Tom Volf
Author of MARIA CALLAS “Letters & Memories”
«I’m in love with Greece!» said the famous director Tom Volf from the first day he came for the rehearsal at the Herodion with Monica Bellucci. «It was love at first sight with the culture from the day I came to present my film “Maria by Callas” in 2018!»
Despite his 36 years, Tom Volf is President of the Maria Callas Paris Foundation, author, director, and producer of the theatrical monologue with Monica Bellucci in the play at the Herodion based on his book “Maria Callas: Letters and Memories” as well as director of the film “Maria by Callas”. Tom Volf is already preparing the groundwork for the Callas Museum in Paris, he continues his tour with Bellucci in America, Moscow, and London, he is preparing a suite with his name in St. George Lycabettus, is expected the Greek translation of Callas Confidential, as well as the reissue of the soldout DVD “Maria by Callas”.
Although his name is mostly identified with Callas, he has already contacted famous Greeks for new productions with completely different themes. His goal is to be able to stay in Greece as long as possible and to create a series of new performances. «I am a philhellene and I want to offer my heart to this country», he tells us.
I know that inspiration needs just a tiny spark to be born and become huge. What motivated you to research all over the world and reveal the “truth” of Maria Callas’ life?
What motivated me was first and foremost my falling in love with her voice and her life when I discovered her in 2013, and the motivation to share this love with other people, and make her known as she truly was, and make her understood, and help also for the new generation to learn about her.
If you could use one word for Maria Callas what would that word be?
In two words… quoting Leonard Bernstein: “she was pure electricity”.
There is a lot written about the Diva. What was the most outrageous found during your work?
The most important thing about my work is to accurately present her as a woman, and a great artist, and to show that she was not a diva in the sense that people called her. If she was a diva it is only because of the original meaning of the word coming from the divine, as her voice was certainly out of this world.
Was it something that frustrated you with the personality of Maria Callas?
There was nothing that frustrated me, I have only love and compassion for her. Because her life was not an easy life. There was a lot of suffering, although there was also glory, and times of joy.
What do you want readers to take away after reading your book?
What I’d like readers to feel after reading the book is the feeling they’ve met her, they’ve understood who she really was, both as an artist and as a human being, what she was all about. Τo love her for who she was, as her letters show in the truest and authentic way, and to listen to her recordings after that with even more emotion.
