Angelina Jolie Wears Real-Life Jewelry Belonging to Opera Legend Maria Callas in Biopic Maria — And on the Red Carpet

Jolie walked the Venice International Film Festival red carpet in a designer brooch that actually belonged to Callas

 

Angelina Jolie has a fashionable way of channeling Maria Callas on the red carpet — the iconic opera singer she portrays in Pablo Larraín’s new biopic, Maria.

On Thursday, Aug. 29, the actress, 49, stepped out on the red carpet at the Venice International Film Festival wearing a Tamara Ralph chiffon gown and faux fur stole, according to Vogue — and a designer brooch that actually belonged to Callas, who died in 1977.

Per the magazine, many of the storied opera singer’s brooches now live in the Cartier Collection, and Maria costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini worked with Cartier to obtain some of Callas’ finest jewelry. According to Jolie, she wore the real designer pieces as a nod to Callas not just on the red carpet, but also on screen in the biopic.

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Her red carpet brooch was a 1972 Rose Ouvrante in the shape of a flower, that features diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies. The jewelry — which Jolie wears in the movie — also has a special mechanism that makes the flower petals open and close.

“I was also charmed at how it transformed from a closed flower that then blooms,” Jolie told Vogue. “I like to think it made her smile. The little secret in the piece.”

Earlier on Thursday, Jolie paired one of her own Atelier Jolie black dresses with a 1971 Panthère brooch, featuring the classic gold Cartier panthers with emeralds for eyes alongside a white chalcedony gemstone, the magazine reported. This brooch was also featured in Maria, Jolie added.

“You can imagine how special it was to wear a piece of jewelry that was hers,” she said.

Jolie has previously been candid about how she felt connected to Callas — whose life is known as somewhat tragic — and fully submerged herself in the world of opera to understand her character. Earlier on Thursday, she spoke at a press conference alongside other cast and crew about how she related to Callas’ story.

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“Well, there’s a lot I won’t say in this room, that you probably know or assume,” Jolie told the crowd with a laugh.

“I think the way I related to her may be a surprise — [it was] probably the part of her that’s extremely soft and doesn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was, and as emotionally open as she truly was,” the Oscar winner said.

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She added of Callas, “I share her vulnerability more than anything.”

Based on true accounts about Callas, Maria will tell the “tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the life of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and reimagined during her final days in 1970s Paris,” according to a press release.

Details about Callas’ life have previously been explored in Lyndsy Spence’s biography about the star Cast a Diva: The Hidden Life of Maria Callas, which was excerpted in an April 2021 article from The Guardian.

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