Maria Callas is set to grace Australian audiences for the first time ever through the wonders of modern technology, in combination with body doubles and archival material to bring the Greek opera singer to life once again.

The concerts have been organised in honour of Callas’ 100th anniversary from the year she was born, with one performance already held in Sydney last Saturday and three more set for Melbourne (December 7), Adelaide (December 9) and Perth (December 13).

The holographic concerts are supported by the European Union in celebration of EU-Australia Cultural Relations, via the hologram technology developed through a special arrangement with BASE Xperiential and the Maria Callas Estate.

A hologram of late opera singer Maria Callas performs during a concert at the National Auditorium of Mexico City in 2019. Attendees were able to enjoy the art of Maria Callas (1923-1977) with a live orchestra through the use of state-of-the-art technology that shows the artist, who in life appeared in Mexico for the first time in 1950, through the use of a hologram that sings, moves and interacts. Photo: EPA/Jose Mendez via AAP

The complex process behind the production of the concert is a result of a number of factors and is not achieved simply through archival footage as some might believe.

These concerts require an enormous amount of preparation, ranging from six-nine months, with a major step being to film a person as a body double while isolated against a blank backdrop.

Actual actors are used for this step, filming against a greenscreen as they emulate the physical movements of Maria Callas based on footage from her performances.

They motion capture the actors’ movements and digitally augment it through computer-generated imagery (CGI) and other production techniques with a digital avatar of the subject, in this case being Maria Callas, which is puppeted by motion-tracking data.

Through the combination of these various elements, they create a realistic video which can then be projected onto a transparent surface to turn it into a “hologram”.

There is so much work involved in creating the image of Callas that people might not pay attention to the fact that lots of state-of-the-art engineering is involved in recreating her voice as well.

Modern technology allows for programs that can go into the audio recordings of Callas’ performances, isolate her vocal sections from the orchestra and other singers, and use that to combine with the digital and laser imaging to keep everything in sync.

BASE Xperiential first began presenting this concert five years ago in 2018, with it representing one of their earlier productions in this exciting new realm of entertainment.

The concert will be shown in Melbourne this Thursday, December 7 at 6.30pm, at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne. Tickets are available at www.mso.com.au