Ode to an Opera Star, in a Movie She Never Made
" Callas Forever," Franco Zeffirelli's worshipful cinematic tribute to his friend Maria Callas, is the kind of what-if movie you might have expected to be made about Elvis Presley but not about the quintessential opera diva of the 20th century. A lip-synching hall of mirrors, it is essentially a piece of highbrow karaoke.
Where Elvis inspired an entire industry of groaning, gyrating impersonators, Maria Callas was vocally inimitable. She may have been memorably portrayed as a woman and voice teacher on the stage in Terrence McNally's play "Master Class," but no one has recreated the sound of her singing voice at the peak of its ferocious majesty.
The great French actress Fanny Ardant (who played Callas in a French production of "Master Class") impersonates Callas lip-synching to her own 1964 recording of "Carmen" during the making of a fictional movie of the Bizet opera. The year is 1977 (she died that September, at 53), and by then her voice was in tatters. She is persuaded to make the movie by her friend and former manager, Larry Kelly (Jeremy Irons), who argues that by lip-synching to her old recordings for a film she will recapture her lost youth and, whether cheating or not, leave behind the priceless legacy of a complete dramatic performance.
This nonexistent "Carmen," highlights of which were filmed for "Callas Forever," feels very much like a full-length movie Mr. Zeffirelli wishes he had made with the star. The swirling production numbers bear his trademarks: sumptuous sets, surging crowds and a heroine who sweeps into the fray like Elizabeth Taylor's "Cleopatra." One of Mr. Zeffirelli's two alter egos in the film is "Carmen's" fictional Spanish director, Esteban Gomez (Manuel de Blas).
Whether portraying Callas emoting on a movie set or brooding at home alone, Ms. Ardant displays an eerie command of the diva's body language: the way her lips could curl into an imperious sneer, her flame-throwing glare, her hands crossed prayerfully on her chest as she sank to her knees in agony. Yet there is something inescapably ghoulish in the spectacle of an actress (even a great one) lip-synching the role of an opera legend who is herself lip-synching to her old records to create a bogus product.
Mr. Zeffirelli's other alter ego is Kelly himself, reimagined as a dashing, gay British impresario in sunglasses and a ponytail who has deserted opera in favor of staging rock shows. The movie lingers over Larry's silly infatuation with Michael (Jay Rodan), a handsome young painter and ardent Callas fan. Larry even brings Callas to Michael's loft, where she oohs and aahs over his dreadful, kitschy paintings.
Joan Plowright plays one of Callas's closest confidantes, Sarah Keller, a fictional British journalist loosely based on Elsa Maxwell, who enthusiastically endorses the karaoke project. Gabriel Garko is Marco, the smoldering young tenor who plays Don José in "Carmen"; he carries on a ridiculous flirtation with Callas, who responds, then abruptly withdraws. Mr. Garko and Mr. Rodan, like many of the young men in Mr. Zeffirelli's movies, have the unreal beauty of models.
For instant emotional button-pushing, you can't beat the music of Puccini, which saturates the film, along with Bizet's score for "Carmen." In the movie's most chilling "Sunset Boulevard" moment, Larry is ushered unannounced into Callas's Paris apartment by her housekeeper, Bruna (Anna Lelio), where he observes the insomniac star popping sleeping pills and singing along, heartbroken, to her old recording of "Madame Butterfly."
If "Callas Forever" is compellingly acted (Mr. Irons, playing an older and grander Rupert Everett knockoff, appears liberated from his usual sphinxlike persona), it is a skimpily produced movie that looks pasted together on a limited budget. The la-di-da ambience of divas and their courtiers rings true for its era, but the fussy hothouse atmosphere of unrestrained diva-worship is ultimately more than a little stifling.
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