Monica Bellucci as Maria Callas
(Picture: Handout)There’s an undeniable thrill at seeing Monica Bellucci, the arthouse bombshell who brought class and continental sensuality to the Bond and Matrix franchises, live on a London stage for the first time. But it dies about two minutes into this lamentable meander through the personal scribblings of postwar opera star Maria Callas. You could call this one-night stand a Callas-tastrophe.
There’s little here to interest anyone who isn’t already obsessively knowledgeable about the Greek-American soprano who stormed the classical world in the 1950s, preceded Jackie Kennedy in Aristotle Onassis’s bed, and died aged 52 in 1975. Bellucci, who deliciously spoofed her own sultry image in Call My Agent!, is spectacularly wooden and dull. The combined London fans of both women didn’t quite fill Her Majesty’s Theatre last night.
