Angelina feels ‘pain and despair’... has she read her own reviews?

AHEAD of the release of her movie Maria at the Venice International Film Festival, playing the magnificent, troubled opera queen Maria Callas, Angelina Jolie, pictured, suggests her ‘despair’ and ‘pain’ over her split from Brad Pitt helped her channel the tormented diva.

Was that really what made her so unhappy – or had she just read the dismal reviews of her film?

Callas is one of the most amazing women of the last century: a legendary soprano betrayed by her lover Aristotle Onassis, who married Jackie Kennedy without telling her, leaving her in Paris with a broken heart.

It hardly compares to the life of Jolie, the nepo-baby daughter of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight, who has never been betrayed by the more talented Brad.

Jolie said: ‘When you have felt a certain level of despair, of pain … there are only certain sounds that can match that feeling.

‘And to me the immensity of the feeling is encapsulated in opera – there’s nothing like it.’

So says the woman who was a self-avowed punk fan and a devotee of The Clash.

No wonder film critics sitting through this turkey are asking themselves – should I stay or should I go?

Let’s look at the facts, and what ‘pain’ Ange really shares with Maria. Jolie’s box-office appeal never recovered after she stole Brad from his first wife, Hollywood sweetheart Jennifer Aniston.

They lived together for years, raising six children before getting married in 2014, separating two years later – and warring with each other ever since.

Seeing her in Venice, I was reminded of those leaked emails in 2014, in which a Hollywood producer described Jolie as ‘a minimally talented spoilt brat’.

She should have learnt her lesson then.

In the final aria of Puccini’s masterpiece – sung by Callas – Madame Butterfly kills herself with her father’s knife, singing ‘Con onor muore’, which means ‘to die with honour’.

I hope, one day, we will see Ange’s career going the same way.