Netflix's "Maria," starring Angelina Jolie, imagines opera singer Maria Callas' last days. The true story of her life was of abuse, drugs, and health issues.

Fame, fortune and success: Everyone thinks that those three things go hand-in-hand. But as legendary opera singer Maria Callas discovered, great fame and great talent do not always equal great happiness.

Certainly, that’s one takeaway from Pablo Larraín's new Maria Callas biopic, Maria.Maria stars Angelina Jolie as the famed Greek American opera singer who rose to fame in a flash and burned out just as spectacularly.

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.

Netflix U.S. has just added a stirring new biopic starring Oscar-winning performer, Angelina Jolie. "Maria" is the latest effort from Pablo Larraín, and continues his recent run of biographical historical dramas looking at iconic women from the 20th century after 2021's "Spencer" and the Natalie Portman-fronted 2016 biopic, "Jackie".

That’s a line from Pablo Larrain ’s “ Maria ,” now streaming on Netflix, based on the final days of opera superstar Maria Callas. The film is peppered with flashbacks of arias by Verdi and Puccini when Callas was at the height of her success. And was Angelina Jolie, who portrays Callas, ready to sing them? Absolutely not.

Angelina Jolie really is singing opera in Maria, but it’s not only Jolie’s voice in the final product. The movie blended Jolie’s singing voice with recordings of the real Maria Callas, so the result is a hybrid of both Jolie and Callas’s voice.

Angelina Jolie thanked the extra cast and crew of the Maria film set for their patience as she performed some quite daunting opera scenes. Jolie takes on the role of Maria Callas in the movie. Netflix's Maria is a biographical film where the recordings of Callas's voice are blended in with Jolie's own vocals.