Why do we find such enduring fascination with Maria Callas more than 40 years after her death at age 53? What is it about this opera diva, whose life and career were equal parts brilliant and tormented, that excites us so? And what the heck did she see in Aristotle Onassis?

The questions are myriad as Callas — that elusive and icy opera singer who was chased by paparazzi and rabid fans across the globe more than a half-century ago — is once again in the spotlight thanks to “Maria by Callas,” Tom Volf’s intimate documentary currently playing across the United States and going into wider release worldwide in 2019, and “Callas in Concert: The Hologram Tour,” which will soon announce more dates with international orchestras. Whether through newfound footage or a three-dimensional light field that plants Callas firmly in front of you, La Divina has never been more divinely present.

These 15 minutes of extra fame for the world’s most celebrated opera singer come four decades after she slipped away in isolation in her Paris apartment. And what an exhausting 495 months it’s been. Long gone is the era in which opera stars were given the same treatment as Lady Gaga or the Kardashians. As we end a year of blurring lines between what is real and what is fake, watching a lifelike hologram of a dead diva onstage with a full orchestra feels a bit “Brave New World” in some ways, but it’s almost tame in an era of internet trolls spreading fake news online, not to mention Barbra Streisand’s cloned dogs.

But this fascination with Callas must lie partly in a longing for a return to a more literate society for those of us who wished we had been alive during her prime. Re-creating a high-def Callas onstage seems a bit like taxidermy for snobs, but we’re clearly talking about a hunger for what many consider to be the greatest voice of the 20th century, but also for a time when the personal lives of opera singers were scrutinized like those of TV and film stars of today.

And our fascination isn’t for the reasons that, say, James Dean or Marilyn Monroe are still an industry of calendars and pop culture exploitation. They died in their primes and were adored as much for their sexual beauty as their talent. The paparazzi transformed Callas into a jet-set sex symbol — the Ava Gardner of opera: tempestuous and naughty, even if that was mostly spin — as they tracked her famous cancellations, illnesses, fashion and, above all, her volatile love affair with Onassis, often referred to as the richest man in the world at the time. Her personal life became tabloid fodder when Onassis the savior became Onassis the Judas after he dumped Callas to marry Jackie Kennedy.

Perhaps it is also the way we are drawn to the tragic figures of the past — that parade of exquisitely talented people who become victims of the system and the company they keep. In the 1950s and ’60s, when opera was truly for the wealthy and highly educated — before supertitles and high-definition simulcasts made it more like a Broadway musical or a really sharp Netflix movie on a large laptop — an opera singer of Callas’s stature was a pop icon, and perhaps nobody played the prima donna role better than Callas. Just listen to her tell the press mob at an airport in “Maria by Callas,” “I have no further comment, gentlemen,” as she whisks by them, with the kind of guilty grin we all try to suppress when we’re the center of attention.

The major sopranos and mezzo-sopranos of the opera stage these days are not linked to rich playboys, and their personal lives are not the target of columnists and aggressive photographers. Opera is more accessible now — and therefore more like pop music. Opera is mostly a personal music preference or a place to show off your formal attire rather than a passion or a signpost of class status.

Throughout “Maria by Callas,” the agonizing brilliance of Callas’s singing voice is interspersed with her own words in interviews (or in letters narrated by the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato). Her perfect English (she was born in New York to Greek immigrant parents) and French (she lived her final years in Paris) narrate the minefield of her life, from her birth in 1923 to her teen years in Greece, her rise to international opera phenomenon, her divorce and subsequent relationship with Onassis — who belittled her massive talent and singing career — her retirement in her early 40s and her demise into isolation and death from a heart attack (some would argue that a lifetime of starving her body may have contributed).

Perhaps the cult of Callas is so enduring because she so succinctly embodied the tragedy in her voice. For all of the debate about the quality of her voice (and whether it suffered as she dropped so much weight) and her electrifying gift for acting, it’s the recordings that embody the desperation of Italian tragic opera. She was not a comic actress or singer — Callas wore despair like Debbie Reynolds wore perky — and that place that Italian death opera is so willing to explore took Callas to her own depths, and certainly to ours.

The images that flicker across “Maria by Callas” and “Callas in Concert: The Hologram Tour” are restored, digitized and perfected with 21st-century technology to celebrate a 20th-century icon and, perhaps, the era that molded her. Callas has never felt as beautifully captivating and anguished — even if it’s a few fleeting moments of flickering light in the darkness.

David Belcher is an editor in the Hong Kong office of the Opinion section.

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