Mary, Marianna, Maria: The Unsung Greek Years of Callas | Crete

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Following a remarkable international journey through film festivals in Europe, Australia, and the United States, as well as on French television (France 5), the documentary Mary, Marianna, Maria: The Unsung Greek Years of Callas will now be presented to the Cretan audience.  The documentary (with a running time of 103 minutes), conceived, researched, and written by Vasilis Louras, directed by Michalis Asthenidis and Vasilis Louras, and produced by Stella Angeletou, brings to light valuable archival material and reveals, for the first time, the last rehearsal recording that Maria Callas made at her home in Paris a month prior to her passing.

The documentary seeks to shed light on the period when Callas came of age as a woman and as an artist in Athens during the Second World War, from 1937 to 1945, as well as on the years after 1957, when the diva, by then renowned internationally, reconnected with Greece. Her foremost artistic achievements and little-known debuts, the figures who shaped her, and the major landmarks in her development as an artist, as well as the prevailing social and political circumstances in Greece during World War II, the Greek Civil War milieu of the 1940s and ’50s, and the unjust attacks she endured – all these are the key narrative threads that tell the story of the troubled, novel-like life of Callas, who always walked the line between tragedy and triumph.

Making use of rare archival documentation, never-before-released recordings, interviews, and other audio materials, this documentary seeks to tell the story of Callas’ early years – the story of a triumph achieved through strength of character and talent, hard work and dedication, a story that saw her defy every difficulty and all the abusive behaviour she faced.

New interviews were conducted specially for the purposes of this documentary, with such figures as John C. Bastias, son of the GNO’s Founding Director; Giorgos Koumendakis, Artistic Director of the GNO; the opera artist Aris Christofellis; Konstantinos Pylarinos, President of the Maria Callas Scholarships Programme; Stephan Hörner, son of the maestro Hans Hörner, who conducted Callas in a 1944 production of Fidelio; mezzo-soprano Kiki Morfoniou, who took part in the performances Callas gave of productions of Norma and Medea at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus; Hara Kalomiri, Head of the Greek National Conservatoire; Stella Kourmpana, head of the Athens Conservatoire Archives; the musicologist Sofia Kontossi, expert on the Leonidas Zoras Archive; Philippos Tsalahouris, expert on Manolis Kalomiris; and others.

The backbone of the documentary’s musical script is a recording of the recital Calls gave at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in 1957, along with other breathtaking studio and live recordings. The documentary also features two invaluable, never-before-released recordings of Callas: one from Lefkada Island in 1964 and the other from her home in Paris in 1977.