“You are born an artist or you are not,” Maria Callas once said. The opera singer was not only born an artist, she also became an icon of her craft — an artist without parallel, known throughout the world as “La Divina,” the divine one.

In Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín and starring Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie, the legendary diva’s final days are reimagined as she reflects on and reckons with who she is and the life she’s led. “This is a movie about someone who is looking to find her own voice and understand her identity,” Larraín told Netflix. “It’s a celebration of her life.”

Callas’ life spanned the globe and reached dizzying highs and profound lows. Larraín said, “This is a movie about someone who becomes part of the tragedies that she played on the stage.” Still, though, he said, Maria is “about someone that was never a victim. We are talking about someone that is in control of her will and her destiny, who knows what she wants to do and how she wants to do it.” 

The film offers a glimpse into that world — one of tragedy and triumph — after she retreated to her home in Paris. La Divina’s larger-than-life persona was still intact, even as Callas the person was faltering, unsure of how to move forward. Her world was meticulously constructed by Larraín, Jolie, writer Steven Knight, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas, costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, among others, and captured exquisitely by cinematographer Ed Lachman. 

Below, dive into that dazzling world, and let the artists who brought it to life guide you through its many wonders. As Callas herself said of those who were born to be artists: “You stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a firework. The artist is always there.”

THE LOOKS

Whether onstage or off, Callas had a flair for the dramatic — for glasses so big they served as shields, hair so long and flowing that it became easy to hide within, shawls and coats so cleverly constructed that they swathed her like extremely luxurious chain mail. It makes a certain kind of sense that wearing clothes and styling her hair was another way of expressing artistry for Callas. All the world’s a stage, after all, and she was one of its preeminent players. 

The clothes

“I made more than 60 creations,” Parrini told Netflix. “All the costumes of the operas and performances are perfect reconstructions of the dresses worn by Maria Callas.” But, he noted, “The dresses from the ’70s, since there are very few images of her in the last period of her life, were designed by me by analyzing her state of mind and her taste. She dressed mainly in black, always remaining very elegant.” 

This elegance — this restraint, this desire for control — is so evident in the character’s clothes and stands in stark contrast to the lack of control she feels over other elements of her life. It’s a tension that recalls Callas’ observation that “opera is a battlefield.” She clearly feels like she needs to face the world in whatever armor she can assemble.

Still, at home, in the privacy of her own space, Maria can allow herself to be vulnerable, best seen in the flawless ivory dressing gown that she wears while drifting from room to room. Parrini explained that the robe was “made in Rome by hand based on my design. I wanted something ethereal but with an aesthetic importance … I wanted it to echo ancient Greece in color and shape, to make her look like a sort of priestess. It is like her second skin, the thing that protects her and envelops her in the domestic sphere.”

The accessories

“I re-created her entire wardrobe with extreme passion, trying to put myself in her shoes and imagining what she would have liked,” Parrini said. That passion is evident in the meticulous dedication to the scarves, hats, and glasses in the film, which always capture the spirit of the originals, even as they vary in specific details. Perhaps the most interesting accessory in the film is the eyewear, which wasn’t merely a sartorial addition for Callas, but a necessary means of support — even of endurance.

Left: Weston/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, Archivio Apg/Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images, Getty Images. Right: Pablo Larraín/Netflix.

As Jolie told Netflix, “There’s something I learned about her, that she couldn’t see. When someone looked at the prescription glasses that she wore later in her life, they said to Pablo, ‘That lens, that prescription, this person’s almost legally blind.’ ” 

Jolie continued, “When she was young, she couldn’t wear those glasses and be onstage. It wasn’t accepted, so she had to memorize everything very differently. When you understand that, you see this person’s survival instinct.” 

The crowning glory

So much about style — the external presentation of our most private selves — is ineffable, just like so many art forms, including opera. As Larraín told Netflix, “Opera is a form of transcendence, and it’s a form of expressing emotions that you cannot say with words.” This type of expression is manifested in Maria’s hair in the film; the unraveling of her perfectly coiffed tresses matches the unraveling of her sense of self, of her control over her fate.

THE LOCATIONS

The film takes place over just a few days and all in one city, but it simultaneously spans decades and continents — and was filmed in Budapest, Greece, Paris, and La Scala in Milan — as Maria reflects on her life. The immediacy of Paris —  the streets, her apartment, the opera rehearsal hall — captures so much of who Maria has become. Lachman told Netflix, “Visually, I was trying to incorporate the psychology of her character through color and color temperature, contrasting the warmth of her interior world to the coolness in blues and greens of the exterior world. That’s an unsettling, invasive force in her life.”

Paris

Pax Jolie-Pitt

If there ever was a city for an icon like Maria Callas to be at home, it would be Paris. And yet, there’s a discomfort in the way she inhabits the outside world — she knows she’s being observed. Or, at least, she thinks she is. Maria walks through Paris with a documentary crew trailing her, but, as Lachman pointed out, that crew is “part of her psyche, her mind.” This can be seen as she walks down the generously proportioned boulevards. “The camera is not visually aggressive,” Lachman said. “The camera is very subdued in the way it observes her … I was shooting documentaries in that period, so we sourced the camera that would’ve been used … There was an authenticity to not only the film’s stock, but also the lenses we used.”

“We tried to capture that extraordinary world that she was part of with the different textures in her life, a heightened sense of reality,” Lachman said. “She lived her life as a diva while she was struggling with her health and personal happiness.”

