Callas Returns — As A Hologram
And Tony Tommassini was there! “When Maria Callas appeared onstage at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Sunday night, she looked a little pale, a little spectral. This was understandable, perhaps: She has been dead since 1977. This Callas was a three-dimensional hologram, the latest in a series of musical-visual resurrections that have included Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson and Ronnie James Dio. She shared the program, in fact, with Roy Orbison, who died in 1988…It was amazing, yet also absurd; strangely captivating, yet also campy and ridiculous. And in a way, it made the most
sense of any of the musical holograms produced so far. More than rock or hip-hop fans — and even more, you could say, than fans of instrumental classical music — opera lovers dwell in the past. We are known for our obsessive devotion to dead divas and old recordings; it can sometimes seem like an element of necrophilia, even, drives the most fanatical buffs.”
