once more she opens the door
Three-time World’s Best-selling Canadian Female Recording Artist of the Year Céline Dion apparently has not come to her senses in the eight months that have passed since her Las Vegas farewell. As La Cieca warned you last year, the québécoise canary is planning a crossover into the cinema, specifically a biopic in which she, Céline Dion, will portray her idol Maria Callas.Â
Now, don’t panic, filming hasn’t started yet and there’s still plenty of time to get a violent protest movement organized. Still, Dion’s Divina continues in development, according to La Presse:
Céline Dion a chanté pour Kent Nagano à Berlin, en juin. «On voulait voir si Céline est capable de chanter de l’opéra,» explique René Angélil [i.e., Monsieur Dion]. «Si elle doit faire le film sur Maria Callas (avec la productrice Denise Robert), il faut qu’elle y chante, sinon ça ne sera pas intéressant.»
La Dion went into her audition with Nagano imbued with the enormous self-confidence for which she is celebrated. Says Céline:
«Moi, sans prétention, je peux tout faire, mais il faut que je me prépare. Nagano m’a demandé si je connaissais tel ou tel opéra, si je lisais la musique. Par trois fois, j’ai répondu non; ça partait mal, mon affaire! Mais il m’a tout de suite mis à l’aise en me disant que Pavarotti, je pense, ne lisait pas la musique lui non plus.»
Finalement, je lui ai chanté deux extraits de Carmen de Bizet que je connaissais. Je lui ai dit que j’étais mezzo-soprano. Ilm’a répondu: ‘Je ne pense pas. Tout ce que vous venez de chanter, c’est soprano’.»
And Nagano’s reaction to Céline’s Seguidille? Angélil exults, «Après l’avoir écoutée, Kent Nagano lui a suggéré deux choses: des leçons de chant et une classe de maître avec une grande chanteuse d’opéra (la soprano italienne Renata Scotto).»
Are they going to concentrate on the early years.
Neither Callas or Dion were much of a looker in the early years. She may feel a kind of empathy. How Celine managed to sing around those tombstones in her mouth is at the very least, some sort of achievement.
The ending may be a little downbeat for her. Perhaps a bit of judicious re-writing of the story might be in order. Callas reaches the dizzy heights of her career, has a multi-millionaire boyf and has some lovely children, re-affirming the total wonderfulness of Callas/Dion.
“EEF you have to cut, you have to cut GLAUCE’S aria– Not. Mine.”
Maybe Miley Cyrus can play the young Scotto to Celine’s Callas.
TG, I called it bad because I hated it, which maybe isn’t good enough. And Swann… starred the troll-like Ornella Muti, which was bad casting for a start.
But thank you, I will look out two of the films you mention (I’ve seen Colonel Chabert). On which tack, I am ENORMOUSLY grateful to La Cieca’s site for drawing my attention to The Music Man via Hermione’s ‘Ball-zac!’ filth. What a clever, witty film! How I adore Shirley Jones! It’s time for Carousel again (which I hear is being remade with the gorgeous Hugh Jackman, whom we were lucky enough to get by the short and Curleys in the National Theatre Oklahoma). Anyone know who’s playing Julie?
Scaramuccio – Did you know that The Music Man is on at the Chichester Festival Theatre until August 30? And it so happens that coming to the theatre’s studio space next month is …
Artisto
A new play by Martin Sherman
Based on material from Nemesis by Peter Evans
With Robert Lindsay
Aristo is the story of the last years in the life of Aristotle Onassis, and of his complex and interwoven relationships with Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas, and his son Alexandros. Based in part on Peter Evans’ book Nemesis, Aristo is an explosive account of how those in positions of enormous power and wealth often live lives detached from the realities and moral codes of everyday existence
I did, TG, and I hear excellent reports about it. I blithely assumed it would transfer to London – maybe I was wrong in that assumption, but too late for me to catch it now.
Robert Lindsay as AO – now there’s an interesting thought. He’s a great actor, blisteringly funny and tragic in The Entertainer.
First, Dion plays Callas, and then Paris Hilton will take on Grace Kelly. O tempora, o mores…
The photograph looks like a still from “Death becomes her”. Can she act? Will she lip synch? Will anyone go to see this obvious pile of crap? Does anyone care?
Much underrated movie, that (Death Becomes Her): withstands a second viewing. People forget that Meryl did Funny long before Mamma Mia (which by all accounts AIN’T funny, though I guess I’d better go see for myself).
But yes, this picture’s scary. I join with another in thanking La Cieca for that one of Rufus.
On which vaguely interconnected note, I wouldn’t mind at all if Gwyneth Paltrow did Grace Kelly. She comes very close to her style in The Talented Mr Ripley (oh so cool, the scene in St Mark’s where she sweeps in wearing an animal skin and n/ clocks Matt D at Florian’s). But I guess she’d need a great director like the late, lamented Minghella (well, let’s forgive him the Butterfly).
Then there was that fellow years ago, trying to get a film made on Mario Lanza. Script was already complete. I saw a program on it. He had Lanza at the end of the film, singing in some Italian opera house and Lucky Luciano up in a box throwing coins or a torn up programme to signal ‘mafia curtains’ for Lanza!
Likewise, with Callas -her demise is disputed. Some say a simple heart attack. Yet others claim she was taken to hospital after being filled up on presumably, coffee – caffiene! Certianly not the stuff for a heart attack treatment.