La voce delle mani
Maria Callas and the Italians
Photographs by Cristina de Middel and Richard Kalvar
La Divina Emozione. Atto Secondo
Photography exhibition Magnum Photos International
La Divina emozione. Sirmione Callas 21 23

Palazzo Callas Exhibitions continues its program leading up to the centenary of Maria Callas’ birth in 2023.
On the first floor, Cristina de Middel celebrates the outstanding talent of Maria Callas with a unique exhibition, specially created for the occasion.
In a certain sense, the story of Maria Callas is the confirmation of a certain archetypal view of women who, it is said, believe in true love and who sacrifice their careers for the sake of it. She let herself die when life, they say, was no longer worth living. The larger audience remembers her because it is easier to recognize oneself in her suffering than to acknowledge her outstanding talent. This was even more the case in the times of Maria Callas, and especially so concerning a woman’s talent.

When Maria Callas started raising to the status of Diva, with a voice that would stand out and create the legend she became, it was Luchino Visconti, the movie and stage director, who shaped her as an actress. In her words: Visconti made me discover how you have to act on stage. He taught me, that the less you move on stage without a real reason for it, the more would be reflected my true personality.
In Maria Callas’ minimalist performances, the gestures are perceived as a delicate ritual in which her hands, in cadence with the music, express themselves as powerfully as does her voice.
On the second floor, Richard Kalvar presents his exhibition which focuses on Italian people’s use of a sort of secondary gestural language. He started this series when he first visited Italy in early August 1978 to photograph the funeral of Pope Paul VI and the election of his successor.

As his taxi pulled into the Piazza di Spagna in Rome, he understood immediately that he had arrived in a photographer’s paradise which he describes as follows: I saw that I was now in the land of perpetual human interaction, expressed not only with the voice but with the mouth, the cheeks, the eyes, the eyebrows, the forehead, the hands (the hands!) – in fact the whole body.
The interior visually exteriorised! What more could a photographer wish for? So, when I came back repeatedly and enthusiastically to photograph life in Italy, I wound up with many pictures in which gestures were essential. I wasn’t trying to catalog them; I just couldn’t avoid them!

Opening Hours from 8th December 2022 until 8th January 2023
Fridays 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Saturdays and public holidays 10:30 am – 12:30 pm and 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm