224 - The Operatic Sound of Pablo Larraín’s Maria

Dolby Creator Talks

“Maria,” the latest film from director Pablo Larraín, offers a mind-bending exploration of the life and final days of legendary opera singer Maria Callas, with Angelina Jolie delivering a transformative performance. To bring her world to life, the acclaimed sound team faced the unique challenge of blending iconic original recordings of Callas with actual, live performances from Jolie, who trained extensively to sing opera at a professional level.

“We absolutely went into this with the idea that Angelina was gonna do this live… She called it ‘face singing,’ because it's so unnatural. It's not a pop song in your shower or in your car where you kind of just go along with it. It's constantly changing tempos and dynamics; that's super hard to reproduce. I mean, what she did was incredible to even begin to approach this.”

—Mac Ruth, Production Sound Mixer, “Maria”

From live on-set vocal performances to intricate post-production layering, the team reveals their cutting-edge techniques for weaving together these extraordinary performances into a seamless auditory experience.

Joining today’s discussion are:

- Lars Ginzel – Re-Recording Mixer

- Mac Ruth – Production Sound Mixer

- Gwennolé Le Borgne – Sound Designer

- John Warhurst – Supervising Sound Editor

Be sure to check out Maria, now playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos® starting December 11th.

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