Leonard Bernstein known as her “The Bible of Opera.” Yves Saint Laurent as soon as mentioned she was the “Diva of Divas.” The critics gave her the nickname of “La Divina” or “The Divine One.” However within the new movie by Pablo Larraín starring Angelina Jolie, Maria Callas is solely “Maria.”

Often called one of many best opera singers in historical past, Callas was born in New York Metropolis to Greek immigrant mother and father in 1923. She made her skilled debut in 1941 in Athens. By 1951, she had carried out in almost all of Italy’s main opera homes. A few of her most well-known works embrace Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca,” Vincenzo Bellini’s “Norma” and Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata.”

With a tumultuous private life and a refined sense of favor, Callas’ fame reached past opera homes, awakening the curiosity of recent audiences worldwide and trend designers. Whereas typically showing on tabloids because of a extremely publicized affair within the late Fifties — Callas had a relationship with Greek enterprise magnate Aristotle Onassis whereas nonetheless married to her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini — the singer would at all times be photographed in exquisitely tailor-made clothes, glamorous night robes and crowd pleasing jewellery.

Callas had a protracted partnership with Madame Biki, a Milanese dressmaker who’s credited for the singer’s standing as a mode icon. Biki numbered the garments and equipment so Callas would know how you can type them collectively.

Christian Dior and Yves Saint-Laurent had been additionally followers and collaborators of Callas. Saint Laurent grew to become a detailed buddy of hers, as they each moved in comparable high-society circles within the late ’50s. The designer was certainly one of her company at Callas’s first recital in Paris on the Opéra Garnier in 1958.

One among Saint Laurent’s creations for Callas was worn by Monica Bellucci, who starred because the soprano in Tom Volf’s manufacturing of “Maria Callas: Letters and Memoirs” between 2019 and 2023.

“I couldn’t imagine it was simply excellent,” Bellucci advised WWD. “To place this costume on gave me the feeling that I used to be in contact along with her in a roundabout way. I might really feel the ’60s. I might really feel her.”

Jolie nodded to Callas’ partnership with Saint Laurent, carrying a glance from his trend home throughout her arrival on the 2024 Venice Movie Competition, the place the movie debuted on Thursday.

In some ways, Callas’ type was the definition of Outdated Hollywood glamour. The singer would typically put on gloves, feathered followers, fur coats and dramatic hats, including to her diva persona. Over time, she has been referenced in works by Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana, Stéphane Rolland, Burberry and John Galliano, who as soon as named Callas as his favourite singer in an interview with the Corriere Italiano.

In 2007, the soprano was the theme of a Swarovski exhibit that celebrated her relationship along with her jewellery. “She was a really superstitious particular person,” Markus Langes-Swarovski, a member of Swarovski’s government board, mentioned of Callas. “She felt rather more safe and secure along with her talisman.”

In 2020, Riccardo Tisci, nonetheless the artistic director of Burberry, created costumes impressed by Callas for Marina Abramović’s opera challenge, “7 Deaths of Maria Callas.” In 2023, the Victoria & Albert Museum featured Callas within the “Diva” exhibition.

Erdem was one of many newest trend homes to channel Callas’ trend essence with its fall 2024 ready-to-wear assortment, notably titled “Viva la Diva.” “For his pre-fall assortment he imagined the American-born Greek diva’s personal and public life, and for fall he took a deeper dive,” WWD reported in February.

Callas’ diva persona is explored by Larraín in “Maria,” which he described as a “artistic imagining and psychological portrait of Maria Callas.” The movie focuses on a interval in her life when she had misplaced her voice. “Maria” debuted on Thursday in the course of the Venice Movie Competition and can be launched by Netflix at a future date but to be introduced.