The Afterlife of Maria Callas's Voice

Abstract

It is indeed impossible to imagine our own death; and whenever we attempt to do so we can perceive that we are in fact still present as spectators . . . at bottom no one believes in his own death, or, to put the same thing in another way, that in the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own immortality. —Sigmund Freud, “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death” [Maria Callas’s] record company has succeeded in making people think she is still alive. . . . It’s a little bit like conversations with the other world. —Manuela Hoelterhoff, Cinderella & Company Am I hearing voices within the voice? But isn’t it the truth of the voice to be hallucinated? Isn’t the entire space of the voice an infinite one? —Roland Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice” Callas Forever, Franco Zeffirelli’s 2002 film, abounds with references to comebacks, second chances, reclaiming one’s life, mourning over one’s lost voice, and questions of immortality.1 It is a surprising film. Rather than reconstructing Maria Callas’s life twenty-five years after her death, it depicts what could have happened in the last few months of her life. The fictionalized account is not intended to correct Callas’s biography in any simple sense: in fact, it tells of failures. To Callas Forever’s invented plot––a Callas comeback on film––Callas herself ultimately objects.

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