Page 95 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book

Arenas

Ballet dancer Steven McRae and opera singer Maria Callas are the focus of two
new Arena films this year.

Arena: Steven McRae – Dancing Back to the Light charts the physical and mental
journey back from the brink of Steven McRae, one of the Royal Ballet’s principal
dancers. In the middle of a performance in 2019, he was catastrophically injured,
tearing his Achilles tendon. At 35 years old his career was dramatically halted just as
it was reaching its peak, to the extent that he wondered if he would ever be able to
dance again. Could he ever return to the stage and stay on it for the entire season?

Would he ever be able to get back to the level he was at before the fall? Over the
course of a year, director Stéphane Carrel filmed the return of this spectacular
dancer to his company, his recovery training alongside a deeper question of whether
the pressures of being an elite performer contributed to his downfall. Can Steven
triumph against the setbacks and dance his way back into the light?

Arena: Maria Callas (w/t) focuses on the great classical diva of modern times:
known around the world for her beauty and fiery temper as much as her voice. She
was a cover star with a thirst for the high-life and the looks of a supermodel. She
dominated opera until disaster struck – she fell in love with Aristotle Onassis, and
when he left her for Jackie Kennedy her life fell apart.

But this tragic legend of Maria Callas isn’t true: Callas was nobody’s victim. She was
defiant, exacting – a woman who blazed a trail for female artists of today. But there
was one thing that mattered more to her than anything – her astonishing, life-
changing voice. It was gradually failing her. And she knew it.

At her peak in the 1950s Callas averaged 50 appearances a year. But between 1959
and 1963 she sang in public only 28 times. She cancelled performances, earning her
an (undeserved) reputation as an erratic diva. This film is, in part, a detective story:
what was it that made Maria Callas lose her voice?

This film is also a celebration of Callas - her brilliance, originality and determination
to be the greatest opera singer alive. A stellar cast of experts and admirers uncover
the truth about her and the gift of her extraordinary voice. Her impact on classical
music was revolutionary, bringing forgotten roles into the limelight and making them
her own: magnificent, indomitable heroines. Callas is the artist who reminded the
world what opera is for.

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