Review: 7 DEATHS OF MARIA CALLAS, London Coliseum

The word “diva” comes with many connotations. In the high street, it indicates someone (usually a woman) with constant demands, a mountainous sense of self and a tongue you could sharpen new razors with. Alternatively, on an opera stage, there are few greater compliments than to be drowned in an avalanche of bouquets while the crowd shouts that very word at you.

Celebrated performance artist Marina Abramović is very much in town: as well as a huge exhibition of her works at the Royal Academy, this self-styled “opera project” in London’s largest West End theatre sees her explore the life, works and final moments of the diva’s diva Maria Callas through music, song and conceptual videos.

Despite its official title, this could just as well be called 90 Minutes Of Marina Abramović By Marina Abramović: the grand dame appears in all the videos as well as taking the reins as director, set designer, scenographer, narrator and (with Petter Skavlan) co-librettist. Presumably the only reason she isn’t also down in the pit conducting is because she spends almost the entire time up on stage lying supine on a bed, a still and enduring presence to keep us mindful as to which diva is the star here.

Before we hear how each character met their fate, we hear a recording of Abramović channelling the thoughts and fears of the famed Greek soprano. These can range from the pointed, poignant and ponderous to the pretentious: there’s an elegy on the butterfly effect and the butterfly in mythology before the Madama Butterfly’s “Un bel di, vedremo”, the heart-rending last thoughts of Desdemona before Otello despatches her to the sound of “Ave Maria” and just before Tosca’s aria “Vissi d’Arte” which precedes the fatal fall, we hear that “It’s not dangerous to jump. It’s not dangerous to fall…Only when you land does it become dangerous.”

The immense videos are Abramović’s prime method of embodying her heroine, enacting scenarios which speak to the aria and Callas’ much-documented personality and personal travails. Whether dressed in blazing crimson as she fights with Defoe’s matador, utterly destroying a wall mirror using a hand mirror or tearing open a grey hazmat suit to reveal magnificent breasts, this is Marina-as-Maria at her most absolutely dazzling. 

We see her die in various gruesome and dramatic ways. Whether accidentally stabbed, falling off a building then smashing onto a car or strangulated by a giant boa constrictor, she stares her end and the camera right in the face, her hundred-foot-high stoic features showing she is deeply sorrowful not for herself but for the world she leaves behind, all the poorer for not having her in it. Defoe does his level best to keep up with the four-time Oscar-nominated actor bravely taking on supporting roles. From grieving his departed partner on her deathbed to running in a gold lame dress at full pelt and in full face towards an inferno, he gives some of the more unintentionally funny scenes a patina of deeper meaning and true quality.

Abramović is a constant - if silent - presence on stage, leaving it up to Yoel Gamzou in the pit and a septet of sopranos to bring to life the arias and the fictional heroines that sung them. The three former ENO Harewood artists (Nadine Benjamin, Sophie Vevan and Sarah Tynan) are wonderful with Benjamin giving magnificent voice to Desdemona, emotion etched into her every last syllable. Opener Eri Nakamura’s defiant turn as Violetta is everything it should be while Aigul Akhmetshina reaches deep for Carmen’s “Habanera” - arguably Callas’ most famous role and aria. 

Callas isn’t here to lend her thoughts to this production, though we suspect she may have notes for her Serbian megafan. La Divina may feature in the title but she is in many ways no more than a starting point for Abramović to visualise a variety of topics around female representation and treatment, not least opera’s obsession with killing off its heroines. Callas is never revealed on screen or in recordings and, only through the choice of the arias associated with her, oblique references in the text to her life and an overlong final sequence which portrays her own last moments in a Paris hotel room, do we get to become slightly acquainted with the singer whose complex love life and epic voice conquered the opera world of her day. 

From the moment the curtain rises and a lone spotlight settles for an uncomfortably long time on the death bed and Abramović's still form, it is clear there is only one diva really being celebrated here. Five decades into her career, she is ploughing on with commendable pace and shows no signs of slowing or fading into obscurity. Despite evidencing a self-obsession verging on the narcissistic at times, 7 Deaths is a testament to this artist's power to realise grand projects with a political edge. 

7 Deaths Of Maria Callas continues until 11 November.

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

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