From his book Maria Callas: Letters and Memoirs (Albin Michel, 2019), Tom Volf designs and directs a theatrical reading performed by Monica Bellucci. This is the first time that the Italian actress has appeared on a theatre stage. The show unfolds around the unpublished correspondence and memories of the singer: the modest childhood in New York, the war years in Athens, the debut at the opera, the peaks of the career, the scandals, the idealized love for Meneghini, the passion for Onassis, the Parisian solitude of the last years. Maria and Callas, separated and reunited by the word itself.
Created in the fall of 2019 at Théâtre Marigny, the play resumes in 2020 at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens. Followed by an international tour in nine countries - including Greece (Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens), the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Turkey - in three languages: French, Italian (Callas, Lettere e memorie), English (Letters & Memoirs). A version with orchestra is created in Athens in 2021, then given at the Théâtre du Châtelet on November 14 and 15, 2022 with the Lamoureux Orchestra under the direction of Philippe Forget. The show closes on January 27, 2023 at the Beacon Theatre in New York.
