This fall Angelina Jolie takes on her first starring role in three years with the movie Maria, based on the life of opera singer Maria Callas. The movie had its premiere on August 29, 2024 at the Venice Film Festival, and is expected to make it to Netflix later in 2024. This continues a recent trend of prestige biopics featuring subjects who were covered heavily in the original run of LIFE magazine, including Robert Oppenheimer and Leonard Bernstein.
There are many ways to measure just how big a deal Maria Callas was during her heyday, and one of them is how many LIFE photographers took their turn shooting her. The list is an impressive one, and it includes Gordon Parks, Margaret Bourke-White, John Dominis, Thomas McAvoy, James Burke and PIerre Boulat.
On one occasion Callas appeared in LIFE not as a subject of a story but rather as its author. In 1959 she took the magazine to defend herself in a piece titled “I Am Not Guilty of All Those Scandals.” She had been accused of feigning illness when she didn’t want to go on, demanding exorbitant rates and other incidents related to her stage career. Callas wrote that all those claims were untrue. She did, however, acknowledge that she was difficult to work with—a label she accepted with pride:
Of course, I am difficult. An artist who tries sincerely to meet the demands of operatic music must work under extraordinary tension. Great music cannot be achieved without hard work and high standards. If I were willing to accept second-best opera, if I did not care about quality, I could very easily establish a reputation for always being sweet, charming and amenable to every suggestion, a completely docile soprano in every respect. But that is too high a price to pay for such a reputation…I see no reason to pretend I am happy and cheerful about second-rate music—or about those who are willing to see it performed.
After going through a point-by-point rebuttal of various claims that went on for several pages, Callas concluded “I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not the devil, either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like to be so judged.”
In addition to her storied opera career, the magazine also wrote about Callas’s personal life, including in 1959 when she separated from her husband, Italian industrialist Giovanni Meneghini, and was whisked away on a private jet by Aristotle Onassis. LIFE reported in ’59 that Callas got to know Onassis “when she and her husband cruised the Mediterranean in his yacht in a party that included Sir Winston and Lady Churchill and Onassis’s 28-year-old wife Tina.”
Onassis would in 1968 famously leave Callas for Jacqueline Kennedy. Callas’s relationship with Onassis is central to the Angelina Jolie’s movie—which is directed by Pablo Larrain, who also directed the 2016 biopic Jackie.
Maria Callas following a performance of Norma at the Civic Opera House in Chicago, 1954.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Opera singer Maria Callas at a post performance gala following her opening night performance of the opera “Norma” at the Civic Opera House in Chicago, 1954.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Opera singer Maria Callas discussed her performance with director Nicola Rescigno, 1954.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Maria Callas performed in the opera Norma at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, 1956.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Maria Callas applied makeup to a mannequin version of herself, 1956.
Margaret Bourke-White/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Maria Callas spoke to the press after a U.S. performance of Medea, 1958.
Thomas McAvoy/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock
Maria Callas performed as Medea at at the ancient Greek theater Epidauris, 1961.
James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Opera singer Maria Callas during filming of movie Medea, 1969.
Pierre Boulat/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Maria Callas during filming of movie Medea, 1969.
Pierre Boulat/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Portrait of Maria Callas during the filming of the movie ‘Medea’, Turkey, 1969.
Pierre Boulat/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
