"My camera was silent, and so I started to compose wild sound collages for my films from my records with the help of tape, for example with my favorite Callas arias. I even got her to sing with herself that way. I also contrasted Schlager scraps of the Caterina Valente, whom I adore, and Christmas carols with the pictures. I cannot interpret what began then. I am an artist, I work intuitively." - Werner Schroeter

Carla is a different form of homage, in which Carla Aulaulu sings a song by Gitta Linds.

In the first part of this short film, Schroeter tries to visualize the artist as Lucia in the mad scene of the third act of the Donizetti opera. Schroeter uses four scene photos of Callas, isolated on a dark background, in gestures and facial expressions, highlights of the mad scene and cuts them one after the other in such a way that the impression of movement - of walking - arises. This anticipated movement becomes an ornament as the photos are dragged from right to left. The unnatural effect could be an accurate expression of madness. In the second part of the film, Schroeter uses three more shots of the singer: a private photo of Callas as Norma and a picture in a magazine that probably shows her in an exuberant pose as Medea (Cherubini) and nicknamed her “the tigress” in the press. The film has such a musical rhythm in its editing technique that the sound could be dispensed with.

An intimate look at the life and work of Greek-American opera singer Maria Callas, as told in her own words.

The last days of legendary opera singer Maria Callas.

Maria Callas: Life and Art is a brilliant documentary of opera diva Maria Callas. The documentary includes extensive interviews with her friends and colleagues, as well as performance footage.

Directed by Tony Palmer for Melvyn Bragg's British television South Bank Show, this doco on Callas uses interviews with those that new the Greek soprano, news footage and Callas herself talking intercut in time with footage of her singing, often with the choice of music commenting on her life, though regrettably none of the music is identified for us.

Based on the plot of Euripides' Medea. Medea centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed her for another woman.

Animated stills of Maria Callas and overlaid with a soundtrack of her singing.

The career of Maria Callas was just a bit too early and too brief to receive full and satisfying video documentation like that now being accorded to such singers as Renée Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti. This black-and-white televised recital (Callas's Paris debut) took place at the Paris Opera on December 19, 1958 when television was still in its infancy. We might wish that it had happened earlier, when her voice was in better condition, or later, when video recording technology was more advanced--so that, for example, we would not have to take the narrator's word that Callas is wearing a red dress. But this is probably the best available Callas video recording, and her fans will welcome it warmly. Visual elements were as important as the vocal dimensions in her art.