The apartment

For production designer Dyas, a visit with Larraín to Callas’ real apartment on Avenue George Mandel in Paris made it clear that they wanted “our set to be as faithful as possible and reflect a genuine connection to the outside world.” Though it was re-created not in Paris but in Budapest, Dyas made sure that the location they chose even had “the right sun exposure” to reflect Callas’ actual home and its “tall, elegant windows and high ceilings.”

Dyas told Netflix that re-creating the apartment created a “significant challenge” because there were so many elements to incorporate. “On the surface, Maria’s tastes seemed traditional — she had a deep appreciation for history and a keen knowledge of art,” Dyas said. “However, it quickly became clear that Maria was the mastermind behind her memorable style and presence, staging every element of her life. Her travels, cultural heritage, and professional experiences all influenced her style.”

The apartment stood in stark contrast to the cold and unforgiving world outside its doors. Dyas was inspired by “the mood and tones popular in Paris in the mid to late 1970s. These included earthy shades like brown, beige, tan, burnt orange, mustard yellow, and forest green, complemented by brighter accents of rust, tangerine, copper, and subtle shades of dusty pink and mauve. We aimed to limit the palette to a harmonious blend of earthy neutrals with carefully chosen bold, vibrant pops of color.” All of this created a space that could be both a centering and grounded environment for Maria, even if it was just another construct for her to maintain.

And about that piano. Dyas explained, “Maria had very specific tastes when it came to her pianos. She started taking lessons at age 10 and became an accomplished pianist. Throughout her life, she owned several exquisite pianos, including a grand Steinway that was famously housed on Onassis’ yacht. For our film, we crafted a custom undersized piano because it had to be rolled around Maria’s apartment and maneuvered through the narrow doorways. A full-sized grand piano simply wouldn’t have been practical.” (Not with all that moving around it wouldn’t!)

The opera

The fragility of Maria toward the end of her life is never seen more clearly than when she’s on the final stage where she will perform — all alone, striving for a perfection she’s desperate to attain again. Dressed all in black, hair pulled back, she looks serious — severe — as she attempts to regain her sense of self. Screenwriter Knight told Netflix, “Maria had the most maddeningly complex relationship with her voice, as if she felt her voice was indistinguishable from her soul. In other words, without a voice, she had no self, or perhaps her self became invisible.” 

On this stage, her presence pales in comparison to her prior performances, and yet it is clear she’s singing to survive. Knight explained, “Pablo and I picked up on the true fact that shortly before she died, she was in the process of trying to rebuild her voice but without any real intention of performing for other people. Perhaps she wanted to die whole, in one piece, her self and her voice reunited.”

THE LIFE

“I was trying to tell a whole life through a few days of living,” said Knight. “Pablo and I agreed it should be the last days of her life. I think this decision helps to make sense of the flashbacks, as if a human being is recollecting and reviewing the span of her life before she leaves this planet forever. It would be nice to think that all of us would get the opportunity to do this, and I wanted the experience of flashing back to not be torture for Maria but a cathartic replay. She is rewinding the cassette and playing the important pieces. My idea was that as a consequence of reviewing her life in the knowledge that she is dying, Maria will ultimately be at peace and ready to go wherever it is that we all go. Maria was reviewed and reviewed all her life. This movie is Maria reviewing herself.”

The performances

“There’s some sort of a hidden map in the film,” Larraín said, “where the piece of music we use, whether it’s only orchestration or with vocals in it, is related to the moment in the film.” This map that Larraín speaks of encompassed many of Callas’ most powerful performances and revealed the ways in which she didn’t just perform these roles — she embodied them, and they became a part of her. 

“The music was her life,” Jolie said. “Her relationship to her voice and her body, her ability to sing, her presence onstage and her communication with the audience — it was her life. It was the key to her as well.”

The personal

Left: Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Getty Images, Sony Pictures Classics/Everett Collection, Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images. Right: Stills courtesy Netflix.

Where was the separation between the personal and the performative? It’s an ambiguous line, one that it’s hard to imagine Maria herself fully understood. As Knight said about Callas and similarly gifted artists, “Their genius is not just something they turn off and on, it is part of their being, which comes into play in all aspects of life. ‘Diva’ is a term often used with contempt or amusement, but perhaps we are speaking about people with a heightened desire to attain perfection, not just in their discipline but in life.”

And is it possible to speak of desire and discipline and not mention love? While the romance of this film is tinged with grief and tragedy, it’s still possible to recognize the deep connection that Maria felt with Aristotle Onassis. Knight said about the “two Greek lovers” that “so much is known and so much is unknown about this relationship, but I can say with certainty that they loved each other. It was true love that endured logic and disdained common sense, as love always does. Two people who left nothing undone. Perhaps a happy relationship with a happy ending would have been unworthy of them.” 

THE LAST ACT

So many of the great operas — from Turandot to Madama Butterfly to Anna Bolena — end in tragedy. Nobody knew this better than Maria Callas. Tragedy is part of the human experience, something that nobody can escape, no matter how exalted their gifts, how special their talent, how fiercely they love. So perhaps there’s grace in the tragic. Jolie explained, “This film is about her relationship to her voice and her pain and her deep love. Her true love is her music.” And that love can be heard — and felt — by all of us, years after Maria sang her final note.