“Callas has always been a fascinating character,” Marc A. Sorca, CEO and president of advocacy group Opera America, tells TODAY. “You could write an opera about her — about someone who made an indelible impression in her 20s and 30s, and by the time she was 40 was finished as a singer. It’s a truly operatic story.”

In Pablo Larraín’s Maria, Angelina Jolie transforms into the late opera diva Maria Callas—not just physically, with her chic French wardrobe, luxurious stage looks, and curly wigs, but also vocally. The film features a mixture of her own live vocals and Callas’s archival recordings,

Yes, Maria is based on the true story of Greek opera singer Maria Callas, who died of a heart attack in 1977, when she was only 53 years old. Maria imagines the last few days of Callas’s life, in which once the once-great opera singer struggles with a drug addiction, hallucinations, and her declining health.