Maria Callas: A Concert in Hologram.

As a poet, I have never attended an event with my art critic hat on and had the uncontrollable need to express myself poetically by what was unfolding before me, but last night, hearing Maria Callas at the Arts Centre, as I wrote in my notebook in the dark, the poetic lines were just falling out of me, and as I write this review the next morning, I can still see her image and hear her voice. It’s as if my mind believes that I really did witness Maria, like she arrived to me in a dream, her ghost came to me, to us, at the Arts Centre.

Don’t look to the brochure or the online video from creators of the hologram technology, BASE Xperiential, for a teaser – it doesn’t even come close. It was as if an angel was appearing before me, streamed straight from heaven. Maria Callas, channelled for one night only to sing in a place she never had the chance to visit in her waking life, in this, her one hundredth year birthday.

I was completely blown away, my vision stuck to her image like I was witnessing a miracle, my heart snatched by her voice, my soul journeying along her absolutely riveting vocal range. For context, I have an appreciation for classical music but that’s as far as it goes, but even this only came to me later in life, because from age zero to thirty I grew up in a cultural bubble listening only to my dad play bouzouki, the Greek radio and Greek pop songs like Glikeria and Dalaras, and English pop songs on mainstream radio. My appreciation for Maria Callas only came after I entered the arts as a writer and performer just over a decade ago, and it’s only in the last few years that I am learning more about her life and her voice, which I adore for its power, passion and vulnerability, her voice an encapsulation of a Greek tragedy swirling inside me.

But nothing prepared me for this. Nothing.

Brought to Australia by the European Union, as I sat in my seat consuming Maria hungrily, I was trying to comprehend how this was possible, how it was put together, how the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, together with composer Daniel Schlosberg, were able to stay so impeccably timed with this 3D hologram image of Maria – and even as I type the word hologram, I don’t want to use it – it felt like her spirit was there, appearing and disappearing like dust, the MSO playing beautifully in between Maria’s appearances to create the right mood for when Maria next graced the stage.

Research this morning unveiled that this was not archival footage of Maria. The innovative, cutting-edge technology uses actors as puppets who study Maria’s body language and are filmed, and then Maria’s voice is isolated from recordings, her image fused with the actor’s image using CGI technology to create a Maria that can sing with the orchestra and interact with the audience. And it wasn’t just her voice on display, but sounds like her heels walking along the stage, the sounds of her adjusting her clothing – there was so much detail that made it exceptionally believable, almost paranormal, and you could hear everyone in the room almost sigh. When Maria wasn’t singing and the orchestra wasn’t playing and Maria was on stage, adjusting her clothing, preparing to sing, you could have heard a pin drop – so transfixed was everyone on her image.  

The work and preparation involved in staging this would be years in the making, which makes it that much more special, that the world loves Maria enough to recreate her and keep her alive for future generations. I had my daughter with me and she was completely captivated. As a performer of Greek-Cypriot descent, who is often criticised for her rawness, seeing Maria was validating and empowering, to see her expression, her passion, her strength, resilience, her soul, her humbleness – she had the ability to transfix and transport me simultaneously. I left the show wondering what’s next for this technology. I would have loved to hear her speak between songs.

Koraly Dimitriadis

Koraly Dimitriadis is a writer, poet, performer, film and theatre maker and the author of Love and F—k Poems, Just Give Me The Pills and She’s Not Normal.

Photographer: Laura Manarit

Also playing at Dunstan Playhouse in Adelaide on 9 December and Perth Concert Hall on 13 December