Yes—but Maria is a creative reimagining, not a comprehensive factual biography. Angelina Jolie stars as opera singer Maria Callas in a drama focused on the singer’s final days in Paris, using that late-life setting to look back across her career and personal history.
What is Maria about?
Netflix describes Callas as an American-Greek soprano who retreats to Paris after a glamorous and tumultuous public life. The film concentrates on a few days in the city while moving across decades and continents through Callas’s reflections. Its Paris setting and retrospective structure establish the drama’s scope; they do not mean that every conversation or incident is a documented event. Netflix’s film synopsis frames the story as an operatic reimagining of her final days.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography | $13.86 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Maria Callas: The Woman behind the Legend | $13.77 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography | $7.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
|
Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis | $16.35 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
|
Maria Callas: The Exhibition | $29.95 | Buy on Amazon |
The production was filmed in several locations, including Budapest, Greece, Paris, and La Scala in Milan, according to Netflix Tudum’s production feature. Those locations help the film evoke different periods and places in Callas’s life, while its central frame remains her final days.
Does Angelina Jolie really sing in Maria?
The opera scenes combine Jolie’s own voice with archival recordings of Callas. Netflix reports that Jolie trained in opera and worked on posture, breathing, movement, and accent, as well as specific arias, many of them in Italian. It is therefore not quite accurate to describe the performances as either entirely Jolie singing or simply Jolie lip-syncing to Callas. Netflix Tudum explains the film’s vocal approach.
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What operas and music appear in the film?
The motion picture soundtrack uses restored Callas recordings, with extracts from nine operas. Netflix names these examples:
- “Casta Diva” from Norma
- “Vissi D’arte” from Tosca
- “Sempre Libera” from La Traviata
- “O Mio Babbino Caro” from Gianni Schicchi
- “Ebben? Ne Andrò Lontana” from La Wally
The music is more than period decoration: the film treats Callas’s voice and her relationship with audiences as central to her identity. Jolie told Netflix Tudum, “The music was her life.”
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How does the film differ from the documentary Maria by Callas?
Maria by Callas is a separate documentary directed by Tom Volf and released by Sony Pictures Classics. It builds its portrait from historical materials—including performances, television interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters, and unpublished memoirs—and presents Callas’s story in her own words, according to Sony Pictures Classics’ official synopsis.
| Title | Format and scope | What it draws on |
|---|---|---|
| Maria | Dramatic reimagining centered on Callas’s final days in Paris, with reflections spanning her life | Scripted drama combined with Callas archival recordings in the opera sequences |
| Maria by Callas | Documentary portrait of the singer | Performances, interviews, home movies, photographs, letters, and unpublished memoirs |
Choose Maria for a stylized dramatic portrait of a singer looking back on her life; choose Maria by Callas for a documentary assembled from archival material and personal records.
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What the film’s creative approach means
Director Pablo Larraín described opera as “a form of transcendence, and it’s a form of expressing emotions that you cannot say with words.” He also called the film “a movie about someone who becomes part of the tragedies that she played on the stage.” These comments, published in Netflix Tudum’s production feature, point to the film’s interpretive aim: to connect Callas’s public art with her private reflections, rather than to present a complete account of her life.
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