the last days of the life of the acclaimed opera diva Maria Callas.

The movie is directed by Franco Zeffirelli, the famous director of operas who directed Maria Callas on stage in some of her best performances, like Norma, La Traviata, and Tosca. Franco Zeffirelli who co-wrote the screenplay with Martin Sherman, wanted to create the film like a homage to Callas who was her admirable friend for more than 40 years. The movie was a Medusa production, an Italian company and was recorded in Bucharest, Romania, Córdoba in Andalusia, Spain, Paris and France. The costume designs were nominated for a Goya Award in Spain, the most important cinema festival in the country.

The Plot

The movie starts in 1977, the year in which Maria Callas (Fanny Ardant) died. The opera diva spends her last days in her flat in Paris, with a deep depression because of the great Greek sailor Aristoteles Onassis, the love of her life, who first the abandoned her and now died. She is also melancholy because her famous voice now is ragged, so that bow she isn't able to sing as well as she did in her beginning.

The diva spends the time listening to her old famous songs and in the movie impersonates herself when she was young. Yet she is unable to reach the amazing level of her previous style. Because of this she needed to stop her performance in the middle of the shooting of the movie of Georges Bizet's Carmen. Later, however, she continued her role in the movie since the director convinces her for doing playback.