Angelina Jolie returns to the limelight at the Venice Film Festival as Maria Callas, ‘La Divina’, whose rich voice, glamourous persona, and tragic love affair mesmerised audiences around the world.

In ‘Maria’, the modern-day movie star will strive to capture the transcendent dramatic presence and tormented life of one of opera’s most resplendent divas in a biopic from Chilean director Pablo Larrain. The film that premieres on the Lido Thursday evening, on the festival’s second day, is the last in Larrain’s trilogy of movies about iconic real-life women - after 2021’s ‘Spencer’ about Lady Di and 2016’s ‘Jackie’ about Jacqueline Kennedy. The director has said only a larger-than-life star in her own right could play the role of the American-born Greek singer.  “This is the greatest diva of the 20th century, and who could play that?” Larrain told Vanity Fair last week. “I didn’t want to work with someone that didn’t have that already. I needed an actress who would naturally and organically be that diva, carry that weight, be that presence. Angelina was there.”

Absent from the screen since 2021, the 49-year-old American actress and director has kept a relatively low profile even as her lengthy, acrimonious divorce from Brad Pitt continues to make headlines. One of 21 films in competition for Venice’s prestigious Golden Lion prize, ‘Maria’ centres on Callas’s final, isolated years in Paris in the 1970s, as she looks back at her life and career before her death at age 53 from a heart attack. Jolie reportedly studied for six months for the role, training herself to mimic the singer’s cadences and tones as the film mixes in her own voice with that of the celebrated soprano.