7 Deaths of Maria Callas

GNO lead donor

The production is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] to enhance the Greek National Opera's artistic outreach.

The new ambitious operatic project of the priestess of performance art Marina Abramović for the absolute diva, Maria Callas, is an international co-production of the Greek National Opera, the Bavarian State Opera (Munich), the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opéra national de Paris.

"Vissi d'arte" - a life devoted to art. Shortly before the renowned singer Floria Tosca thrusts the knife into the chest of cynical Scarpia, she sings out her life in wistful retrospect. Although the aria marks the calm before the storm, the death of her adversary, this turning point in Giacomo Puccini's opera, also marks Tosca's fate. Maria Callas, the absolute prima donna of the 20th century, sang this aria many times. As Callas' stirring life story has always fascinated Marina Abramović, she decided to develop the operatic project The Seven Deaths of Maria Callas, in which seven deaths are re-enacted in an exemplary fashion on the stage, based on the musical and scenic highlights that marked the respective operas - all of them arias that were immensely important to Maria Callas.

In seven short films and together with Willem Dafoe, Marina Abramović will die seven times. At the end of the performance, presenting the real death of Maria Callas in Paris in 1977, she will be on the stage performing as herself.

In addition to the well-known arias from the 19th and 20th centuries, Serbian composer Marko Nikodijević composes original music, through which he illustrates how Callas' unconditioned love for her art never allowed for a split between the person she was on stage and off stage.

Abramović notes: "For over 25 years I wanted to create a work dedicated to the life and art of Maria Callas. I've always been enchanted by her personality, her life and even her death. Like many of the opera heroines she portrayed on stage, she also died of love. She died of a broken heart".

Composition
Marko Nikodijević, Marina Abramović

Music by Marko Nikodijević and scenes from operas of Bellini, Bizet, Donizetti, Puccini and Verdi

Director & set designer
Marina Abramović

Co-director
Lynsey Peisinger

Conductor
Yoel Gamzou
 
Video
Nabil Elderkin

Screenplay Petter Skavlan, Marina Abramović

Visual effects
Marco Brambilla

Costumes
Riccardo Tisci

Set design collaboration
Anna Schöttl

Lighting design
Urs Schönebaum

Dramaturgy
Benedikt Stampfli