The recently completed documentary film, CALLAS COOKING, INGREDIENTS OF A LEGEND, produced and written by Tony Shargool, Directed by Marco Kuveiller, narrated by the Callas expert and biographer Bruno Tosi and with an original music score composed by Claudio Capponi, will be distributed on the International TV & Video market by Rai Trade.
After the imminent October MIPCOM market in Cannes, Rai Trade will present the film in the Documentaries section of the Turin Film Festival in late November 2008.
Bruno tosi con Tony Shargool
Simionato intervista
Gioco e Bruno Tosi
casa di Tosi
Chiarot
Cipriani
CALLAS COOKING
INGREDIENTS OF A LEGEND
A Documentary by Tony Shargool
52’ programme for WW TV, DVD, new media distribution
MEDIA PICTURE INTERNATIONAL & ARCOSCENICO with THE MARIA CALLAS ASSOCIATION
WRITTEN and PRODUCED by Tony Shargool
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Claudio Capponi
TV DIRECTOR: Marco Kuveiller
The “Divina”, her poverty-stricken Greek youth, her triumphant professional years in Italy where she revealed her peculiar relationship with food. Was she bulimic or anorexic? Over the years, how much did the highly effective chemical diet therapy (and loss of 40 kg in 12 months) impact on her voice, her health, and mental stability
"Cooking is like creating. We must do everything the best way possible, plus more... That is the strongest reason for anything." Maria Callas
All media still keenly cover everything to do with The Divine Maria Callas, as demonstrated by the many, worldwide, initiatives in 2007 for the 30th anniversary of her death. This interest and the new publication: “LA DIVINA IN CUCINA”, on her 100 secret recipes, by Bruno Tosi, President of the Maria Callas Association, now distributed in different territories of Europe, South America and the States, have inspired this programme.
Focused on Maria’s personality, her daily life with husband & manager Meneghini when newly wed in Italy, her ambition, will-power and drastic medical therapies used in morphing into the glamorous star we all remember, her ‘extreme’ relationship with the world of cuisine.
Bruno Tosi, her Italian biographer is our chaperon concerning the soprano’s tastes and eating habits transpiring also through the recipes she obsessively collected, her vast library of cookery books, initially given to her by her mother-in-law, the notes she made in the jet set homes and restaurants of her dolce vita.
We visit and talk to the owners of the restaurants the “Divina” patronised and opera experts in the cathedrals of Italian Opera, sited in Venice, Rome, Verona and Milan, discovering the dishes she successively prepared for her celebrity guests - but could not eat due to her life-long diet.
With the expert advice of Professor Pietro Migliaccio,MD, renown nutritionist, the programme addresses a number of underlying issues; what episodes of her youth made her over-eat, did she become bulimic or anorexic, how she slimmed, and did this affect her voice, did it undermine her health and her balance and temperament, bringing her premature death at only 53.
These iconoclastic questions are posed to her Italian acquaintances or experts, including her life-long friend, the Mezzo, Giulietta Simionato, Francesco Canessa, San Carlo Opera House, Cristiano Chiarot, La Fenice, Venice, Patricia Adkins Chiti, President of the ‘Women in Music’ Foundation, Arrigo Cipriani, proprietor of the Harry’s Bar chain, Giorgio Gioco, owner of the “12 Apostoli” restaurant a favourite of Meneghini and Maria’s in Verona, Paolo Celli, the Italian cook, who knew her when he worked on Onassis’ yacht Christina, Astrologist, Duska Bisconti and world renown Soprano Lucia Aliberti.
tonyshargool@fastwebnet.it
Media Picture International – via F. Casini, 6 – 00153 Roma, tel: 06 5806281 www.mediapictureint.com
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